- All things in this his fulminating bull are not
of so innoxious a tendency. His doctrines affect our constitution in
its vital parts. He tells the Revolution Society in this political
sermon that his Majesty "is almost the only lawful king in the world
because the only one who owes his crown to the choice of his
people." As to the kings of the world, all of whom (except one) this
archpontiff of the rights of men, with all the plenitude and with more
than the boldness of the papal deposing power in its meridian fervor
of the twelfth century, puts into one sweeping clause of ban and
anathema and proclaims usurpers by circles of longitude and
latitude, over the whole globe, it behooves them to consider how
they admit into their territories these apostolic missionaries who are
to tell their subjects they are not lawful kings. That is their
concern. It is ours, as a domestic interest of some moment,
seriously to consider the solidity of the only principle upon which
these gentlemen acknowledge a king of Great Britain to be entitled
to their allegiance.
This doctrine, as applied to the prince now on the British throne,
either is nonsense and therefore neither true nor false, or it affirms
a most unfounded, dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional position.
According to this spiritual doctor of politics, if his Majesty does
not owe his crown to the choice of his people, he is no lawful king.
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