But though I do not hazard anything approaching to a censure on the motives of former Parliaments to all those alterations, one fact is undoubted,--that under them the state of America has been kept in continual agitation.
Burke notes that previous parliamentary actions have kept America in a state of unrest.
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More from Edmund Burke
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.
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