Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: “If the absurd persons you mention find no way of providing for liberty, but by overturning this happy Constitution, and…”

On the record
If the absurd persons you mention find no way of providing for liberty, but by overturning this happy Constitution, and introducing a frantic democracy, let us take care how we prevent better people from any rational expectations of partaking in the benefits of that Constitution as it stands.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke warns against radical changes to the Constitution that could lead to chaos.

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Jan 1, 1790

The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.

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They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.

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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…

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Jan 1, 1790

Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.

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