On the record
The state, in its essence, must be moral and just: and it may be so, though a tyrant or usurper should be accidentally at the head of it.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “The state, in its essence, must be moral and just: and it may be so, though a tyrant or usurper should be accidentally…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke argues that a state's moral integrity can exist even under tyrannical leadership.
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More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
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.
Jan 1, 1790
If kings who did not owe their crown to the choice of their people had no title to make laws, what will become of the statute De tallagio non concedendo? of the Petition of Right? of the act of Habeas Corpus?
Jan 1, 1790
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…
Jan 1, 1790
But supposing they had ranked as they ought to do, and as with us they do actually, the sides of sick-beds are not the academies for forming statesmen and legislators.
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