Their business, had they been either virtuous or wise, or had been left to their own judgment, was to secure the stability and independence of the states, according to those orders, under the monarch on the throne.
Burke argues that the French should have focused on maintaining stability and independence under their monarchy.
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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.
Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.
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?
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.
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