This is a regulation extremely worthy of our attention, as it is not a consequential, but a direct discouragement to melioration,--as directly as if the law had said in express terms, "Thou shalt not improve.
Burke criticizes regulations that directly hinder improvement and progress.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.
Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?
When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid.
Their trust for the future preservation of the Constitution was not in future revolutions.
Other voices in this conversation
