Whenever in any matter of policy there is a mystery, you must presume a fraud; whenever in any matter of money there is concealment, you must presume misconduct: you must therefore affix your punishment to the breach of the rule; otherwise the conviction of public delinquents would be unattainable.
Burke warns that secrecy in policy and finance often indicates wrongdoing, urging accountability.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
Other voices in this conversation
