They who (though with the purest intentions) recognize the authority of these regicides and robbers upon principle justify their acts, and establish them as precedents.
Edmund Burke: “They who (though with the purest intentions) recognize the authority of these regicides and robbers upon principle…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke critiques those who support revolutionary authority, arguing that they legitimize violence and theft.
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Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?
The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.
No experience has taught us that in any other course or method than that of an hereditary crown our liberties can be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our hereditary right.





