But can you fairly and distinctly point out what one evil or grievance has happened which you can refer to the representative not following the opinion of his constituents?
Edmund Burke: “But can you fairly and distinctly point out what one evil or grievance has happened which you can refer to the…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke questions the accountability of representatives to their constituents' opinions.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Who could conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and unprofitable…
This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.
They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they…
A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of supporting itself by the then unnecessary support of any argument; but this seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly taught, avowed, and printed.





