Edmund Burke: “All circumstances taken together, the French Revolution is the most astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world.”

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.

The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.

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

They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.