Are we to deny to a majority of the people the right of altering even the whole frame of their society, if such should be their pleasure?
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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The factions now so busy amongst us, in order to divest men of all love for their country, and to remove from their minds all duty with regard to the state, endeavor to propagate an opinion, that the people, in forming their commonwealth…
If a country does not understand its own affairs, how is a foreigner to understand them, who knows neither its laws, its manners, nor its language?
The wisdom of every country, when properly exerted, is sufficient for all its purposes; and there could exist no more real occasion in England to have sent for a Dutch Stadtholder or a German Elector than there was in America to have done…
It is somewhat curious to observe, that, although the people of England have been in the habit of talking about kings, it is always a foreign house of kings,--hating foreigners, yet governed by them.
Government with insolence is despotism; but when contempt is added, it becomes worse; and to pay for contempt is the excess of slavery.
In order to prepare the minds of the people for treason and rebellion, they represent the king as tainted with principles of despotism, from the circumstance of his having dominions in Germany.
It is already on the wane, eclipsed by the enlarging orb of reason and the luminous Revolutions of America and France.
The only difference is, (for in principle they differ not,) that the one was an usurper over the living, and the other over the unborn; and as the one has no better authority to stand upon than the other, both of them must be equally null…
It is somewhat extraordinary, that the offence for which James the Second was expelled, that of setting up power by assumption, should be re-acted, under another shape and form, by the Parliament that expelled him.
They serve to demonstrate how necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.
We can all see the absurdity of worshipping Aaron's molten calf, or Nebuchadnezzar's golden image; but why do men continue to practise themselves the absurdities they despise in others?
Where else should it reside, but in those who are to pay the expense?
If I ask the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and down through all the occupations of life to the common laborer, what service monarchy is to him, he can give me no answer.
It is a thing in imagination, the propriety of which is more than doubted, and the legality of which in a few years will be denied.
Alas! it has none of those properties, but is the reverse of them all.
In America it is considered as an absurdity; and in France it has so far declined, that the goodness of the man and the respect for his personal character are the only things that preserve the appearance of its existence.
It appears to be a something going much out of fashion, falling into ridicule, and rejected in some countries both as unnecessary and expensive.
If it is, in what does that necessity consist, what services does it perform, what is its business, and what are its merits?
Is it 'a contrivance of human wisdom,' or of human craft, to obtain money from a nation under specious pretences?
Is it a thing, or is it a name, or is it a fraud?
But, after all, what is this metaphor called a crown? or rather, what is monarchy?
Monarchical sovereignty, the enemy of mankind, and the source of misery, is abolished; and sovereignty itself is restored to its natural and original place, the nation.
Every citizen is a member of the sovereignty, and, as such, can acknowledge no personal subjection, and his obedience can be only to the laws.
The romantic and barbarous distinction of men into kings and subjects, though it may suit the condition of courtiers, cannot that of citizens, and is exploded by the principle upon which governments are now founded.
Politicians like Edmund Burke
