If that could be allowed, perhaps I might sometimes (by accident, and without an unpardonable crime) trust as much to my own very careful and very laborious, though perhaps somewhat purblind disquisitions, as to their soaring, intuitive, eagle-eyed authority.
Burke contemplates the value of his own careful reasoning compared to the intuitive insights of established authorities.
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I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.
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.
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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