But there are persons whose fortitude could bear their own suffering; there are men who are hardened by their very pains, and the mind, strengthened even by the torments of the body, rises with a strong defiance against its oppressor.
Burke reflects on the resilience of individuals in the face of suffering and oppression.
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The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.
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?
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.
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