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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) by Edmund Burke

E >> Edmund Burke >> The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12)




But, Sir, in wishing to put an end to pernicious experiments, I do not
mean to preclude the fullest inquiry. Far from it. Far from deciding on
a sudden or partial view, I would patiently go round and round the
subject, and survey it minutely in every possible aspect. Sir, if I were
capable of engaging you to an equal attention, I would state, that, as
far as I am capable of discerning, there are but three ways of
proceeding relative to this stubborn spirit which prevails in your
colonies and disturbs your government. These are,--to change that
spirit, as inconvenient, by removing the causes,--to prosecute it, as
criminal,--or to comply with it, as necessary. I would not be guilty of
an imperfect enumeration; I can think of but these three. Another has,
indeed, been started,--that of giving up the colonies; but it met so
slight a reception that I do not think myself obliged to dwell a great
while upon it. It is nothing but a little sally of anger, like the
frowardness of peevish children, who, when they cannot get all they
would have, are resolved to take nothing.

The first of these plans--to change the spirit, as inconvenient, by
removing the causes--I think is the most like a systematic proceeding.
It is radical in its principle; but it is attended with great
difficulties: some of them little short, as I conceive, of
impossibilities. This will appear by examining into the plans which have
been proposed.

As the growing population of the colonies is evidently one cause of
their resistance, it was last session mentioned in both Houses, by men
of weight, and received not without applause, that, in order to check
this evil, it would be proper for the crown to make no further grants of
land. But to this scheme there are two objections. The first, that there
is already so much unsettled land in private hands as to afford room for
an immense future population, although the crown not only withheld its
grants, but annihilated its soil. If this be the case, then the only
effect of this avarice of desolation, this hoarding of a royal
wilderness, would be to raise the value of the possessions in the hands
of the great private monopolists, without any adequate check to the
growing and alarming mischief of population.

But if you stopped your grants, what would be the consequence? The
people would occupy without grants. They have already so occupied in
many places. You cannot station garrisons in every part of these
deserts. If you drive the people from one place, they will carry on
their annual tillage, and remove with their flocks and herds to another.
Many of the people in the back settlements are already little attached
to particular situations. Already they have topped the Appalachian
mountains. From thence they behold before them an immense plain, one
vast, rich, level meadow: a square of five hundred miles. Over this
they would wander without a possibility of restraint; they would change
their manners with the habits of their life; would soon forget a
government by which they were disowned; would become hordes of English
Tartars, and, pouring down upon your unfortified frontiers a fierce and
irresistible cavalry, become masters of your governors and your
counsellors, your collectors and comptrollers, and of all the slaves
that adhered to them. Such would, and, in no long time, must be, the
effect of attempting to forbid as a crime, and to suppress as an evil,
the command and blessing of Providence, "Increase and multiply." Such
would be the happy result of an endeavor to keep as a lair of wild
beasts that earth which God by an express charter has given to the
children of men. Far different, and surely much wiser, has been our
policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our people, by every kind of
bounty, to fixed establishments. We have invited the husbandman to look
to authority for his title. We have taught him piously to believe in the
mysterious virtue of wax and parchment. We have thrown each tract of
land, as it was peopled, into districts, that the ruling power should
never be wholly out of sight. We have settled all we could; and we have
carefully attended every settlement with government.

Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for the reasons I
have just given, I think this new project of hedging in population to be
neither prudent nor practicable.

To impoverish the colonies in general, and in particular to arrest the
noble course of their marine enterprises, would be a more easy task. I
freely confess it. We have shown a disposition to a system of this
kind,--a disposition even to continue the restraint after the
offence,--looking on ourselves as rivals to our colonies, and persuaded
that of course we must gain all that they shall lose. Much mischief we
may certainly do. The power inadequate to all other things is often more
than sufficient for this. I do not look on the direct and immediate
power of the colonies to resist our violence as very formidable. In
this, however, I may be mistaken. But when I consider that we have
colonies for no purpose but to be serviceable to us, it seems to my poor
understanding a little preposterous to make them unserviceable, in order
to keep them obedient. It is, in truth, nothing more than the old, and,
as I thought, exploded problem of tyranny, which proposes to beggar its
subjects into submission. But remember, when you have completed your
system of impoverishment, that Nature still proceeds in her ordinary
course; that discontent will increase with misery; and that there are
critical moments in the fortune of all states, when they who are too
weak to contribute to your prosperity may be strong enough to complete
your ruin. _Spoliatis arma supersunt_.

The temper and character which prevail in our colonies are, I am afraid,
unalterable by any human art. We cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree of
this fierce people, and persuade them that they are not sprung from a
nation in whose veins the blood of freedom circulates. The language in
which they would hear you tell them this tale would detect the
imposition; your speech would betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest
person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery.

I think it is nearly as little in our power to change their republican
religion as their free descent, or to substitute the Roman Catholic as a
penalty, or the Church of England as an improvement. The mode of
inquisition and dragooning is going out of fashion in the Old World, and
I should not confide much to their efficacy in the New. The education of
the Americans is also on the same unalterable bottom with their
religion. You cannot persuade them to burn their books of curious
science, to banish their lawyers from their courts of law, or to quench
the lights of their assemblies by refusing to choose those persons who
are best read in their privileges. It would be no less impracticable to
think of wholly annihilating the popular assemblies in which these
lawyers sit. The army, by which we must govern in their place, would be
far more chargeable to us, not quite so effectual, and perhaps, in the
end, full as difficult to be kept in obedience.

With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia and the southern
colonies, it has been proposed, I know, to reduce it by declaring a
general enfranchisement of their slaves. This project has had its
advocates and panegyrists; yet I never could argue myself into any
opinion of it. Slaves are often much attached to their masters. A
general wild offer of liberty would not always be accepted. History
furnishes few instances of it. It is sometimes as hard to persuade
slaves to be free as it is to compel freemen to be slaves; and in this
auspicious scheme we should have both these pleasing tasks on our hands
at once. But when we talk of enfranchisement, do we not perceive that
the American master may enfranchise, too, and arm servile hands in
defence of freedom?--a measure to which other people have had recourse
more than once, and not without success, in a desperate situation of
their affairs.

Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are
from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from
that very nation which has sold them to their present masters,--from
that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel with those masters is their
refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic? An offer of freedom
from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African
vessel, which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or
Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes. It would be
curious to see the Guinea captain attempting at the same instant to
publish his proclamation of liberty and to advertise his sale of slaves.

But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got over. The ocean
remains. You cannot pump this dry; and as long as it continues in its
present bed, so long all the causes which weaken authority by distance
will continue.

"Ye Gods! annihilate but space and time,
And make two lovers happy,"

was a pious and passionate prayer,--but just as reasonable as many of
the serious wishes of very grave and solemn politicians.

If, then, Sir, it seems almost desperate to think of any alterative
course for changing the moral causes (and not quite easy to remove the
natural) which produce prejudices irreconcilable to the late exercise of
our authority, but that the spirit infallibly will continue, and,
continuing, will produce such effects as now embarrass us,--the second
mode under consideration is, to prosecute that spirit in its overt acts,
as _criminal_.

At this proposition I must pause a moment. The thing seems a great deal
too big for my ideas of jurisprudence. It should seem, to my way of
conceiving such matters, that there is a very wide difference, in reason
and policy, between the mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of
scattered individuals, or even of bands of men, who disturb order within
the state, and the civil dissensions which may, from time to time, on
great questions, agitate the several communities which compose a great
empire. It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary
ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know
the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people. I cannot
insult and ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow-creatures as
Sir Edward Coke insulted one excellent individual (Sir Walter Raleigh)
at the bar. I am not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies,
intrusted with magistracies of great authority and dignity, and charged
with the safety of their fellow-citizens, upon the very same title that
I am. I really think that for wise men this is not judicious, for sober
men not decent, for minds tinctured with humanity not mild and merciful.

Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an empire, as distinguished
from a single state or kingdom. But my idea of it is this: that an
empire is the aggregate of many states under one common head, whether
this head be a monarch or a presiding republic. It does, in such
constitutions, frequently happen (and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead
uniformity of servitude can prevent its happening) that the subordinate
parts have many local privileges and immunities. Between these
privileges and the supreme common authority the line may be extremely
nice. Of course disputes, often, too, very bitter disputes, and much ill
blood, will arise. But though every privilege is an exemption (in the
case) from the ordinary exercise of the supreme authority, it is no
denial of it. The claim of a privilege seems rather, _ex vi termini_, to
imply a superior power: for to talk of the privileges of a state or of a
person who has no superior is hardly any better than speaking nonsense.
Now in such unfortunate quarrels among the component parts of a great
political union of communities, I can scarcely conceive anything more
completely imprudent than for the head of the empire to insist, that if
any privilege is pleaded against his will or his acts, that his whole
authority is denied,--instantly to proclaim rebellion, to beat to arms,
and to put the offending provinces under the ban. Will not this, Sir,
very soon teach the provinces to make no distinctions on their part?
Will it not teach them that the government against which a claim of
liberty is tantamount to high treason is a government to which
submission is equivalent to slavery? It may not always be quite
convenient to impress dependent communities with such an idea.

We are, indeed, in all disputes with the colonies, by the necessity of
things, the judge. It is true, Sir. But I confess that the character of
judge in my own cause is a thing that frightens me. Instead of filling
me with pride, I am exceedingly humbled by it. I cannot proceed with a
stern, assured judicial confidence, until I find myself in something
more like a judicial character. I must have these hesitations as long as
I am compelled to recollect, that, in my little reading upon such
contests as these, the sense of mankind has at least as often decided
against the superior as the subordinate power. Sir, let me add, too,
that the opinion of my having some abstract right in my favor would not
put me much at my ease in passing sentence, unless I could be sure that
there were no rights which, in their exercise under certain
circumstances, were not the most odious of all wrongs and the most
vexatious of all injustice. Sir, these considerations have great weight
with me, when I find things so circumstanced that I see the same party
at once a civil litigant against me in a point of right and a culprit
before me, while I sit as criminal judge on acts of his whose moral
quality is to be decided upon the merits of that very litigation. Men
are every now and then put, by the complexity of human affairs, into
strange situations; but justice is the same, let the judge be in what
situation he will.

There is, Sir, also a circumstance which convinces me that this mode of
criminal proceeding is not (at least in the present stage of our
contest) altogether expedient,--which is nothing less than the conduct
of those very persons who have seemed to adopt that mode, by lately
declaring a rebellion in Massachusetts Bay, as they had formerly
addressed to have traitors brought hither, under an act of Henry the
Eighth, for trial. For, though rebellion is declared, it is not
proceeded against as such; nor have any steps been taken towards the
apprehension or conviction of any individual offender, either on our
late or our former address; but modes of public coercion have been
adopted, and such as have much more resemblance to a sort of qualified
hostility towards an independent power than the punishment of rebellious
subjects. All this seems rather inconsistent; but it shows how
difficult it is to apply these juridical ideas to our present case.

In this situation, let us seriously and coolly ponder. What is it we
have got by all our menaces, which have been many and ferocious? What
advantage have we derived from the penal laws we have passed, and which,
for the time, have been severe and numerous? What advances have we made
towards our object, by the sending of a force, which, by land and sea,
is no contemptible strength? Has the disorder abated? Nothing
less.--When I see things in this situation, after such confident hopes,
bold promises, and active exertions, I cannot, for my life, avoid a
suspicion that the plan itself is not correctly right.

If, then, the removal of the causes of this spirit of American liberty
be, for the greater part, or rather entirely, impracticable,--if the
ideas of criminal process be inapplicable, or, if applicable, are in the
highest degree inexpedient, what way yet remains? No way is open, but
the third and last,--to comply with the American spirit as necessary,
or, if you please, to submit, to it as a necessary evil.

If we adopt this mode, if we mean to conciliate and concede, let us see
of what nature the concession ought to be. To ascertain the nature of
our concession, we must look at their complaint. The colonies complain
that they have not the characteristic mark and seal of British freedom.
They complain that they are taxed in a Parliament in which they are not
represented. If you mean to satisfy them at all, you must satisfy them
with regard to this complaint. If you mean to please any people, you
must give them the boon which they ask,--not what you may think better
for them, but of a kind totally different. Such an act may be a wise
regulation, but it is no concession; whereas our present theme is the
mode of giving satisfaction.

Sir, I think you must perceive that I am resolved this day to have
nothing at all to do with the question of the right of taxation. Some
gentlemen startle,--but it is true: I put it totally out of the
question. It is less than nothing in my consideration. I do not indeed
wonder, nor will you, Sir, that gentlemen of profound learning are fond
of displaying it on this profound subject. But my consideration is
narrow, confined, and wholly limited to the policy of the question. I do
not examine whether the giving away a man's money be a power excepted
and reserved out of the general trust of government, and how far all
mankind, in all forms of polity, are entitled to an exercise of that
right by the charter of Nature,--or whether, on the contrary, a right of
taxation is necessarily involved in the general principle of
legislation, and inseparable from the ordinary supreme power. These are
deep questions, where great names militate against each other, where
reason is perplexed, and an appeal to authorities only thickens the
confusion: for high and reverend authorities lift up their heads on both
sides, and there is no sure footing in the middle. This point is the
_great Serbonian bog, betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, where armies
whole have sunk_. I do not intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, though
in such respectable company. The question with me is, not whether you
have a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your
interest to make them happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I _may_
do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. Is a
politic act the worse for being a generous one? Is no concession proper,
but that which is made from your want of right to keep what you grant?
Or does it lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in the exercise of an
odious claim, because you have your evidence-room full of titles, and
your magazines stuffed with arms to enforce them? What signify all those
titles and all those arms? Of what avail are they, when the reason of
the thing tells me that the assertion of my title is the loss of my
suit, and that I could do nothing but wound myself by the use of my own
weapons?

Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute necessity of keeping up
the concord of this empire by a unity of spirit, though in a diversity
of operations, that, if I were sure the colonists had, at their leaving
this country, sealed a regular compact of servitude, that they had
solemnly abjured all the rights of citizens, that they had made a vow to
renounce all ideas of liberty for them and their posterity to all
generations, yet I should hold myself obliged to conform to the temper I
found universally prevalent in my own day, and to govern two million of
men, impatient of servitude, on the principles of freedom. I am not
determining a point of law; I am restoring tranquillity: and the general
character and situation of a people must determine what sort of
government is fitted for them. That point nothing else can or ought to
determine.

My idea, therefore, without considering whether we yield as matter of
right or grant as matter of favor, is, _to admit the people of our
colonies into an interest in the Constitution_, and, by recording that
admission in the journals of Parliament, to give them as strong an
assurance as the nature of the thing will admit that we mean forever to
adhere to that solemn declaration of systematic indulgence.

Some years ago, the repeal of a revenue act, upon its understood
principle, might have served to show that we intended an unconditional
abatement of the exercise of a taxing power. Such a measure was then
sufficient to remove all suspicion and to give perfect content. But
unfortunate events since that time may make something further
necessary,--and not more necessary for the satisfaction of the colonies
than for the dignity and consistency of our own future proceedings.

I have taken a very incorrect measure of the disposition of the House,
if this proposal in itself would be received with dislike. I think, Sir,
we have few American financiers. But our misfortune is, we are too
acute, we are too exquisite in our conjectures of the future, for men
oppressed with such great and present evils. The more moderate among the
opposers of Parliamentary concession freely confess that they hope no
good from taxation; but they apprehend the colonists have further views,
and if this point were conceded, they would instantly attack the trade
laws. These gentlemen are convinced that this was the intention from the
beginning, and the quarrel of the Americans with taxation was no more
than a cloak and cover to this design. Such has been the language even
of a gentleman[23] of real moderation, and of a natural temper well
adjusted to fair and equal government. I am, however, Sir, not a little
surprised at this kind of discourse, whenever I hear it; and I am the
more surprised on account of the arguments which I constantly find in
company with it, and which are often urged from the same mouths and on
the same day.

For instance, when we allege that it is against reason to tax a people
under so many restraints in trade as the Americans, the noble lord[24]
in the blue riband shall tell you that the restraints on trade are
futile and useless, of no advantage to us, and of no burden to those on
whom they are imposed,--that the trade to America is not secured by the
Acts of Navigation, but by the natural and irresistible advantage of a
commercial preference.

Such is the merit of the trade laws in this posture of the debate. But
when strong internal circumstances are urged against the taxes,--when
the scheme is dissected,--when experience and the nature of things are
brought to prove, and do prove, the utter impossibility of obtaining an
effective revenue from the colonies,--when these things are pressed, or
rather press themselves, so as to drive the advocates of colony taxes to
a clear admission of the futility of the scheme,--then, Sir, the
sleeping trade laws revive from their trance, and this useless taxation
is to be kept sacred, not for its own sake, but as a counter-guard and
security of the laws of trade.

Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which are mischievous in order to
preserve trade laws that are useless. Such is the wisdom of our plan in
both its members. They are separately given up as of no value; and yet
one is always to be defended for the sake of the other. But I cannot
agree with the noble lord, nor with the pamphlet from whence he seems to
have borrowed these ideas concerning the inutility of the trade laws.
For, without idolizing them, I am sure they are still, in many ways, of
great use to us; and in former times they have been of the greatest.
They do confine, and they do greatly narrow, the market for the
Americans. But my perfect conviction of this does not help me in the
least to discern how the revenue laws form any security whatsoever to
the commercial regulations,--or that these commercial regulations are
the true ground of the quarrel,--or that the giving way, in any one
instance, of authority is to lose all that may remain unconceded.

One fact is clear and indisputable: the public and avowed origin of this
quarrel was on taxation. This quarrel has, indeed, brought on new
disputes on new questions, but certainly the least bitter, and the
fewest of all, on the trade laws. To judge which of the two be the real,
radical cause of quarrel, we have to see whether the commercial dispute
did, in order of time, precede the dispute on taxation. There is not a
shadow of evidence for it. Next, to enable us to judge whether at this
moment a dislike to the trade laws be the real cause of quarrel, it is
absolutely necessary to put the taxes out of the question by a repeal.
See how the Americans act in this position, and then you will be able to
discern correctly what is the true object of the controversy, or whether
any controversy at all will remain. Unless you consent to remove this
cause of difference, it is impossible, with decency, to assert that the
dispute is not upon what it is avowed to be. And I would, Sir, recommend
to your serious consideration, whether it be prudent to form a rule for
punishing people, not on their own acts, but on your conjectures. Surely
it is preposterous, at the very best. It is not justifying your anger
by their misconduct, but it is converting your ill-will into their
delinquency.

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