ple of England
have no such rights, and that such rights do not now exist in the
nation, either in whole or in part, or anywhere at all, is of the same
marvellous and monstrous kind with what he has already said; for his
arguments are that the persons, or the generation of persons, in whom
they did exist, are dead, and with them the right is dead also. To prove
this, he quotes a declaration made by Parliament about a hundred years
ago, to William and Mary, in these words: "The Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and Commons, do, in the name of the people aforesaid" (meaning
the people of England then living) "most humbly and faithfully submit
themselves, their heirs and posterities, for Ever." He quotes a clause
of another Act of Parliament made in the same reign, the terms of which
he says, "bind us" (meaning the people of their day), "our heirs and our
posterity, to them, their heirs and posterity, to the end of time."

Mr. Burke conceives his point sufficiently established by producing
those clauses, which he enforces by saying that they exclude the
right of the nation for ever. And not yet content with making such
declarations, repeated over and over again, he farther says, "that if
the people of England possessed such a right before the Revolution"
(which he acknowledges to have been the case, not only in England, but
throughout Europe, at an early period), "yet that the English Nation
did, at the time of the Revolution, most solemnly renounce and abdicate
it, for themselves, and for all their posterity, for ever."

As Mr. Burke occasionally applies the poison drawn from his horrid
principles, not only to the English nation, but to the French Revolution
and the National Assembly, and charges that august, illuminated and
illuminating body of men with the epithet of usurpers, I shall, sans
ceremonie, place another system of principles in opposition to his.

The English Parliament of 1688 did a certain thing, which, for
themselves and their constituents, they had a right to do, and which
it appeared right should be done. But, in addition to this right, which
they possessed by delegation, they set up another right by assumption,
that of binding and controlling posterity to the end of time. The case,
therefore, divides itself into two parts; the right which they possessed
by delegation, and the right which they set up by assumption. The first
is admitted; but with respect to the second, I reply: There never
did, there never