Edmund Burke: “They will not go to battle in favor of a cause in which their defeat might be more advantageous to the public than their…”

The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.

Who could conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and unprofitable…

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.