But we begin to emerge; and I hope that a severe inspection of ourselves, a purification of our own offences, a lustration of the exorbitances of our own power, is a glory reserved to this time, to this nation, and to this august tribunal.
Burke expresses hope for self-reflection and accountability in governance.
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But supposing they had ranked as they ought to do, and as with us they do actually, the sides of sick-beds are not the academies for forming statesmen and legislators.
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?
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.
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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