Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund BurkeBurke, Edmund
Philosophy
Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
Burke, Edmund
Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797; Essays; Political science; Speeches, addresses, etc.
One lock of glory from Her rev'rend head
Succeed in tearing: Love, and Awe, and Truth
Her doctrines preach, with apostolic force:
Her creed is Unity, her head is Christ,
Her Forms primeval, and her Creed divine,
And Catholic, that crowning name she wears."
"Luther," 6th edition 1852.)
TRIPLE BASIS OF FRENCH REVOLUTION.
Instead of the religion and the law by which they were in a great
politic communion with the Christian world, they have constructed their
republic on three bases, all fundamentally opposite to those on which
the communities of Europe are built. Its foundation is laid in regicide,
in jacobinism, and in atheism; and it has joined to those principles a
body of systematic manners, which secures their operation.
If I am asked, how I would be understood in the use of these terms,
regicide, jacobinism, atheism, and a system of corresponding manners,
and their establishment? I will tell you:--
I.--REGICIDE.
I call a commonwealth REGICIDE, which lays it down as a fixed law of
nature, and a fundamental right of man, that all government, not being
a democracy, is a usurpation. That all kings, as such, are usurpers;
and for being kings may and ought to be put to death, with their wives,
families, and adherents. The commonwealth which acts uniformly upon
those principles, and which, after abolishing every festival of
religion, chooses the most flagrant act of a murderous regicide treason
for a feast of eternal commemoration, and which forces all her people to
observe it--this I call REGICIDE BY ESTABLISHMENT.
II.--JACOBINISM.
Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country
against its property. When private men form themselves into associations
for the purpose of destroying the pre-existing laws and institutions
of their country; when they secure to themselves an army, by dividing
amongst the people of no property the estates of the ancient and lawful
proprietors; when a state recognises those acts; when it does not make
confiscations for crimes, but makes crimes for confiscations; when it
has its principal strength, and all its resources, in such a violation
of property; when it stands chiefly upon such a violation, massacring by
judgments, or otherwise, those who make any struggle for their old legal
government, and their legal, hereditary, or acquired possessions--I call
this JACOBINISM BY ESTABLISHMENT.
III.--ATHEISM.
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