Prev | Current Page 20 | Next

Burke, Edmund

"Reflections On The Revolution In France"

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 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.


Pages:
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32