On one side, your Lordships have the prisoner declaring that the people have no laws, no rights, no usages, no distinctions of rank, no sense of honor, no property,--in short, that they are nothing but a herd of slaves, to be governed by the arbitrary will of a master.
Burke contrasts the prisoner's view of the people as mere slaves with the assertion of their inherent rights and dignity.
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Those who are servants in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situation, their duty, and their obligations.
They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they…
All your sophisters cannot produce anything better adapted to preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course that we have pursued, who have chosen our nature rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our inventions, for…
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