Burke's Speech on Conciliation with AmericaBurke, Edmund
History
Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Colonies -- America -- Early works to 1800; United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783
To this objection, with all possible deference and humility, and wishing
as little as any man living to impair the smallest particle of our
supreme authority, I answer, that the words are the words of Parliament,
and not mine, and that all false and inconclusive inferences drawn from
them are not mine, for I heartily disclaim any such inference. I have
chosen the words of an Act of Parliament which Mr. Grenville, surely
a tolerably zealous and very judicious advocate for the sovereignty of
Parliament, formerly moved to have read at your table in confirmation of
his tenets. It is true that Lord Chatham considered these preambles as
declaring strongly in favor of his opinions. He was a no less powerful
advocate for the privileges of the Americans. Ought I not from hence to
presume that these preambles are as favorable as possible to both, when
properly understood; favorable both to the rights of Parliament, and to
the privilege of the dependencies of this Crown? But, Sir, the object of
grievance in my Resolution I have not taken from the Chester, but from
the Durham Act, which confines the hardship of want of representation
to the case of subsidies, and which therefore falls in exactly with the
case of the Colonies. But whether the unrepresented counties were de
jure or de facto [Footnote: 64] bound, the preambles do not accurately
distinguish, nor indeed was it necessary; for, whether de jure or de
facto, the Legislature thought the exercise of the power of taxing as
of right, or as of fact without right, equally a grievance, and equally
oppressive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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