Perhaps you will imagine that the man who avows these principles of arbitrary government, and pleads them as the justification of acts which nothing else can justify, is of opinion that they are on the whole good for the people over whom they are exercised.
Burke critiques the justification of arbitrary government by those in power.
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More from Edmund Burke
But supposing they had ranked as they ought to do, and as with us they do actually, the sides of sick-beds are not the academies for forming statesmen and legislators.
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.
Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs must remain the same.
As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in him, our Constitution has made no sort of provision towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree responsible.
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