The license, and complete impunity too, of the publications which from the beginning instigated the people to such actions, and in the midst of trials and executions still continues, does in a great degree render these creatures an object…
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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I would not go so far as to adopt the maxim, Quicquid multis peccatur inultum; but certainly offences committed by vast multitudes are somewhat palliated in the individuals, who, when so many escape, are always looked upon rather as…
All our loose ideas of justice, as it affects any individual, have in them something of comparison to the situation of others; and no systematic reasoning can wholly free us from such impressions.
The appetite of justice is easily satisfied, and it is best nourished with the least possible blood.
We may, too, recollect that between capital punishment and total impunity there are many stages.
On the whole, every circumstance of mercy, and of comparative justice, does, in my opinion, plead in favor of such low, untaught, or ill-taught wretches.
If the African trade could be considered with regard to itself only, and as a single object, I should think the utter abolition to be on the whole more advisable than any scheme of regulation an reform.
What has been lately done has been done by a popular spirit, which seldom calls for, and indeed very rarely relishes, a system made up of a great variety of parts, and which is to operate its effect in a great length of time.
The people like short methods; the consequences of which they sometimes have reason to repent of.
A remote, and a gradual abolition, though they may be connected, are not the same thing.
The idea of the House seems to me, if I rightly comprehend it, that the two things are to be combined: that is to say, that the trade is gradually to decline, and to cease entirely at a determinate period.
To make the abolition gradual, the regulations must operate as a strong discouragement.
But it is much to be feared that a trade continued and discouraged, and with a sentence of death passed upon it, will perpetuate much ill blood between those who struggle for the abolition and those who contend for an effectual continuance.
Taking for my basis that I had an incurable evil to deal with, I cast about how I should make it as small an evil as possible, and draw out of it some collateral good.
I conceived that the true origin of the trade was not in the place it was begun at, but at the place of its final destination.
I therefore was, and I still am, of opinion that the whole work ought to be taken up together, and that a gradual abolition of slavery in the West Indies ought to go hand in hand with anything which, should be done with regard to its…
I am very apprehensive, that, so long as the slavery continues, some means for its supply will be found.
If so, I am persuaded that it is better to allow the evil, in order to correct it, than, by endeavoring to forbid what we cannot be able wholly to prevent, to leave it under an illegal, and therefore an unreformed existence.
It is not that my plan does not lead to the extinction of the slave trade, but it is through a very slow progress, the chief effect of which is to be operated in our own plantations, by rendering, in a length of time, all foreign supply…
I confess I trust infinitely more (according to the sound principles of those who ever have at any time meliorated the state of mankind) to the effect and influence of religion than to all the rest of the regulations put together.
Whenever, in my proposed reformation, we take our point of departure from a state of slavery, we must precede the donation of freedom by disposing the minds of the objects to a disposition to receive it without danger to themselves or to…
When a state of slavery is that upon which we are to work, the very means which lead to liberty must partake of compulsion.
The minds of men, being crippled with that restraint, can do nothing for themselves: everything must be done for them.
What I propose, however, is but a beginning of a course of measures which an experience of the effects of the evil and the reform will enable the legislature hereafter to supply and correct.
It is easy enough to say what shall be done: to cause it to be done,--hic labor, hoc opus.
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