On the record
Poorly as I may be thought affected to the authority of Parliament, I shall never admit that our constitutional rights can ever become a matter of ministerial negotiation.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “Poorly as I may be thought affected to the authority of Parliament, I shall never admit that our constitutional rights…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke defends the idea that constitutional rights should not be subject to negotiation by ministers, emphasizing their importance.
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More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
Who could conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and unprofitable…
Jan 1, 1790
A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of supporting itself by the then unnecessary support of any argument; but this seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly taught, avowed, and printed.
Jan 1, 1790
If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.
Jan 1, 1790
The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.
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