 Common Sense might presume a principle of collective self-determination and the sovereignty of the people, but it does not articulate or defend it. Something like this issue does come under consideration in Paine’s Dissertations on Government, a pamphlet written in 1786, defending the Bank of America and the principle that contracts formed by government ought to be respected by subsequent occupants of power. ‘Every government…contains within itself a principle common to all, which is that of a sovereign power, or a power over which there is no control, and which controls all others….In republics, such as those established in America, the sovereign power…remains where nature placed it—in the people. …This sovereignty is exercised in electing and deputing a certain number of persons to represent and to act for the whole. But he goes on to insist that