It is fatally known that the great object of the Jacobin system is, to excite the lowest description of the people to range themselves under ambitious men for the pillage and destruction of the more eminent orders and classes of the community.
Edmund Burke: “It is fatally known that the great object of the Jacobin system is, to excite the lowest description of the people to…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke critiques the Jacobin movement for inciting the lower classes against the established social order.
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The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.
But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.
Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.





