But the punishment of enormous offenders will not be the less severe, or the less exemplary, when it is not threatened at a moment when we have it not in our power to execute our threats.
Edmund Burke: “But the punishment of enormous offenders will not be the less severe, or the less exemplary, when it is not threatened…”
On the record
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Burke argues that the severity of punishment for serious offenders remains unchanged, regardless of the timing of threats.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
Their trust for the future preservation of the Constitution was not in future revolutions.
Jan 1, 1790
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
Jan 1, 1790
If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.
Jan 1, 1790
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…





