It is somewhat extraordinary, that the offence for which James the Second was expelled, that of setting up power by assumption, should be re-acted, under another shape and form, by the Parliament that expelled him.
Burke draws a parallel between the expulsion of James II and contemporary parliamentary actions that he views as similarly tyrannical.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
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.
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.
The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
Other voices in this conversation
