Edmund Burke: “It then becomes a matter of the most serious and dreadful extortion, tending to hinder the people who give it not only…”

This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.

It therefore secures both an hereditary crown and an hereditary allegiance.

This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.

We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.