To crown all, according to their miserable practice, whenever they do anything transcendently absurd, they preface this their abdication of their trust by a solemn declaration that they were not obliged to it by any principle of policy or any demand of justice whatsoever.
Burke critiques the government's failure to uphold its responsibilities, emphasizing the absurdity of their actions.
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All your sophisters cannot produce anything better adapted to preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course that we have pursued, who have chosen our nature rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our inventions, for…
Those who are servants in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situation, their duty, and their obligations.
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.
The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.
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