What a dreadful thing is a standing army for the conduct of the whole or any part of which no man is responsible!
Edmund Burke: “What a dreadful thing is a standing army for the conduct of the whole or any part of which no man is responsible!”
Editor's note · Context
Burke critiques the dangers of a standing army that lacks accountability and responsibility.
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The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.
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.
All your sophisters cannot produce anything better adapted to preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course that we have pursued, who have chosen our nature rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our inventions, for…
The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.





