Edmund Burke: “Laws are commanded to hold their tongues amongst arms; and tribunals fall to the ground with the peace they are no…”

The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.

Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?

This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.

So far is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their…