There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly; wherefore the different parts, but unnaturally opposing and destroying each other, prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.
Common Sense by Thomas Paine, 1776.
