The evil arising from hence is this: that the colonists having once found the possibility of enjoying the advantages of order in the midst of a struggle for liberty, such struggles will not henceforward seem so terrible to the settled and sober part of mankind as they had appeared before the trial.
Burke warns that the colonists' experience of order amidst their struggle for liberty may diminish the perceived terror of such struggles in the future.
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But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…
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