I think his manifest attempt to overturn the balance of Europe a good ground of war.
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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As a good ground of war I consider his declaration of war on his Majesty and his kingdom.
But though I have taken all these to my aid, I consider them as nothing more than as a sort of evidence to indicate the treasonable mind within.
Long before their acts of aggression and their declaration of war, the faction in France had assumed a form, had adopted a body of principles and maxims, and had regularly and systematically acted on them, by which she virtually had put…
Before our opinions are quoted against ourselves, it is proper, that, from our serious deliberation, they may be worth quoting.
It is without reason we praise the wisdom of our Constitution in putting under the discretion of the crown the awful trust of war and peace, if the ministers of the crown virtually return it again into our hands.
The trust was placed there as a sacred deposit, to secure us against popular rashness in plunging into wars, and against the effects of popular dismay, disgust, or lassitude, in getting out of them as imprudently as we might first engage…
To have no other measure in judging of those great objects than our momentary opinions and desires is to throw us back upon that very democracy which, in this part, our Constitution was formed to avoid.
It is no excuse at all for a minister who at our desire takes a measure contrary to our safety, that it is our own act.
He who does not stay the hand of suicide is guilty of murder.
On our part, I say, that to be instructed is not to be degraded or enslaved.
Information is an advantage to us; and we have a right to demand it.
He that is bound to act in the dark cannot be said to act freely.
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.
Statesmen are placed on an eminence, that they may have a larger horizon than we can possibly command.
They have a whole before them, which we can contemplate only in the parts, and often without the necessary relations.
Ministers are not only our natural rulers, but our natural guides.
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.
It is fair to call for trust, when the principle of reason itself suspends its public use.
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.
They who have not the whole cause before them, call them politicians, call them people, call them what you will, are no judges.
The difficulties of the case, as well as its fair side, ought to be presented.
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.
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.
But let him not have a confidence in himself which no human abilities can warrant.
Politicians like Edmund Burke
