In the records of pride there does not exist so insulting a declaration.
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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They must be worse than blind who do not see with what undeviating regularity of system, in this case and in all cases, they pursue their scheme for the utter destruction of every independent power,--especially the smaller, who cannot find…
By this system, for the present an incurable distrust is sown amongst confederates, and in future all alliance is rendered impracticable.
In that light, the Regicide power, finding each of them insulated and unprotected, with great facility gives the law to them all.
By thus dissociating every state from every other, like deer separated from the herd, each power is treated with on the merit of his being a deserter from the common cause.
This refusal of treating conjointly with the powers allied against this republic furnishes matter for a great deal of serious reflection.
It is the concern of mankind, that the destruction of order should not, be a claim to rank, that crimes should not be the only title to preëminence and honor.
If the vilest of mankind are resolved to be the most wicked, they lose all the baseness of their origin, and take their place above kings.
It appears as if dignity were the prerogative of crime, and a temporizing humiliation the proper part for venerable authority.
It seems as if the preëminence of regicide was acknowledged,--and that kings tacitly ranked themselves below their sacrilegious murderers, as natural magistrates and judges over them.
I admit that the greater interests of state will for a moment supersede all other considerations; but if there was a rule, that a sovereign never should let down his dignity without a sure payment to his interest, the dignity of kings…
I do not say that a diplomatic measure ought to be, like a parliamentary or a judicial proceeding, according to strict precedent: I hope I am far from that pedantry.
In their eye the title of every other power depends wholly on their pleasure.
It adds infinitely to the strength, and consequently to the demands, of the adverse party.
It is not within, the rules of dexterous conduct to make an acknowledgment of a contested title in your enemy before you are morally certain that your recognition will secure his friendship.
They will become true conductors of contagion to every country which has had the misfortune to send them to the source of that electricity.
There is great danger that they, who enter smiling into this Trophonian cave, will come out of it sad and serious conspirators, and such will continue as long as they live.
These ambassadors may easily return as good courtiers as they went; but can they ever return from that degrading residence loyal and faithful subjects, or with any true affection to their master, or true attachment to the constitution…
To those who do not love to contemplate the fall of human greatness, I do not know a more mortifying spectacle than to see the assembled majesty of the crowned heads of Europe waiting as patient suitors in the antechamber of Regicide.
You may turn us out at the door, but we will jump in at the window.
To this conciliatory and amicable public communication our sole answer, in effect, is this:--"Citizen Regicides! whenever you find yourselves in the humor, you may have a peace with us.
Indemnification is capable of some estimate; dignity has no standard.
They proceed to charge us, and, as it should seem, our allies in the mass, with direct perfidy; they are so conciliatory in their language as to hint that this perfidious character is not new in our proceedings.
On the part of the Regicides these declarations could not be entirely passed by without notice; but in that notice they discovered still more clearly the bottom of their character.
The first paper I have seen (the publication at Hamburg) making a show of that pacific disposition discovered a rooted animosity against this nation, and an incurable rancor, even more than any one of their hostile acts.
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