The people at that time reentered into their original rights; and it was not because a positive law authorized what was then done, but because the freedom and safety of the subject, the origin and cause of all laws, required a proceeding paramount and superior to them.
Burke argues that the people's return to their original rights was justified by the need for freedom and safety, transcending legal constraints.
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So far is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their…
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
But the course of succession is the healthy habit of the British Constitution.
They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.
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