The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 575 pages of information about The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12).

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 575 pages of information about The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12).

Sir, all or most of these things must be done.  Every one must take his part.  If we should be able, by dexterity, or power, or intrigue, to disappoint the expectations of our constituents, what will it avail us?  We shall never be strong or artful enough to parry, or to put by, the irresistible demands of our situation.  That situation calls upon us, and upon our constituents too, with a voice which will be heard.  I am sure no man is more zealously attached than I am to the privileges of this House, particularly in regard to the exclusive management of money.  The Lords have no right to the disposition, in any sense, of the public purse; but they have gone further in self-denial[46] than our utmost jealousy could have required.  A power of examining accounts, to censure, correct, and punish, we never, that I know of, have thought of denying to the House of Lords.  It is something more than a century since we voted that body useless:  they have now voted themselves so.  The whole hope of reformation is at length cast upon us; and let us not deceive the nation, which does us the honor to hope everything from our virtue.  If all the nation are not equally forward to press this duty upon us, yet be assured that they all equally expect we should perform it.  The respectful silence of those who wait upon your pleasure ought to be as powerful with you as the call of those who require your service as their right.  Some, without doors, affect to feel hurt for your dignity, because they suppose that menaces are held out to you.  Justify their good opinion by showing that no menaces are necessary to stimulate you to your duty.  But, Sir, whilst we may sympathize with them in one point who sympathize with us in another, we ought to attend no less to those who approach us like men, and who, in the guise of petitioners, speak to us in the tone of a concealed authority.  It is not wise to force them to speak out more plainly what they plainly mean.—­But the petitioners are violent.  Be it so.  Those who are least anxious about your conduct are not those that love you most.  Moderate affection and satiated enjoyment are cold and respectful; but an ardent and injured passion is tempered up with wrath, and grief, and shame, and conscious worth, and the maddening sense of violated right.  A jealous love lights his torch from the firebrands of the furies.  They who call upon you to belong wholly to the people are those who wish you to return to your proper home,—­to the sphere of your duty, to the post of your honor, to the mansion-house of all genuine, serene, and solid satisfaction.  We have furnished to the people of England (indeed we have) some real cause of jealousy.  Let us leave that sort of company which, if it does not destroy our innocence, pollutes our honor; let us free ourselves at once from everything that can increase their suspicions and inflame their just resentment; let us cast away from us, with a generous scorn, all

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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.