The military force which shall be kept up in order to cramp the natural faculties of a people, and to prevent their arrival to their utmost prosperity, is the instrument of their servitude, not the means of their protection.
Burke critiques the use of military force to suppress a people's potential for prosperity.
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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 will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
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