I hope we shall never be so totally lost to all sense of the duties imposed upon us by the law of social union, as, upon any pretest of public service, to confiscate the goods of a single unoffending citizen.
From his critique of the French Revolution, Burke warns against the state's confiscation of private property under the guise of public service.
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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.
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…
Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.
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