"In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature"
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Burke is sketching a theory of power that flatters democracy while quietly clipping its wings. The legislature, he argues, shouldn’t drag the public toward some private utopia, but it also shouldn’t merely mirror the crowd. The verb choices do the real work: “follow, not force” sounds submissive, almost populist. Then he pivots to “direction,” “form,” and especially “technical dress” - a tailor’s language that makes governance feel like refinement, not domination. Politics becomes an act of translation: raw sentiment in the street is rendered into law by professionals who know how to cut the cloth.
The subtext is unmistakably Burkean: public “inclination” is real and morally significant, but it’s also volatile, undereducated, and easily weaponized. So the statesman’s job is to confer “specific sanction” - legitimacy - on what the community already senses, while filtering out its dangerous impulses. That’s not neutrality; it’s stewardship, a kind of paternalism with good manners.
Context matters: Burke is writing from inside an 18th-century British constitutional world that feared both royal coercion and mass upheaval. His later horror at the French Revolution haunts this line in advance: he wants reform without rupture, change that looks like continuity. The brilliance is rhetorical: he dignifies popular feeling, then reserves the decisive act - shaping, formalizing, authorizing - for the legislature. It’s representative government as a check on the people, sold as service to them.
The subtext is unmistakably Burkean: public “inclination” is real and morally significant, but it’s also volatile, undereducated, and easily weaponized. So the statesman’s job is to confer “specific sanction” - legitimacy - on what the community already senses, while filtering out its dangerous impulses. That’s not neutrality; it’s stewardship, a kind of paternalism with good manners.
Context matters: Burke is writing from inside an 18th-century British constitutional world that feared both royal coercion and mass upheaval. His later horror at the French Revolution haunts this line in advance: he wants reform without rupture, change that looks like continuity. The brilliance is rhetorical: he dignifies popular feeling, then reserves the decisive act - shaping, formalizing, authorizing - for the legislature. It’s representative government as a check on the people, sold as service to them.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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