These professors of the rights of men are so busy in teaching others, that they have not leisure to learn anything themselves; otherwise they would have known that it is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is pledged.
Criticizing the French revolutionaries, Burke argues that the fundamental commitment of civil society is to protect the property of its citizens, not merely to satisfy state creditors.
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Those who are servants in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situation, their duty, and their obligations.
They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.
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…
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