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Shawords

Quote#War

The moment a sovereign removes the idea of security and protection…

Quote byEdmund Burke · 1729–1797

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Speech in opening the impeachment of Warren Hastings (16 February 1788), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Volume the Ninth (1899), p. 459.

English (original)

The moment a sovereign removes the idea of security and protection from his subjects, and declares that he is everything and they nothing, when he declares that no contract he makes with them can or ought to bind him, he then declares war upon them: he is no longer sovereign; they are no longer subjects.

— Edmund Burke

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