Edmund Burke: “I would not plead the ignorance of the law in any, even the most ignorant, as a justification; but I am sure, that, when…”

The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.

Do they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of England with the blot of a continual usurpation?

The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.

But the king of Great Britain obeys no other person; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a legal obedience.