When thus the helm of justice is abandoned, an universal abandonment of all other posts will succeed.
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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Nero wished the Roman people had but one neck.
Proceeding, therefore, as we are obliged to proceed,--that is, upon an hypothesis that we address rational men,--can false political principles be more effectually exposed than by demonstrating that they lead to consequences directly…
An equal tax upon property is reasonable; because the object is of the same quality throughout.
Weather-beaten ships have been brought safe to port by the spirit and alertness of the crew.
But, before this time, our liberty has never been corrupted.
I may speak it upon an assurance almost approaching to absolute knowledge, that nothing has been done that has not been contrived from the beginning, even before the States had assembled.
A French ambassador, at the head of a French party, is an evil which we have never experienced.
But it is not annihilated by their silence, nor by our indifference.
It is no less than this:--The king has promulgated in circular letters to all the regiments his direct authority and encouragement, that the several corps should join themselves with the clubs and confederations in the several…
When officers are removed, and the offices remain, you may set the gratitude of some against the anger of others, you may oppose the friends you oblige against the enemies you provoke.
I do not choose to consume its strength along with our own; because in all parts it is the British strength that I consume.
She had, except the commercial restraint, every characteristic mark of a free people in all her internal concerns.
Our vices are the same as theirs, neither more nor less.
But this great matter of political deliberation cannot be put out of our thoughts by his silence.
From that worst of evils, thank God, we are still free.
But, alas! the short date of human elevation!
He was a tyrant; they were his satellites and his hangmen.
What vestiges of liberty or property have they left?
If you should lose in one way, you will gain in twenty.
When by insult after insult they have rendered the character of sovereigns vile in the eyes of their subjects, they know there is but one step more to their utter destruction.
The conduct of the Regicide faction is perfectly systematic in every particular, and it appears absurd only as it is strange and uncouth, not as it has an application to the ends and objects of their policy.
I believe the instances of eminent depravity may be as rare amongst them as those of transcendent goodness.
The priests were punished, after they had been robbed of their all, not for their vices, but for their virtues and their piety, which made them an honor to their sacred profession, and to that nature of which we ought to be proud, since…
What were the enormities of the infant king, whom they caused, by lingering tortures, to perish in their dungeon, and whom if at last they dispatched by poison, it was in that detestable crime the only act of mercy they have ever shown?
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