If the people should fall into the same humor, and should choose their servants on the same principles of mere obsequiousness and flexibility and total vacancy or indifference of opinion in all public matters, then no part of the state will be sound, and it will be in vain to think of saving it.
Burke warns that if the people choose leaders based solely on submissiveness, the state will be irreparably damaged.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.
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.
Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.
But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.
Other voices in this conversation
