"
At popular elections the most rigorous casuists will remit a little of
their severity. They will allow to a candidate some unqualified
effusions in favor of freedom, without binding him to adhere to them in
their utmost extent. But Mr. Burke put a more strict rule upon himself
than most moralists would put upon others. At his first offering himself
to Bristol, where he was almost sure he should not obtain, on that or
any occasion, a single Tory vote, (in fact, he did obtain but one,) and
rested wholly on the Whig interest, he thought himself bound to tell to
the electors, both before and after his election, exactly what a
representative they had to expect in him.
"The _distinguishing_ part of our Constitution," he said, "is its
liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate is the _peculiar_ duty and
_proper_ trust of a member of the House of Commons. But the liberty, the
_only_ liberty, I mean is a liberty connected with _order;_ and that not
only exists _with_ order and virtue, but cannot exist at all _without_
them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in _its substance and
vital principle_.
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