We cannot be so childish as to imagine that ambition is local, and that no others can be infected with it but those who rule within certain parallels of latitude and longitude.
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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If, contrary to all expectations, under such a disgraced and impotent government, any energy should remain in that country, she will make every effort to recover her security, which will involve Europe for a century in war and blood.
The design at present evidently pursued by the combined potentates, or of the two who lead, is totally to destroy her as such a power.
On the contrary, my clear opinion is, that the liberties of Europe cannot possibly be preserved but by her remaining a very great and preponderating power.
But the difference is great between a plan for our own security and a scheme for the utter destruction of France.
There is undoubtedly something in the vicinity of France, which makes it naturally and properly an object of our watchfulness and jealousy, whatever form its government may take.
Some eminent persons discover an apprehension that the monarchy, if restored in France, may be restored in too great strength for the liberty and happiness of the natives, and for the tranquillity of other states.
When our politics lead us to enterprise a great and almost total political revolution in Europe, we ought to look seriously into the consequences of what we are about to do.
Whereas people who change, except under strong conviction, (a thing now rather rare,) the religion of their early prejudices, especially if the conversion is brought about by any political machine, are very apt to degenerate into…
I speak for myself: I do not wish any man to be converted from his sect.
It was the impolitic abolition of their discipline, which exposed them to the wild opinions and conduct that have prevailed amongst the Huguenots.
If it be not the best mode of Protestantism under a monarchy, it is still an orderly Christian church, orthodox in the fundamentals, and, what is to our point, capable enough of rendering men useful citizens.
For a time like ours, it is a great point gained, that people should be taught to meet, to combine, and to be classed and arrayed in some other way than in clubs of Jacobins.
I am conscious that this discipline disposes men to republicanism: but it is still a discipline, and it is a cure (such as it is) for the perverse and undisciplined habits which for some time have prevailed.
No man, under the false and hypocritical pretence of liberty of conscience, ought to be suffered to have no conscience at all.
As the ancient Catholic religion is to be restored for the body of France, the ancient Calvinistic religion ought to be restored for the Protestants, with every kind of protection and privilege.
I am sorry to say that they have behaved shockingly since the very beginning of this rebellion, and have been uniformly concerned in its worst and most atrocious acts.
I speak of policy, too, in a large light; in which large light, policy, too, is a sacred thing.
As little can it exist in future, if that pillar is taken away, or even shattered and impaired.
We know that the monarchy did not survive the hierarchy, no, not even in appearance, for many months,--in substance, not for a single hour.
The same principle ought to guide us in the religious part: conforming the mode, not to our particular ideas, (for in that point we have no ideas in common,) but to what will best promote the great, general ends of the alliance.
In government, we mean to restore that which, notwithstanding our diversity of forms, we are all agreed in as fundamental in government.
We have in the present grand alliance all modes of government, as well as all modes of religion.
It is for Christian statesmen, as the world is now circumstanced, to secure their common basis, and not to risk the subversion of the whole fabric by pursuing these distinctions with an ill-timed zeal.
Our business is, to leave to the schools the discussion of the controverted points, abating as much as we can the acrimony of disputants on all sides.
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