From hence it is plain that the resemblance between the polity of the several Northern nations did not only arise from their common original, but also from their adopting, in some cases, the constitutions of those amongst them who were…
Edmund Burke
The Public Record
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.
gutenberg.org
However, it is pleasing to observe something of equity and distinction gradually insinuating itself into these unformed materials, and some transient flashes of light striking across the gloom which prepared for the full day that shone out…
Many of the old English customs, which, as that monarch justly observes, were truly odious, were abrogated; and, indeed, that code is the last we have that belongs to the period before the Conquest.
In the midst of a cruel war, of which he did not see the beginning nor live to see the end, he did more for the establishment of order and justice than any other prince has been known to do in the profoundest peace.
The Anglo-Saxon laws, by universal consent of all writers, owe more to the care and sagacity of Alfred than of any of the ancient kings.
For immediately after the conversion of Ethelbert, King of Kent, the missionaries, who had introduced the use of letters, and came from Rome full of the ideas of the Roman civil establishment, must have observed the gross defect arising…
I am sensible that nothing has been, a larger theme of panegyric with, all our writers on politics and history than the Anglo-Saxon government; and it is impossible not to conceive an high, opinion of its laws, if we rather consider what…
In reality, that ancient Constitution and those Saxon laws make little or nothing for any of our modern parties, and, when fairly laid open, will be found to compose such a system as none, I believe, would think it either practicable or…
Bacon, in order to establish his republican, system, has so distorted all the evidence he has produced, concealed so many things of consequence, and thrown such false colors upon the whole argument, that I know no book so likely to mislead…
The spirit of party, which has misled us in so many other particulars, has tended greatly to perplex us in this matter.
Or why should we search foreign laws or histories for explanation or ornament of that which is wholly our own, and by which we are effectually distinguished from all other countries?
For to what purpose is a history of a law of which it is impossible to trace the beginning, and which during its continuance has admitted no essential changes?
These opinions are flattering to national vanity and professional narrowness; and though they involved those that supported them in the most glaring contradictions, and some absurdities even too ridiculous to mention, we have always been…
The second is, that it was formed and grew up among ourselves; that it is in every respect peculiar to this island; and that, if the Roman or any foreign laws attempted to intrude into its composition, it has always had vigor enough to…
The first, a persuasion, hardly to be eradicated from the minds of our lawyers, that the English law has continued very much in the same state from an antiquity to which they will allow hardly any sort of bounds.
The sources of our English law are not well, nor indeed fairly, laid open; the ancient judicial proceedings are touched in a very slight and transient manner; and the great changes and remarkable revolutions in the law, together with their…
But with all the deference justly due to so great a name, we may venture to assert that this performance, though not without merit, is wholly unworthy of the high reputation of its author.
And surely there cannot be a more pleasing speculation than to trace the advances of men in an attempt to imitate the Supreme Ruler in one of the most glorious of His attributes, and to attend them in the exercise of a prerogative which it…
Political and military relations are for the greater part accounts of the ambition and violence of mankind: this is an history of their justice.
There is scarce any object of curiosity more rational than the origin, the progress, and the various revolutions of human laws.
Rash, arrogant, perfidious, irreligious, unquiet, he made a tolerable head of a party, but a bad king, and had talents fit to disturb another's government, not to support his own.
He was indolent, yet restless, in his disposition; fond of working by violent methods, without any vigor; boastful, but continually betraying his fears; showing on all occasions such a desire of peace as hindered him from ever enjoying it.
Add to all these causes the personal character of the king, in which there was nothing uniform or sincere, and which introduced the like unsteadiness into all his government.
The loss of his foreign territories, besides what he lost along with them in reputation, made him entirely dependent upon England: whereas his predecessors made one part of their territories subservient to the preservation of their…
Excessive grants, followed by violent and arbitrary resumptions, tore to pieces the whole contexture of the government.
Politicians like Edmund Burke
