Edmund Burke: “Many objections occur to the farming of any branch of the public revenue in Bengal, particularly against farming the…”

Do they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of England with the blot of a continual usurpation?

This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.

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.

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