Whenever, in states which have had a democratic basis, the legislators have endeavored to put restraints upon ambition, their methods were as violent as in the end they were ineffectual,--as violent, indeed, as any the most jealous despotism could invent.
Burke critiques the violent measures taken by democratic legislators to control ambition, highlighting the futility of such efforts.
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The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
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.
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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