But Mr. Burke has done some service- not to his cause, but to his
country- by bringing those clauses into public view. They serve to
demonstrate how necessary it is at all times to watch against the
attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to
excess. It is somewhat extraordinary that the offence for which James
II. was expelled, that of setting up power by assumption, should be
re-acted, under another shape and form, by the Parliament that
expelled him. It shows that the Rights of Man were but imperfectly
understood at the Revolution, for certain it is that the right which
that Parliament set up by assumption (for by the delegation it had
not, and could not have it, because none could give it) over the
persons and freedom of posterity for ever was of the same tyrannical
unfounded kind which James attempted to set up over the Parliament
and the nation, and for which he was expelled. The only difference is
(for in principle they differ not) that the one was an usurper over
living, and the other over the unborn; and as the one has no better
authority to stand upon than the other, both of them must be equally
null and void, and of no effect.

From what, or from whence, does Mr. Burke prove the right of any
human power to bind posterity for ever? He has produced his clauses,
but he must produce also his proofs that such a right existed, and
show how it existed. If it ever existed it must now exist, for
whatever appertains to the nature of man cannot be annihilated by
man. It is the nature of man to die, and he will continue to die as
long as he continues to be born. But Mr. Burke has set up a sort of
political Adam, in whom all posterity are bound for ever. He must,
therefore, prove that his Adam possessed such a power, or such a
right.