Indeed, their principle, if you observe it with any attention, goes much further than to an alteration in the election of the House of Commons; for, if popular representation, or choice, is necessary to the legitimacy of all government, the House of Lords is, at one stroke, bastardized and corrupted in blood.
Burke argues that the revolutionary principle of popular representation, if applied universally, would delegitimize the House of Lords and fundamentally alter the British constitution.
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Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?
Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
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