Because the charters comprehend the essential forms by which you enjoy your liberties, we regard them as most sacred, and by no means to be taken away or altered without process, without examination, and without hearing, as they have lately been.
Burke emphasizes the sacredness of charters and the need for due process in altering them.
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Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
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