As all government stands upon opinion, they know that the way utterly to destroy it is to remove that opinion, to take away all reverence, all confidence from it; and then, at the first blast of public discontent and popular tumult, it tumbles to the ground.
Burke warns that undermining public opinion can lead to the collapse of government, emphasizing its foundational role.
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This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
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.
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid.
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