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
Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England?
Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your
revenue? that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply which
gives you your army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires
it with bravery and discipline? No! surely no! It is the love of the
people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of
the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you
your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience
without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing
but rotten timber.
All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the
profane herd [Footnote: 75] of those vulgar and mechanical politicians
who have no place among us; a sort of people who think that nothing
exists but what is gross and material, and who, therefore, far from
being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are
not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and
rightly taught, these ruling and master principles which, in the opinion
of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, are in
truth everything, and all in all. Magnanimity [Footnote: 76] in politics
is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go
ill together. If we are conscious of our station, and glow with zeal
to fill our places as becomes our situation and ourselves, we ought to
auspicate [Footnote: 77] all our public proceedings on America with
the old warning of the church, Sursum corda! [Footnote: 78] We ought to
elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order
of providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high
calling our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious
empire, and have made the most extensive and the only honorable
conquests--not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number,
the happiness, of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we
have got an American empire. English privileges have made it all that it
is; English privileges alone will make it all it can be.
In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now, quod felix
faustumque sit, [Footnote: 79] lay the first stone of the Temple of
Peace; and I move you--
"That the Colonies and Plantations of Great Britain in North America,
consisting of fourteen separate governments, and containing two millions
and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege
of electing and sending any Knights and Burgesses, or others, to
represent them in the High Court of Parliament."
FOOTNOTES
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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