We should be ashamed to stand before your Majesty, boldly asserting in our own favor inherent rights which bind and regulate the crown itself, and yet insisting on the exercise, in our own persons, of a more arbitrary sway over our fellow-citizens and fellow-freemen.
Burke critiques the hypocrisy of claiming inherent rights while exercising arbitrary power over others.
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More from Edmund Burke
Never did a state, in any case, enrich itself by the confiscations of the citizens.
To tell the people that they are relieved by the dilapidation of their public estate is a cruel and insolent imposition.
To establish a current circulating credit upon any land-bank, under any circumstances whatsoever, has hitherto proved difficult at the very least.
It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
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