Edmund Burke: “He follows this with something that is perfectly extraordinary: he desires, instead of doing his duty, which he declares…”

By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.

But an absurd theory on one side of a question forms no justification for alleging a false fact or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.

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.

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…