The article analyses the most theoretically advanced writings by David Hume
and Edmund Burke, who, in different ways, challenged traditional political orthodoxy
regarding the practice of “corruption” – i.e. the influence of the executive branch on the House of Commons. It is demonstrated that post-revolutionary “corruption” – commonly
perceived as a manifestation of a profound crisis, if not of a complete collapse, of the
English system of liberty and of the key role of the House of Commons – in the writings
of keen eighteenth-century observers of the logic of parliamentary government ceased to
be presented just as a threat, becoming instead a foundation essential for sustaining the
constitutional stability of the state, which is of particular importance for understanding
not only the dynamics of the British political scene in the eighteenth century, but also the
logic of the functioning of parliamentary systems as such.
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