None but England can communicate to you the benefits of such a constitution.
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.
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That very liberty which you so justly prize above all things originated here; and it may be very doubtful, whether, without being constantly fed from the original fountain, it can be at all perpetuated or preserved in its native purity and…
They are the real rebels to the fair constitution and just supremacy of England.
Those who depart from it, whether there or here, are attainted, corrupted in blood, and wholly fallen from their original rank and value.
Those who have and who hold to that foundation of common liberty, whether on this or on your side of the ocean, we consider as the true, and the only true, Englishmen.
In comparison of this, we regard all the victories and conquests of our warlike ancestors, or of our own times, as barbarous, vulgar distinctions, in which many nations, whom we look upon with little respect or value, have equalled, if not…
We view the establishment of the English colonies on principles of liberty as that which is to render this kingdom venerable to future ages.
Armed as you are, we embrace you as our friends and as our brethren by the best and dearest ties of relation.
On the contrary, we highly revere the principles on which you act, though we lament some of their effects.
We do not know how to qualify millions of our countrymen, contending with one heart for an admission to privileges which we have ever thought our own happiness and honor, by odious and unworthy names.
We clear ourselves to you our brethren, to the present age, and to future generations, to our king and our country, and to Europe, which, as a spectator, beholds this tragic scene, of every part or share in adding this last and worst of…
We never could think with approbation of putting the military power out of the coercion of the civil justice in the country where it acts.
As we disapproved of the proceedings with regard to the forms of your constitution, so we are equally tender of every leading principle of free government.
We even think that they ought by no means to be altered at all, but at the desire of the greater part of the people who live under them.
Because the charters comprehend the essential forms by which you enjoy your liberties, we regard them as most sacred, and by no means to be taken away or altered without process, without examination, and without hearing, as they have…
We know of no road to your coffers but through your affections.
In this resource we cheerfully trust and acquiesce, satisfied by evident reason that no other expectation of revenue can possibly be given by freemen, and knowing from an experience uniform both on yours and on our side of the ocean that…
We are of opinion that you ought to enjoy the sole and exclusive right of freely granting, and applying to the support of your administration, what God has freely granted as a reward to your industry.
But because, brethren, these professions are general, and such as even enemies may make, when they reserve to themselves the construction of what servitude and what liberty are, we inform you that we adopt your own standard of the blessing…
Sensible of what is due both to the dignity and weakness of man, we have never wished to place over you any government, over which, in great, fundamental points, you should have no sort of check or control in your own hands, or which…
We have wished to continue united with you, in order that a people of one origin and one character should be directed to the rational objects of government by joint counsels, and protected in them by a common force.
For ourselves, we faithfully assure you, that we have ever considered you as rational creatures, as free agents, as men willing to pursue and able to discern your own true interest.
It spreads out a large and liberal platform of common liberty, upon which we may all unite forever.
But still a large, and we trust the largest and soundest, part of this kingdom perseveres in the most perfect unity of sentiments, principles, and affections with you.
Do not think that the whole, or even the uninfluenced majority, of Englishmen in this island are enemies to their own blood on the American continent.
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