Edmund Burke: “It is power unlimited placed in the hands of an adverse description because it is an adverse description.”

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

But the king of Great Britain obeys no other person; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a legal obedience.

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

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.