It was no slight aggravation of this severity, that the objects were not young, nor of the lowest of the people, who might, by the vigor of their constitutions, or by the habits of hardship, be enabled to bear up against treatment so full of rigor.
Burke notes that the severity of the punishment was particularly harsh given the age and status of the victims.
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The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure,--if they had been able…
As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in him, our Constitution has made no sort of provision towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree responsible.
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.
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