It is but cold, and no very flattering justice to that fallen monarchy, to say, that, for many years, it trespassed more by levity and want of judgment in several of its schemes than from any defect in diligence or in public spirit.
In his critique of the French Revolution, Burke offers a qualified defense of the fallen French monarchy, suggesting its errors stemmed more from poor judgment and levity than from a lack of diligence or public spirit.
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The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.
We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
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…
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