In these petty republics the tyranny is so near its object that it becomes instantly acquainted with every act of every man.
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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But they only produce misery to those who nurse them at home, or exile, beggary, and in the end confiscation, to those who are so impatient as to remove from them.
The indifference with which the Assembly regards the state of their colonies, the only valuable part of the French commerce, is a full proof how little they are likely to be affected by anything but the selfish game of their own ambition…
This scheme of a rota, though it enfeebles the state, considered as one solid body, and indeed wholly disables it from acting as such, gives a great, an equal, and a diffusive strength to the democratic scheme.
They may rise in ferocious, ill-directed tumults,--but they can only disgrace themselves and signalize the triumph of their adversaries.
That power goes with property is not universally true, and the idea that the operation of it is certain and invariable may mislead us very fatally.
Prudence in new cases can do nothing on grounds of retrospect.
Experience, upon other data than those, is of all things the most delusive.
The world of contingency and political combination is much larger than we are apt to imagine.
As soon as a nation compels a creditor to take paper currency in discharge of his debt, there is a bankruptcy.
For my part I have long thought that one great cause of the stability of this wretched scheme of things in France was an opinion that it could not stand, and therefore that all external measures to destroy it were wholly useless.
It is the abuse of the first and best of the objects which we cherish.
He endeavors to crush the aristocratic party, and to nourish one in avowed connection with the most furious democratists in France.
But the Emperor's own politics with regard to the Netherlands seem to me to be exactly calculated to answer the purpose of the French Revolutionists.
It will ever hanker after a French connection; and now that the internal government in France has been assimilated in so considerable a degree to that which the immoderate republicans began so very lately to introduce into Holland, their…
But the predominant party in Holland is not Holland.
It is very certain that not one sovereign in Europe can either promise for the continuance of his authority in a state of indigence and insolvency, or dares to venture on a new imposition to relieve himself.
He knows, that, in the actual state of things, not the power and respect belonging to sovereigns, but their very existence, depends on a reasonable frugality.
The new Constitution only serves to supply that restless people with new means, at least new modes, of cherishing their turbulent disposition.
The Muscovites are no great speculators; but I should not much rely on their uninquisitive disposition, if any of their ordinary motives to sedition should arise.
Reformation certainly is nearly connected with innovation; and where that latter comes in for too large a share, those who undertake to improve their country may risk their own safety.
It is a melancholy reflection, that the spirit of melioration which has been going on in that part of Europe, more or less, during this century, and the various schemes very lately on foot for further advancement, are all put a stop to at…
They are more in the way of trade and intercourse with France, and, upon the least internal movement, will disclose and probably let loose a spirit that may throw the whole Spanish monarchy into convulsions.
The Castilians have still remaining a good deal of their old character, their gravedad, lealtad, and el temor de Dios; but that character neither is, nor ever was, exactly true, except of the Castilians only.
In Spain, the clergy are of moment from their influence, but at the same time with the envy and jealousy that attend great riches and power.
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