As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in him, our Constitution has made no sort of provision towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree responsible.
Edmund Burke: “As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in him, our Constitution has made no sort of provision towards…”
Editor's note · Context
Explaining the British constitutional framework, Burke clarifies that the king is not accountable to the people, but rather the people obey the law embodied in him, rendering him irresponsible as a servant.
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Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?
Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.
The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.
Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.





