Undoubtedly the state ought not to be weighed against justice; but it would be dreadful indeed, if causes of such importance should be sacrificed to petty regulations, of mere secondary convenience, not at all adapted to such concerns, nor even made with a view to their existence.
Burke warns against prioritizing minor regulations over justice in significant legal matters.
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Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
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…
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