It is not in Nature, that, situated as the king of the French now is, he can respect himself or can be respected by others.
Edmund Burke: “It is not in Nature, that, situated as the king of the French now is, he can respect himself or can be respected by…”
Editor's note · Context
From his critique of the French Revolution, Burke argues that the king's degraded position makes self-respect and public respect impossible.
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No experience has taught us that in any other course or method than that of an hereditary crown our liberties can be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our hereditary right.
The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
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…
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