Justice is grave and decorous, and in its punishments rather seems to submit to a necessity than to make a choice.
Edmund Burke: “Justice is grave and decorous, and in its punishments rather seems to submit to a necessity than to make a choice.”
Editor's note · Context
From his critique of the French Revolution, Burke reflects on the ideal character of justice and its administration.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.
They look on the frame of their commonwealth, such as it stands, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undisturbed succession of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our…
They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.
Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the person of King William, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of a regular hereditary succession; but it is against all genuine principles of jurisprudence to draw a…





