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_."

The liberty to which Mr. Burke declared himself attached is not French
liberty. That liberty is nothing but the rein given to vice and
confusion. Mr. Burke was then, as he was at the writing of his
Reflections, awfully impressed with the difficulties arising from the
complex state of our Constitution and our empire, and that it might
require in different emergencies different sorts of exertions, and the
successive call upon all the various principles which uphold and justify
it. This will appear from what he said at the close of the poll.

"To be a good member of Parliament is, let me tell you, no easy
task,--especially at this time, when there is so strong a disposition to
run into the perilous extremes of _servile_ compliance or _wild
popularity_. To unite circumspection with vigor is absolutely necessary,
but it is extremely difficult. We are now members for a rich commercial
_city_; this city, however, is but a part of a rich commercial _nation_,
the interests of which are _various, multiform, and intricate_. We are
members for that great _nation_, which, however, is itself but part of a
great _empire_, extended by our virtue and our fortune to the farthest
limits of the East and of the West. _All_ these wide-spread interests
must be _considered_,--must be _compared_,--must be _reconciled_, if
possible. We are members for a _free_ country; and surely we all know
that the machine of a free constitution is no _simple_ thing, but as
_intricate_ and as _delicate_ as it is valuable. We are members in a
_great and ancient_ MONARCHY_; and we must preserve religiously the
true, legal rights of the sovereign, which form the key-stone that binds
together the noble and well-constructed arch of our empire and our
Constitution_. A constitution made up of _balanced powers_ must ever be
a critical thing. As such I mean to touch that part of it which comes
within my reach."

In this manner Mr. Burke spoke to his constituents seventeen years ago.
He spoke, not like a partisan of one particular member of our
Constitution, but as a person strongly, and on principle, attached to