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.
The same policy pervades all the laws which have since been made for the
preservation of our liberties. In the 1st of William and Mary, in the
famous statute called the Declaration of Right, the two houses utter not
a syllable of "a right to frame a government for themselves." You
will see, that their whole care was to secure the religion, laws, and
liberties, that had been long possessed, and had been lately endangered.
"Taking into their most serious consideration the BEST means for making
such an establishment that their religion, laws, and liberties, might
not be in danger of being again subverted," they auspicate all their
proceedings, by stating as some of those BEST means, "in the FIRST
PLACE" to do "as their ANCESTORS IN LIKE CASES HAVE USUALLY done for
vindicating their ANCIENT rights and liberties, to DECLARE;"--and then
they pray the king and queen, "that it may be DECLARED and enacted, that
ALL AND SINGULAR the rights and liberties ASSERTED AND DECLARED, are the
true ANCIENT and indubitable rights and liberties of the people of this
kingdom."
You will observe, that from Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right, it
has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert
our liberties, as an ENTAILED INHERITANCE derived to us from our
forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity, as an estate
specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference
whatever to any other more general or prior right. By this means our
constitution preserves a unity in so great a diversity of its parts.
We have an inheritable crown; an inheritable peerage; and a house of
commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties,
from a long line of ancestors.
LOW AIMS AND LOW INSTRUMENTS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account