The first of the leading peculiarities of the present age is, that it is an age of transition... when almost every nation on the continent of Europe has achieved, or is in the course of rapidly achieving, a change in its form of government... Mankind will not be led by their old maxims, nor by their old guides.
J. S. Mill, The Spirit of the Age

It must occur to every person, on reflection, that those lands are too distant to be within the govenment of any of the present states.
Thomas Paine, Public Good