Explore "Government and Police" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
All temporal government must rest on a compromise of interests and abstract / rights. Who would listen to the county of Bedford, if it were to declare / itself disannexed from the British empire, and to set up for itself?
The most desirable thing that can happen to France, with her immense army / of gensd'armes, is, that the service may at first become very irksome to / the men themselves, and ultimately, by not being called into real service, / fall into general ridicule, like our trained bands. The evil in France, and / throughout Europe, seems now especially to be, the subordination of the / legislative power to the direct physical force of the people. The French / legislature was weak enough before the late revolution; now it is / absolutely powerless, and manifestly depends even for its existence on the / will of a popular commander of an irresistible army. There is now in France / a daily tendency to reduce the legislative body to a mere deputation from / the provinces and towns.