The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 06 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
Philosophy
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 06 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
This law seems, therefore, to me to go directly against the fundamental
points of the legislative and judicial constitution of these kingdoms,
and against the happy communion of their privileges. But there is
another matter in the tax proposed, that contradicts as essentially a
very great principle necessary for preserving the union of the various
parts of a state; because it does, in effect, discountenance mutual
intermarriage and inheritance, things that bind countries more closely
together than any laws or constitutions whatsoever. Is it right that a
woman who marries into Ireland, and perhaps well purchases her jointure
or her dower there, should not after her husband's death have it in her
choice to return to her country and her friends without being taxed for
it? If an Irish heiress should marry into an English family, and that
great property in both countries should thereby come to be united in
this common issue, shall the descendant of that marriage abandon his
natural connection, his family interests, his public and his private
duties, and be compelled to take up his residence in Ireland? Is there
any sense or any justice in it, unless you affirm that there should be
no such intermarriage and no such mutual inheritance between the
natives? Is there a shadow of reason, that, because a Lord Rockingham, a
Duke of Devonshire, a Sir George Savile, possess property in Ireland,
which has descended to them without any act of theirs, they should
abandon their duty in Parliament, and spend the winters in Dublin? or,
having spent the session in Westminster, must they abandon their seats
and all their family interests in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, and pass the
rest of the year in Wicklow, in Cork, or Tyrone?
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