On the record
It is the old bon-ton of robbers, who cast their common crimes on the wickedness of their departed associates.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “It is the old bon-ton of robbers, who cast their common crimes on the wickedness of their departed associates.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke critiques the tendency of individuals to shift blame for their actions onto others, particularly in the context of political crimes.
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Jan 1, 1790
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
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The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.
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If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.
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Do they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of England with the blot of a continual usurpation?
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