Hereditary succession system

The Hereditary succession system is the inherited transfer of political rule from a monarch to that monarch’s descendants. Thomas Paine condemns it as an insult to posterity: no person, even if worthy of honor in their own time, can acquire by birth a permanent right to rule others, or authorize a family to hold that right for generations. He argues that inheritance neither guarantees capable rulers nor prevents civil conflict, and sets it against a political order founded on representation, a continental charter, and law.

Definition and grounds of the critique

Paine begins from the premise that people are originally equal. Honors might be granted to an individual by contemporaries, but birth alone cannot establish a right to govern; still less can an individual’s supporters transfer the rights of their descendants to that person’s children and grandchildren. Such a compact, he argues, would bind people who never consented to it and might leave them subject to a rogue or a fool.

The hereditary claim therefore exceeds the authority of those who first select a ruler. Even if electors could choose someone as their head, they could not justly pledge their own descendants to that ruler’s family forever. Paine compares this supposed inheritance of political subjection to the doctrine of original sin: in both cases, the choices attributed to an earlier generation are made to determine the condition of people who came later. He presents the comparison as an indictment, not as a defense of hereditary right.

How inheritance becomes a claimed right

Paine distinguishes the possible origins of a first ruler from the later claim that the ruler’s descendants inherit authority. He identifies three possibilities for a first king: selection by lot, election, or usurpation. A king chosen by lot or election, he reasons, would establish a precedent for choosing rulers rather than inheriting them. Usurpation, by contrast, offers no defensible basis for a lasting right.

He proposes that hereditary succession may have begun not as an established entitlement but as a convenience. When a leader died, disorder around choosing a successor may have made continuation within one family seem preferable. A practice accepted for convenience could then be presented as a right, reinforced over generations by superstition and accounts unsupported by reliable records. Paine’s proposed history is an argument about how custom can acquire the appearance of legitimacy, not a documented account of every monarchy’s origin.

Inheritance, fitness, and public risk

For Paine, the fundamental defect is not merely that hereditary right is logically absurd, but that it exposes a nation to rulers selected by birth rather than fitness. A person raised to expect rule may become insolent, while the sheltered circumstances of a royal upbringing leave that person poorly acquainted with the public’s interests. The succession may therefore place the government in the hands of someone ignorant or unfit to govern.

The system also creates risks during a minority or a ruler’s extreme age and infirmity. In either circumstance, Paine warns, a regency may govern under the authority of the crown while having opportunities and incentives to betray its trust. His point is that inherited succession does not merely select individuals without regard to merit; it can leave public power exposed during periods when the monarch cannot exercise it effectively.

The claim that succession secures peace

The defense Paine considers most plausible is that hereditary succession prevents civil war. He rejects it by appealing to the history of England since the Norman Conquest: he counts thirty kings and two minors, alongside eight civil wars and nineteen rebellions, including the Revolution. These figures serve as his counterexample to the idea that a fixed hereditary line reliably prevents political conflict.

His most developed example is the struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster. Over a period of 67 years, from 1422 to 1489, twelve pitched battles, as well as skirmishes and sieges, were fought between the forces of Henry and Edward. Each was at different times a prisoner of the other; fortunes reversed as Henry was carried from prison to a palace and Edward fled from a palace into exile. Parliament, in Paine’s account, followed whichever side was strongest. The conflict was not finally extinguished until Henry VII united the families. For Paine, this history shows hereditary claims turning succession into a prolonged contest rather than a guarantee of stability.

From inherited rule to public institutions

Paine places hereditary succession within his broader rejection of monarchy. He contrasts monarchical government with the relative peace he attributes to republics such as Holland and Switzerland, and argues that the crown can itself become an object of ambition and conflict. He concludes that monarchy and succession have brought not merely individual kingdoms but the world into bloodshed; inherited rule is thus presented as a public danger, not only an offense against political equality.

His proposed constitutional arrangements point toward an alternative. Assemblies would meet annually, with a president, while their domestic business remained subject to a Continental Congress. He suggests dividing each colony into districts, sending at least thirty delegates from each, and choosing the president by ballot from a colony selected by lot, rotating the opportunity among the colonies. A Continental Conference, bringing together members of Congress, colonial assemblies or conventions, and representatives chosen by the people, would frame a Continental Charter defining institutions and jurisdictions and securing freedom, property, and the free exercise of religion. This design makes political authority answerable to representation and a public charter rather than descent.

The same principle appears in Paine’s warning that virtue is not hereditary. Immediate necessity may justify a temporary arrangement, he argues, but convenience should not harden into oppression; the manner of choosing representatives deserves continuing scrutiny. The contrast is central: the inheritance of office passes power forward without renewed public authorization, while representative institutions must derive their authority from those governed. In this account, rejecting the Hereditary succession system is part of replacing personal rule with law and accountable government.