And that empire may be likened unto a naked man, who, when exposed to view, commandeth the eye of modesty to be covered; and it is like unto a house which hath neither roof nor gates nor defences, into which whoever willeth may enter unmolested.
Burke uses a metaphor to illustrate the vulnerability of an empire without moral and legal protections.
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The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.
If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.
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