Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund BurkeBurke, Edmund
Philosophy
Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
Burke, Edmund
Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797; Essays; Political science; Speeches, addresses, etc.
is, at this day, king by a fixed rule of succession, according to the
laws of his country; and whilst the legal conditions of the compact of
sovereignty are performed by him (as they are performed), he holds his
crown in contempt of the choice of the Revolution Society, who have
not a single vote for a king amongst them, either individually or
collectively; though I make no doubt they would soon erect themselves
into an electoral college, if things were ripe to give effect to their
claim. His majesty's heirs and successors, each in his time and order,
will come to the crown with the same contempt of their choice with which
his majesty has succeeded to that he wears.
Whatever may be the success of evasion in explaining away the gross
error of FACT, which supposes that his majesty (though he holds it in
concurrence with the wishes) owes his crown to the choice of his people,
yet nothing can evade their full explicit declaration concerning the
principle of a right in the people to choose; which right is directly
maintained, and tenaciously adhered to. All the oblique insinuations
concerning election bottom in this proposition, and are referable to it.
Lest the foundation of the king's exclusive legal title should pass
for a mere rant of adulatory freedom, the political divine proceeds
dogmatically to assert, that, by the principles of the Revolution, the
people of England have acquired three fundamental rights, all of which,
with him, compose one system, and lie together in one short sentence;
namely, that we have acquired a right,
1. "To choose our own governors."
2. "To cashier them for misconduct."
3. "To frame a government for ourselves."
This new, and hitherto unheard of, bill of rights, though made in the
name of the whole people, belongs to those gentlemen and their faction
only. The body of the people of England have no share in it. They
utterly disclaim it. They will resist the practical assertion of it with
their lives and fortunes. They are bound to do so by the laws of their
country, made at the time of that very Revolution which is appealed to
in favour of the fictitious rights claimed by the society which abuses
its name.
PREACHING DEMOCRACY OF DISSENT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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