The claim of a privilege seems rather, ex vi termini, to imply a superior power: for to talk of the privileges of a state or of a person who has no superior is hardly any better than speaking nonsense.
Burke emphasizes the inherent contradiction in discussing privileges without acknowledging a superior authority.
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I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
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