Edmund Burke: “But a more doubtful title was preferred, as better adapted to the purposes of extortion and peculation.”

Who could conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and unprofitable…

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.

It therefore secures both an hereditary crown and an hereditary allegiance.

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