You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of PARLIAMENT.
Edmund Burke: “You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of PARLIAMENT.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke explains the distinction between a local representative and a member of Parliament, emphasizing broader responsibilities.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
If kings who did not owe their crown to the choice of their people had no title to make laws, what will become of the statute De tallagio non concedendo? of the Petition of Right? of the act of Habeas Corpus?
A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of supporting itself by the then unnecessary support of any argument; but this seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly taught, avowed, and printed.
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…
So far is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their…





