Uniformity and analogy can be
preserved in them by this process only. That point being fixed, and
laying fast hold of a strong bottom, our speculations may swing in all
directions without public detriment, because they will ride with sure
anchorage.
In this manner these things have been always considered by our
ancestors. There are some, indeed, who have the art of turning the very
acts of Parliament which were made for securing the hereditary
succession in the present royal family, by rendering it penal to doubt
of the validity of those acts of Parliament, into an instrument for
defeating all their ends and purposes,--but upon grounds so very foolish
that it is not worth while to take further notice of such sophistry.
To prevent any unnecessary subdivision, I shall here put together what
may be necessary to show the perfect agreement of the Whigs with Mr.
Burke in his assertions, that the Revolution made no "essential change
in the constitution of the monarchy, or in any of its ancient, sound,
and legal principles; that the succession was settled in the Hanover
family, upon the idea and in the mode of an hereditary succession
qualified with Protestantism; that it was not settled upon _elective_
principles, in any sense of the word _elective_, or under any
modification or description of _election_ whatsoever; but, on the
contrary, that the nation, after the Revolution, renewed by a fresh
compact the spirit of the original compact of the state, binding itself,
_both in its existing members and all its posterity_, to adhere to the
settlement of an hereditary succession in the Protestant line, drawn
from James the First, as the stock of inheritance.
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