If, I say, we have saved these valuable fragments by suspecting his integrity, your Lordships will see suspicion is of some use: and I hope the world will learn that punishment will be of use, too, in preventing such transactions.
Burke argues that suspicion can lead to the preservation of important evidence and that punishment can deter misconduct.
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More from Edmund Burke
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.
We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.
This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.
Do they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of England with the blot of a continual usurpation?
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