What Edmund Burke thinks about America

@edmund-burke · 39 positions · On ppll ↗

Irish-born British statesman and political philosopher (1729 to 1797); author of Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Edmund Burke did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

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Only Edmund Burke on America. See everyone on America

3 dated positions, 1775, in their own words. Our reading of what Edmund Burke has said — not written or endorsed by them.

3 positions so far — this page is not yet offered to search engines.

1. 22 Mar 1775

   Our readingA love of freedom is the defining trait of the American colonists

   Their wordsIn this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole; and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your Colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only advantage worth living for.

   ↗Speech on Conciliation with America (22 March 1775)gutenberg.org All 18 from this book

3. 22 Mar 1775

   Our readingLegal education makes Americans resist bad principles before any actual grievance

   governmenteducation

   Their wordsIn other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.

   ↗Speech on Conciliation with America (22 March 1775)gutenberg.org All 18 from this book

5. 22 Mar 1775

   Our readingArguing against American liberty forces Britain to undermine its own freedom

   Their wordsTo prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we never seem to gain a paltry advantage over them in debate without attacking some of those principles, or deriding some of those feelings, for which our ancestors have shed their blood.

   ↗Speech on Conciliation with America (22 March 1775)gutenberg.org All 18 from this book