If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
In his critique of the French Revolution, Burke explains how moderate proposals for liberty are outmaneuvered by more radical, popular schemes.
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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.
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.
An irregular, convulsive movement may be necessary to throw off an irregular, convulsive disease.
So far is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their…
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