It is somewhat curious to observe, that, although the people of England have been in the habit of talking about kings, it is always a foreign house of kings,--hating foreigners, yet governed by them.
Burke critiques the English people's contradictory attitudes towards foreign monarchs and their own governance.
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Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs must remain the same.
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.
Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure,--if they had been able…
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
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