In such cases of mutual assertion and denial, your Committee are led irresistibly to attach abuse to power, and to presume that suffering and hardship are more likely to attend on weakness than that any combination of unprotected individuals is of force to prevail over influence, power, wealth, and authority.
Burke reflects on the dynamics of power and the likelihood of oppression against the weak.
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Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
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.
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
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