Edmund Burke: “The same laws which secure property encourage avarice; and the fences made about honest acquisition are the strong bars…”

They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.

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

This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.

Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the person of King William, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of a regular hereditary succession; but it is against all genuine principles of jurisprudence to draw a…