Edmund Burke: “But that it should be heard among those who pretend to be strong assertors of liberty is not only surprising, but hardly…”

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

Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs must remain the same.

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

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…