It puts its own authority, not only of compulsion, but prepossession, the veneration of past age, as well as the activity of the present time, against the opinion only of a private man or set of men.
Burke asserts that an establishment leverages both historical reverence and current authority against dissenting opinions.
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In all this procedure I can discern neither the solid sense of plain dealing nor the subtle dexterity of ingenious fraud.
The prattling about the rights of men will not be accepted in payment of a biscuit or a pound of gunpowder.
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
In some people I see great liberty, indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude.
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