This question, in this latitude, is very hard to affirm or deny: but I am satisfied that no occasion can justify such a resumption, which would not equally authorize a dispensation with any other moral duty, perhaps with all of them together.
Burke expresses skepticism about the justification for reclaiming power once it has been delegated, linking it to moral duties.
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More from Edmund Burke
Their trust for the future preservation of the Constitution was not in future revolutions.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?
Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.
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