Edmund Burke: “Now, undoubtedly, no plea of merit can be admitted to extinguish, as your Lordships know very well, a direct charge of…”

But the course of succession is the healthy habit of the British Constitution.

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.

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.

Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the person of King William, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of a regular hereditary succession; but it is against all genuine principles of jurisprudence to draw a…