For the few days I have to linger here I am removed completely from the busy scene of the world; but I hold myself to be still responsible for everything that I have done whilst I continued on the place of action.
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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It may have the weakness, but it has the sincerity, of a dying declaration.
But as the same rules do not hold in all cases, what would be right for you, who may presume on a series of years before you, would have no sense for me, who cannot, without absurdity, calculate on six months of life.
It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure, that he may speak it the longer.
Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever: but, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth.
In this crisis I must hold my tongue or I must speak with freedom.
With a Regicide peace the king cannot long have a minister to serve him, nor the minister a king to serve.
But if we look to him as our security against the consequences of a Regicide peace, let us be assured that a Regicide peace and a constitutional ministry are terms that will not agree.
His abilities are fully equal (and that is to say much for any man) to those which are opposed to him.
But let him not have a confidence in himself which no human abilities can warrant.
I must add, that, if anything defensive in our domestic system can possibly save us from the disasters of a Regicide peace, he is the man to save us.
They have administered to me the only consolation I am capable of receiving, which is, to know that no individual will suffer by my thirty years' service to the public.
The difficulties of the case, as well as its fair side, ought to be presented.
They who have not the whole cause before them, call them politicians, call them people, call them what you will, are no judges.
I take the distinction to be this: the ground of a particular measure making a part of a plan it is rarely proper to divulge; all the broader grounds of policy, on which the general plan is to be adopted, ought as rarely to be concealed.
It is fair to call for trust, when the principle of reason itself suspends its public use.
Reason, clearly and manfully delivered, has in itself a mighty force; but reason in the mouth of legal authority is, I may fairly say, irresistible.
Ministers are not only our natural rulers, but our natural guides.
They have a whole before them, which we can contemplate only in the parts, and often without the necessary relations.
Statesmen are placed on an eminence, that they may have a larger horizon than we can possibly command.
When it appears evident to our governors that our desires and our interests are at variance, they ought not to gratify the former at the expense of the latter.
He that is bound to act in the dark cannot be said to act freely.
Information is an advantage to us; and we have a right to demand it.
On our part, I say, that to be instructed is not to be degraded or enslaved.
He who does not stay the hand of suicide is guilty of murder.
Politicians like Edmund Burke
