The origin of this latitude may perhaps be sought in this circumstance, which we know to have relaxed the rigor of the Roman law: courts in England do not judge upon evidence, secundum allegata et probata, as in other countries and under other laws they do, but upon verdict.
Burke explains how English courts differ from others by judging based on verdict rather than strict evidence.
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More from Edmund Burke
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.
We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.
The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.
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.
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