Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
774
AUTHOR:
Edmund Burke (1729–97)
QUOTATION:
If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so,—and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.
ATTRIBUTION:
EDMUND BURKE, letter to the sheriffs of Bristol, April 3, 1777.—The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, vol. 2, p. 227 (1899).
