Edmund Burke: “Parliament, from a mere representative of the people, and a guardian of popular privileges for its own immediate…”

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.

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.

By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.

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