On the recordJanuary 1, 1790
Against these their rights of men let no government look for security in the length of its continuance, or in the justice and lenity of its administration.
Said by
Edmund Burke
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gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “Against these their rights of men let no government look for security in the length of its continuance, or in the…”
Editor's note · Context
Critiquing the abstract "rights of men" proclaimed by French revolutionaries, Burke warns that these ideas threaten even long-established and just governments.
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This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
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Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.
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Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure,--if they had been able…
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