Edmund Burke: “Even ancient indulgences withdrawn, without offence on the part of those who enjoyed such favors, operate as grievances.”

When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid.

If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.

If kings who did not owe their crown to the choice of their people had no title to make laws, what will become of the statute De tallagio non concedendo? of the Petition of Right? of the act of Habeas Corpus?

This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.