Edmund Burke

 This passage is adapted from Edmund Burke, Reflections on

the Revolution in France. Originally published in 1790.

Edmund Burke was a British politician and scholar. In 1789,

the French formed a new governmental body known as the

National Assembly, ushering in the tumultuous period of

political and social change known as the French Revolution.

To make a government requires no great

prudence. Settle the seat of power, teach obedience,

and the work is done. To give freedom is still more

easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to

let go the rein. But to form a free government, that is,

to temper together these opposite elements of liberty

and restraint in one consistent work, requires much

thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and

combining mind. This I do not find in those who

take the lead in the National Assembly. Perhaps they

are not so miserably deficient as they appear. I rather

believe it. It would put them below the common level

of human understanding. But when the leaders

choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of

popularity, their talents, in the construction of the

state, will be of no service. They will become

flatterers instead of legislators, the instruments, not

the guides, of the people. If any of them should

happen to propose a scheme of liberty, soberly

limited and defined with proper qualifications, he

will be immediately outbid by his competitors who

will produce something more splendidly popular.

Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause.

Moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of

cowards, and compromise as the prudence of

traitors, until, in hopes of preserving the credit which

may enable him to temper and moderate, on some

occasions, the popular leader is obliged to become

active in propagating doctrines and establishing

powers that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose

at which he ultimately might have aimed.

But am I so unreasonable as to see nothing at all

that deserves commendation in the indefatigable

labors of this Assembly? I do not deny that, among

an infinite number of acts of violence and folly, some

good may have been done. They who destroy

everything certainly will remove some grievance.

They who make everything new have a chance that

they may establish something beneficial. To give

them credit for what they have done in virtue of the

authority they have usurped, or which can excuse

them in the crimes by which that authority has been

acquired, it must appear that the same things could

not have been accomplished without producing such

a revolution. Most assuredly they might.... Some

usages have been abolished on just grounds, but

they were such that if they had stood as they were to

all eternity, they would little detract from the

happiness and prosperity of any state. The

improvements of the National Assembly are

superficial, their errors fundamental.

Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather

to recommend to our neighbors the example of the

British constitution than to take models from them

for the improvement of our own. In the former, they

have got an invaluable treasure. They are not, I think,

without some causes of apprehension and complaint,

but these they do not owe to their constitution but to

their own conduct. I think our happy situation owing

to our constitution, but owing to the whole of it, and

not to any part singly, owing in a great measure to

what we have left standing in our several reviews and

reformations as well as to what we have altered or

superadded. Our people will find employment

enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent

spirit in guarding what they possess from violation. I

would not exclude alteration neither, but even when

I changed, it should be to preserve. I should be led to

my remedy by a great grievance. In what I did, I

should follow the example of our ancestors. I would

make the reparation as nearly as possible in the style

of the building. A politic caution, a guarded

circumspection, a moral rather than a complexional

timidity were among the ruling principles of our

forefathers in their most decided conduct. Not being

illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of

France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they

acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and

fallibility of mankind. He that had made them thus

fallible rewarded them for having in their conduct

attended to their nature. Let us imitate their caution

if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their

bequests. Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve

what they have left; and, standing on the firm ground

of the British constitution, let us be satisfied to

admire rather than attempt to follow in their

desperate flights the aeronauts of France.

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