We individuals, mere spectators of the scene, but who sock our liberties under the shade of legal authority, and of course sympathize with the sufferers in that cause, never can permit ourselves to believe that such an event can disgrace the history of our time.
Burke reflects on the role of individuals in supporting liberty under legal authority.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they…
Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the person of King William, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of a regular hereditary succession; but it is against all genuine principles of jurisprudence to draw a…
This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.
The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.
Other voices in this conversation
