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Rights of Man

By Thomas Paine

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The Rights of Man is a 1791 philosophical political treatise by English-American political revolutionary and Founding Father Thomas Paine. Comprising thirty-one articles, Paine argues that political revolution is moral, even necessary, when a government fails to protect its citizens’ basic rights. Paine argues that whenever a government takes an action that does not proceed from democratic governance, it is within the bounds of citizen’s natural rights to abolish or change its order. Freemasonry was famously involved in both of the great revolutions of the Enlightenment Era, the French and the American, both struggles that Thomas Paine participated in and in which the Freemasonic ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity led to the first true democracies ever established on Earth. 

Title Page
Part I. Editor's Introduction
Part I. Original Front Matter
Part I. Preface to the English Edition
Part I. Preface to the French Edition
Part I. Rights of Man
Part I. Miscellaneous Chapter
Part I. Conclusion
Part II. French Translator's Preface
Part II. Introduction (Part II)
Part II. Chapter I. Of Society and Civilisation
Part II. Chapter II. Of the Origin of the Present Old Governments
Part II. Chapter III. Chapter III. Of the Old and New Systems of Government
Part II. Chapter IV. Of Constitutions
Part II. Chapter V. Ways and Means of Improving the Condition of Europe Interspersed With Miscellaneous Observations
Appendix
Notes