If built upon a basis fundamentally erroneous, it can only be retrieved by some of those unforeseen dispensations which the all-wise, but mysterious, Governor of the world sometimes interposes, to snatch nations from ruin.
Edmund Burke: “If built upon a basis fundamentally erroneous, it can only be retrieved by some of those unforeseen dispensations which…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke argues that fundamentally flawed agreements can only be corrected by unforeseen events.
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They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.
The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid.
No experience has taught us that in any other course or method than that of an hereditary crown our liberties can be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our hereditary right.





