Edmund Burke: “In these sentiments, I must decline an acquiescence in any order which has a tendency to bring the government into…”

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.

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.

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…