Over these their chief had a considerable power, and the more considerable because it depended upon influence rather than institution: influence among so free a people being the principal source of power.
He describes the chief's power as significant but reliant on influence rather than formal institutions in a free society.
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More from Edmund Burke
Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.
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…
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.
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