“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites—in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity;—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption;—in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon the will and appetite is placed somewhere: and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds can not be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
— Edmund Burke
““Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites...”
Burke could not fathom that the colonies would create and materially support the government we have today. He would most certainly judge each and every one of us as not qualified for civil liberty - and he’d be right. We don’t deserve it (and we presently don’t have it as they did then).
The historic quotes from important minds of the American Revolution period are good and relevant - but they had a clean slate, having vanquished tyranny that was much less intrusive than the government we have today.
They couldn’t build America under the King of England. They did it without him.