No excess is good, and therefore too great a proportion of landed property may be held officially for life; but it does not seem to me of material injury to any common wealth that there should exist some estates that have a chance of being acquired by other means than the previous acquisition of money.
Burke discusses the potential benefits of holding some estates through means other than monetary acquisition.
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More from Edmund Burke
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.
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