Whether they desire it to be vested in the many or the few depends with most men upon the chance which they imagine they themselves may have of partaking in the exercise of that arbitrary sway, in the one mode or in the other.
Burke notes that people's desire for power often depends on their perceived chances of obtaining it.
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More from Edmund Burke
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they…
They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.
Their trust for the future preservation of the Constitution was not in future revolutions.
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