Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: Thus all the principal men held a sort of factious and independent authority; they despised the king, they oppressed the…

On the record
Thus all the principal men held a sort of factious and independent authority; they despised the king, they oppressed the people, and they hated one another.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke describes the factionalism among the nobility, which undermined the king and oppressed the populace.

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Jan 1, 1790

As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in him, our Constitution has made no sort of provision towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree responsible.

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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.

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Jan 1, 1790

They look on the frame of their commonwealth, such as it stands, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undisturbed succession of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our…

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It therefore secures both an hereditary crown and an hereditary allegiance.

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