We know, too, that the emulations of such parties, their contradictions, their reciprocal necessities, their hopes, and their fears, must send them all in their turns to him that holds the balance of the state.
Burke explains that the dynamics of political parties will ultimately lead them to rely on the governing authority to maintain balance.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
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.
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
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…
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
Other voices in this conversation
