It is, indeed, the victorious enemy that has the terms to offer; the vanquished party and their friends are, both of them, reduced in their power; and it is certain that those who are utterly broken and subdued have no option.
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, as this is hardly yet the case of the Americans, in this middle state of their affairs, (much impaired, but not perfectly ruined,) one would think it must be their interest to provide, if possible, some further security for the terms…
That very estimation for which you have sacrificed everything else is in some danger of suffering in the general wreck; and perhaps it is likely to suffer the more, because you have hitherto confided more than was quite prudent in the…
The measure you take for this purpose may produce no immediate effect; but with regard to the party, and the principles for whose sake the party exists, all hope of their preservation or recovery depends upon your preserving your…
If that be their object in the secession and addresses proposed, there surely never were means worse chosen to gain their end; and if this be any part of the project, it were a thousand times better it were never undertaken.
To pursue violent measures with languor and irresolution is not very consistent in speculation, and not more reputable or safe in practice.
The only question is, whether the risk ought to be run for the chance (and it is no more) of recalling the people of England to their ancient principles, and to that personal interest which formerly they took in all public affairs.
At any rate, I am sure it is right, if we take this step, to take it with a full view of the consequences, and with minds and measures in a state of preparation to meet them.
It is not becoming that your boldness should arise from a want of foresight.
It is more reputable, and certainly it is more safe too, that it should be grounded on the evident necessity of encountering the dangers which you foresee.
Our scheme ought to be such as to have in it a succession of measures: else it is impossible to secure anything like a regular attendance; opposition will otherwise always carry a disreputable air; neither will it be possible, without that…
We know that it is our ordinary duty to submit ourselves to the determinations of the majority in everything, except what regards the just defence of our honor and reputation.
We trust, therefore, that we shall stand justified in offering to our sovereign and the public our reasons for persevering inflexibly in our uniform dissent from every part of those measures.
We lament them from an experience of their mischief, as we originally opposed them from a sure foresight of their unhappy and inevitable tendency.
But we had an horror of becoming the instruments in a design, of which, in our turn, we might become the victims.
Knowing the inestimable value of peace, and the contemptible value of what was sought by war, we wished to compose the distractions of our country, not by the use of foreign arms, but by prudent regulations in our own domestic policy.
This scheme, being, therefore, set up in direct opposition to the rooted and confirmed sentiments and habits of thinking of an whole people, has produced the effects which ever must result from such a collision of power and opinion.
The sense of a whole people, most gracious sovereign, never ought to be contemned by wise and beneficent rulers,--whatever may be the abstract claims, or even rights, of the supreme power.
We have been too early instructed, and too long habituated to believe, that the only firm seat of all authority is in the minds, affections, and interests of the people, to change our opinions on the theoretic reasonings of speculative…
It is not consistent with equity or wisdom to set at defiance the general feelings of great communities, and of all the orders which compose them.
Much power is tolerated, and passes unquestioned, where much is yielded to opinion.
But permit us to lay at your Majesty's feet our deliberate judgment on the real merits of that principle, the violation of which is the known ground and origin of these troubles.
Abuses of subordinate authority increase, and all means of redress lessen, as the distance of the subject removes him from the seat of the supreme power.
What, in those circumstances, can save him from the last extremes of indignity and oppression, but something left in his own hands which may enable him to conciliate the favor and control the excesses of government?
When no means of power to awe or to oblige are possessed, the strongest ties which connect mankind in every relation, social and civil, and which teach them mutually to respect each other, are broken.
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