1795 THOMAS PAINE. Dissertation on the First Principles of Government + First Edition Speech. Rare. ZZArtwork Quite a rare little volume

Quite a rare little volume issued at the height of the Civil War

The pox was ravaging his small community

We must compel that Annual Conference to carry out the [Methodist] Discipline on the subject of Slavery

might pardon the believing sinner

Scott Bridgwater from the original oil painting of Havill

1795 THOMAS PAINE. Dissertation on the First Principles of Government + First Edition Speech. Rare. ZZArtwork Quite a rare little volumeWritten and published in July 1795, the Dissertation on the First Principles of Government abides as the culmination of Thomas Paine's thinking on democratic theory, in which he openly advocates for universal (though still male only) suffrage. Paine had just barely survived imprisonment during the French Reign of Terror, watched colleagues guillotined, and was retrieved in a desperately ill state by James Monroe. He recovered well enough to write this