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.
BY HABIT, AND BY THE SANCTION OF MULTIPLIED TREATIES. (The Editor has
ventured to print these lines in italics, because it appears, while this
selection from Burke is preparing for the press, an inflated demagogue
has not only dared to deny the claims of the duke of Wellington to be
the Hero of a nation's heart, but has also accused the illustrious Burke
of misrepresenting historical facts connected with our war in the French
revolution. On which side both the truth and integrity of history are
to be found, may safely be left to the moral decision of men who do
NOT look at History through the exclusive medium of the market, and
in listening to the voice of instruction are, at least, enabled to
distinguish the bray of an ass from the peal of a trumpet.) Is it not
true, that they were the first to declare war upon this kingdom? Is
every word in the declaration from Downing-Street, concerning their
conduct, and concerning ours and that of our allies, so obviously false,
that it is necessary to give some new-invented proofs of our good faith
in order to expunge the memory of all this perfidy?
POLISH AND FRENCH REVOLUTION.
A king without authority; nobles without union or subordination; a
people without arts, industry, commerce, or liberty; no order within, no
defence without; no effective public force, but a foreign force, which
entered a naked country at will, and disposed of everything at pleasure.
Here was a state of things which seemed to invite, and might perhaps
justify, bold enterprise and desperate experiment. But in what manner
was this chaos brought into order? The means were as striking to the
imagination, as satisfactory to the reason, and soothing to the moral
sentiments. In contemplating that change, humanity has everything to
rejoice and to glory in; nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to suffer.
So far as it has gone, it probably is the most pure and defecated public
good which ever has been conferred on mankind. We have seen anarchy and
servitude at once removed; a throne strengthened for the protection
of the people, without trenching on their liberties; all foreign cabal
banished, by changing the crown from elective to hereditary; and what
was a matter of pleasing wonder, we have seen a reigning king, from
an heroic love to his country, exerting himself with all the toil,
the dexterity, the management, the intrigue, in favour of a family of
strangers, with which ambitious men labour for the aggrandizement of
their own. Ten millions of men in a way of being freed gradually,
and therefore safely to themselves and the state, not from civil or
political chains, which, bad as they are, only fetter the mind, but
from substantial personal bondage. Inhabitants of cities, before without
privileges, placed in the consideration which belongs to that improved
and connecting situation of social life. One of the most proud,
numerous, and fierce bodies of nobility and gentry ever known in the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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