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.
Burke argues that the principle of an elective monarchy would invalidate the historical legitimacy of previous rulers and their legislative acts.
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They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they…
But an absurd theory on one side of a question forms no justification for alleging a false fact or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.
The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.
Their trust for the future preservation of the Constitution was not in future revolutions.
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