Edmund Burke: “Wherever the collectors of the revenue and the farming colonels and majors move, ruin is about them, rebellion before…”

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.

The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.

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

Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?