The tenderness of the executive power is the natural asylum of those upon whom the laws have declared war; and to complain that men are inclined to favor the means of their own safety is so absurd, that one forgets the injustice in the…
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.
gutenberg.org
This disposition is the true source of the passion which many men in very humble life have taken to the American war.
This lust of party power is the liberty they hunger and thirst for; and this Siren song of ambition has charmed ears that one would have thought were never organized to that sort of music.
They would govern men against their will; but in that government they would be discharged from the exercise of vigilance, providence, and fortitude; and therefore, that they may sleep on their watch, they consent to take some one division…
But I never will act the tyrant for their amusement.
If they will mix malice in their sports, I shall never consent to throw them any living, sentient creature whatsoever, no, not so much as a kitling, to torment.
But I wish to be a member of Parliament to have my share of doing good and resisting evil.
I can never sufficiently express my gratitude to you for having set me in a place wherein I could lend the slightest help to great and laudable designs.
We are on a conspicuous stage, and the world marks our demeanor.
This bill, and those connected with it, are intended to form the Magna Charta of Hindostan.
Their resources were dearly bought, but they were sure; and the general stock of the community grew by the general effort.
Swift somewhere says, that he who could make two blades of grass grow where but one grew before was a greater benefactor to the human race than all the politicians that ever existed.
These are not forms; they are parts of substantial and eternal justice.
The government of that once happy country has been in the utmost confusion ever since such good order was taken about it.
All ranks of people had their place in the public concern, and their share in the common stock and common prosperity.
That influence this bill cuts up by the roots.
He will remember that obloquy is a necessary ingredient in the composition of all true glory: he will remember that it was not only in the Roman customs, but it is in the nature and constitution of things, that calumny and abuse are…
The injury was from the crown: the redress was by Parliament.
I therefore consider the intermeddling of ministers in this affair as a downright usurpation.
If the hoards of oppression were the fund for satisfying the claims of bribery and peculation, who would wish to interfere between such litigants?
My poor share in the support of that great measure no man shall ravish from me.
Did an honest creditor ever refuse that reasonable and honest test?
These were the merits of the principal part of the debt of 1777, and the universally conceived causes of its growth; and thus the unhappy natives are deprived of every hope of payment for their real debts, to make provision for the arrears…
This is what a wise and virtuous ministry would have done and said.
It is by bribing, not so often by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring rum on mankind.
Politicians like Edmund Burke
