The whole of the regulations concerning the Court of Proprietors relied upon two principles, which have often proved fallacious: namely, that small numbers were a security against faction and disorder; and that integrity of conduct would follow the greater property.
Burke warns against the flawed assumptions that fewer people in power would prevent factionalism and ensure integrity.
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More from Edmund Burke
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
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…
The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
But an absurd theory on one side of a question forms no justification for alleging a false fact or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.
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