These conquests eventually will be the cause of her destruction." So that they who hate the cause of usurpation, and dread the power of France under any form, are to wish her to be a conqueror, in order to accelerate her ruin.
Burke reflects on the paradox of wishing for a conqueror to hasten the downfall of tyranny.
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If kings who did not owe their crown to the choice of their people had no title to make laws, what will become of the statute De tallagio non concedendo? of the Petition of Right? of the act of Habeas Corpus?
The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
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.
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…
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