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Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797

"The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12)"

No correctives which he
proposed to the power of the crown could lead him to approve of a plan
of a republic (if so it may be reputed) which has no correctives, and
which he believes to be incapable of admitting any. No principle of Mr.
Burke's conduct or writings obliged him from consistency to become an
advocate for an exchange of mischiefs; no principle of his could compel
him to justify the setting up in the place of a mitigated monarchy a new
and far more despotic power, under which there is no trace of liberty,
except what appears in confusion and in crime.
Mr. Burke does not admit that the faction predominant in France have
abolished their monarchy, and the orders of their state, from any dread
of arbitrary power that lay heavy on the minds of the people. It is not
very long since he has been in that country. Whilst there he conversed
with many descriptions of its inhabitants. A few persons of rank did, he
allows, discover strong and manifest tokens of such a spirit of liberty
as might be expected one day to break all bounds.


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