Edmund Burke: “Presents from persons who hold up poverty as a shield against extortion can scarcely in any case be considered as…”

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.

A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of supporting itself by the then unnecessary support of any argument; but this seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly taught, avowed, and printed.

We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.

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.