Those whose power entered into the calculation of their profits could offer, as they did offer, terms without comparison better; and therefore one of the English bidders, without partiality, secured the preference.
Burke discusses how bidders with power can offer superior terms, influencing the outcome of contracts.
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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.
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.
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…
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