On the record
The sense of a whole people, most gracious sovereign, never ought to be contemned by wise and beneficent rulers,--whatever may be the abstract claims, or even rights, of the supreme power.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “The sense of a whole people, most gracious sovereign, never ought to be contemned by wise and beneficent…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke argues that the collective sense of the people should not be disregarded by rulers, regardless of their claims to power.
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The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.
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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…
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