Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  I believe very few were able to enter into the effects of mere terrour, as a principle not only for the support of power in given hands or forms, but in those things in which the soundest political Speculators were of opinion, that the least appearance of force would be totally destructive, — such is the the market, whether of money, provision, or commodities of any kind. Yet for four years we have seen loans made, treasuries supplied, and armies levied and maintained, more numerous than France ever shewed in the field, by the effects of fear alone.

  Here is a state of things of which, in its totality, if history furnishes any examples at all, they are very remote and feeble. I therefore am not so ready as some are, to tax with folly or cowardice, those who were not prepared to meet an evil of this nature. Even now, after the events, all the causes may be somewhat difficult to ascertain. Very many are however traceable. But these things history and books of speculation (as I have already said) did not teach men to foresee, and of course to resist. Now that they are no longer a matter of sagacity, but of experience, of recent experience, of our own experience, it would be unjustifiable to go back to the records of other times, to instruct us to manage what they never enabled us to foresee.

  APPENDIX. EXTRACTS FROM VATTEL’S LAW OF NATIONS.

  [The Titles, marginal Abstracts and Notes, are by Mr. BURKE, excepting such of the Notes as are here distinguished.]

  CASES OF INTERFERENCE WITH INDEPENDENT POWERS.

  BOOK II. CHAP. IV. § 53.

  IF then there is any where a Nation of a restless and mischievous disposition, always ready to injure others, to traverse their designs, and to raise domestic troubles, it is not to be doubted, that all have a right to join in order to repress, chastise, and put it ever after out of its power to injure them. Such should be the just fruits of the policy which Machiavel praises in Caesar Borgia. The conduct followed by Philip II. king of Spain, was adapted to unite all Europe against him; and it was from just reasons that Henry the Great formed the design of humbling a power, formidable by its forces, and pernicious by its maxims.

  § 70. Let us apply to the unjust, what we have said above (§ 53), of a mischievous, or maleficent Nation. If there be any that makes an open profession of trampling Justice under foot, of despising and violating the right ofothers, whenever it finds an opportunity, the interest of human society will authorize all others to unite, in order to humble and chastise it. We do not here forget the maxim established in our preliminaries, that it does not belong to nations to usurp the power of being judges of each other. In particular cases, liable to the least doubt, it ought to be supposed, that each of the parties may have some right: and the injustice of that which has committed the injury, may proceed from error, and not from a general contempt of justice. But if, by constant maxims, and by a continued conduct, one Nations shews, that it has evidently this pernicious disposition, and that it considers no right as sacred, the safety of the human Race requires that it should be suppressed. To form and support an unjust pretension, is to do an injury not only to him who is interested in this pretension, but to mock at justice in general, and to injure all Nations.

  § 56. If the Prince, attacking the fundamental laws, gives his subjects a legal right to resist him; if Tyranny, becoming insupportable, obliges the Nation to rise in their defence; every foreign power has a right to succour an oppressed people who implore their assistance. The English justly complained of James the Second. The Nobility, and the most distinguished Patriots, resolved to put a check on his enterprizes, which manifestly tended to overthrow the Constitution, and to destroy the liberties and the religion of the people; and therefore applied for assistance to the United Provinces. The authority of the Prince of Orange had, doubtless, an influence on the deliberations of the States-General; but it did not make them commit injustice; for when a people, from good reasons, take up arms against an Oppressor, justice and generosity require, that brave men should be assisted in the defence of their liberties.Whenever, therefore, a civil war is kindled in a state, foreign powers may assist that party which appears to them to have justice on their side. He who assists an odious Tyrant; he who declares FOR AN UNJUST AND REBELLIOUS PEOPLE, offends against his duty. When the bands of the political society are broken, or at least suspended between the Sovereign and his people, they may then be considered as two distinct powers; and since each is independent of all foreign authority, nobody has a right to judge them. Either may be in the right; and each of those who grant their assistance may believe that he supports a good cause. It follows then, in virtue of the voluntary Law of Nations, (see Prelim. § 21) that the two parties may act as having an equal right, and behave accordingly, till the decision of the affair.

  But we ought not to abuse this maxim for authorizing odious proceedings against the tranquility of states. It is a violation of the Law of Nations to persuade those subjects to revolt who actually obey their Sovereign, though they complain of his Government.

  The practice of Nations is conformable to our maxims. When the German Protestants came to the assistance of the reformed in France, the Court never undertook to treat them otherwise than as common enemies, and according to the Laws of War. France at the same time assisted the Netherlands, which took up arms against Spain, and did not pretend that her troops should be considered upon any other footing than as auxiliaries in a regular war. But no power avoids complaining of an atrocious injury, if any one attempts by his emissaries to excite his subjects to revolt.

  As to those Monsters who, under the title of Sovereigns, render themselves the scourges and horror of the human race; these are savage Beasts, from which every brave man may justly purge the Earth. All antiquity has praised Hercules for delivering the world from an Antaeus, a Busiris, and a Diomedes.

  Book 4. Cha. § 14. After stating, that nations have no right to interfere in domestick concerns, he proceeds —

  “But this rule does not preclude them from espousing the quarrel of a dethroned King, and assisting him, if he appears to have justice on his side. They then declare themselves enemies to the Nation who has acknowledged his rival, as when two different Nations are at war they are at liberty to assist that whose quarrel they think has the fairest appearance.”

  CASE OF ALLIANCES.

  BOOK II. CHAP. XII. § 196.

  IT is asked if that Alliance subsists with the King and the Royal Family, when by some Revolution they are deprived of their Crown? We have lately remarked, (§ 194) that a personal alliance expires with the reign of him who contracted it: but that is to be understood of an alliance with the state, limited as to its duration, to the reign of the contracting King. This, of which we are here speaking, is of another nature. For though it binds the state, since it is bound by all the public acts of its Sovereign, it is made directly in favour of the King and his Family; it would therefore be absurd for it to terminate at the moment when they have need of it, and at an event against which it was made.Besides, the King. does not lose his quality merely by the loss of his kingdom. If he is stripped of it unjustly ly an Usurper, or by Rebels, he preserves his rights, in the number of which are his alliances.

  But who shall judge, if the King be dethroned lawfully or by violence? An independent Nation acknowledges no judge. If the Body of the Nation declares the King deprived of his rights by the abuse he has made of them, and deposes him, it may justly do it when its grievantes are well founded, and no other power has a right to censure it. The personal Ally of this King, ought not then to assist him against the Nation that has made use of its right in deposing him: if he attempts it, he injures that Nation. England declared war against Louis the XIVth, in the year 1688, for supporting the interest of James the Second, who was deposed in form by the Nation. The same country declared war against him a second time, at the beginning of the present century, because that Prince acknowledged the son of the deposed James, under the name of James the Third. In doubtful cases, and when the Body of the Nation has not pronounced, or HAS NOT PRONOUNCED FREELY, a Sovereign m
ay naturally support and defend an Ally, and it is then that the voluntary Law of Nations subsists between different states. The party that has driven out the King, pretends to have right on its side: this unhappy King and his Ally, flatter themselves with having the same advantage, and as they have no common judge upon earth, they have no other method to take but to apply to arms to terminate the dispute: they therefore engage in a formal war.

  In short, when the foreign Prince has faithfully fulfilled his engagements towards an unfortunate Monarch, when he has done in his defence, or to procure his restoration, all he was obliged to perform, in virtue of the alliance; if his efforts are ineffectual, the dethroned Prince cannot require him to support an endless war in his favour, or expect that he will eternally remain the Enemy of the Nation, or of the Sovereign who has deprived him of the Throne. He must think of peace, abandon the Ally, and consider him as having himself abandoned his right, through necessity. Thus Louis XIV. was obliged to abandon James the Second, and to acknowledge K. William, though he had at first treated him as an Usurper.

  The same question presents itself in real alliances, and in general, in all alliances made with the state, and not in particular with a King for the defence of his person. An Ally ought, doubtless, to be defended against every invasion, against every foreign violence, and even against his rebellious subjects; in the same manner a Republick ought to be defended against the enterprizes of one who attempts to destroy the public liberty. But it ought to be remembered, that an Ally of the State, or the Nation, is not its Judge. If the Nation has deposed its King in form; if the people of a Republick have driven out their Magistrates, and set themselves at liberty, or acknowledged the authority of an Usurper, either expressly or tacitly; to oppose these domestick regulations, by disputing their justice or validity, would be to interfere in the Government of the Nation, and to do it an injury, (see § 54, and following of this book). The Ally remains the Ally of the State, notwithstanding the change that has happened in it. However, when this change renders the alliance useless, dangerous or disagreeable, it may renounce it: for it may say, upon a good foundation, that it would not have entered into an alliance with that Nation, had it been under the present form of Government.

  We may say here, what we have said on a personal alliance: however just the cause of that King may be, who is driven from the throne, either by his subjects or by a foreign usurper; his Allies are not obliged to support an eternal war in his favour. After having made ineffectual efforts to restore him, they must at length give peace to their people, and come to an accommodation with the Usurper, and for that purpose treat with him as with a lawful Sovereign. Louis XIV. exhausted by a bloody and unsuccessful war, offered at Gertruidenburg to abandon his grandson, whom he had placed on the throne of Spain: and when affairs had changed their appearance, Charles of Austria, the rival of Philip, saw himself, in his turn, abandoned by his Allies. They grew weary of exhausting their states, in order to give him the possession of a Crown, which they believed to be his due, but which, to all appearance, they should never be able to procure for him.

  DANGEROUS POWER

  BOOK III. CHAP. III. § 45.

  IT is still easier to prove, that should this formidable Power betray any unjust and ambitious dispositions, by doing the least injustice to another, every Nation may avail themselves of the occasion, and join their forces to those of the party injured, in order to reduce that ambitious Power, and disable it from so easily oppressing its neighbours, or keeping them in continual awe and fear. For an injury gives a Nation a right to provide for its future safety, by taking away from the violator the means of oppression. It is lawful, and even praise-worthy, to assist those who are oppressed, or unjustly attacked.

  SYSTEM OF EUROPE.

  § 47. Europe forms a political system, a body, where the whole is connected by the relations and different interests of Nations inhabiting this part of the world. It is not, as anciently, a confused heap of detached pieces, each of which thought itself very little concerned in the fate of others, and seldom regarded things which did immediately relate to it. The continual attention of Sovereigns to what is on the carpet, the constant residence of ministers, and the perpetual negociations, make Europe a kind of a Republick, the members of which, though independent, unite, through the ties of common interest, for the maintenance of order and liberty. Hence arose that famous scheme of the political equilibrium, or balance of power; by which is understood such a disposition of things, as no power is able absolutely to predominate, or to prescribe laws to others.

  § 49. Confederacies would be a sure way of preserving the equilibrium, and supporting the liberty of Nations, did all Princes thoroughly understand their true interests, and regulate all their steps for the good of the state.

  CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE ENEMY’S COUNTRY.

  BOOK III. CHAP. IX. § 165.

  INSTEAD of the pillage of the country, and defenceless places, a custom has been substituted more humane and more advantageous to the Sovereign making war: I mean that of contributions. Whoever carries on a just war, has a right of making the enemy’s country contribute to the support of the army, and towards defraying all the charges of the war. Thus he obtains a part of what is due to him, and the subjects of the enemy, on submitting to this imposition, are secured from pillage, and the country is preserved: but a general who would not fully his reputation, is to moderate his contributions, and proportion them to those on whom they are imposed. An excess in this point, is not without the reproach of cruelty and inhumanity: if it shews less ferocity than ravage and destruction, it glares with avarice.

  ASYLUM.

  BOOK I. CHAP. XIX. § 232.

  IF an exile or banished man is driven from his country for any crime, it does not belong to the nation in which he has taken refuge to punish him for a fault committed in a foreign country. For nature gives to mankind and to nations the right of punishing only for their defence and safety; whence it follows that he can only be punished by those whom he has offended.

  §. 233. But this reason shews, that if the justice of each nation ought in general to be confined to the punishment of crimes committed within its own territories, we ought to except from this rule the villains who, by the quality and habitual frequency of their crimes, violate all public security, and declare themselves the enemies of the human race. Poisoners, assassins, and incendiaries by profession, may be exterminated wherever they are seized; for they attack and injure all nations, by trampling under foot the foundations of the common safety. Thus pirates are brought to the gibbet, by the first into whose hands they fall. If the Sovereign of the country where those crimes have been committed reclaims the authors of them, in order to bring them to punishment, they ought to be restored to him, as one who is principally interested in punishing them in an exemplary manner: and it being proper to convict the guilty, and to try them according to some form of law; this is a second [not sole] reason, why malefactors are usually delivered up at the desire of the state where their crimes have been committed.

  Ibid. § 230. Every nation has a right of refusing to admit a stranger into the country, when he cannot enter into it without putting it into evident danger, or without doing it a remarkable prejudice.

  FOREIGN MINISTERS.

  BOOK IV. CHAP. 5. § 66.

  THE obligation does not go so far as to suffer at all times, perpetual Ministers, who are desirous of residing with a Sovereign, though they have nothing to negociate. It is natural, indeed, and very agreeable to the sentiments which nations owe to each other, that these resident Ministers, when there is nothing to be feared from their stay, should be friendly received: but if there be any solid reason against this, what is for the good of the State ought unquestionably to be preferred; and the foreign Sovereign cannot take it amiss if his Minister, who has concluded the affairs of his commission, and has no other affairs to negotiate, be desired to depart. The custom of keeping every where Ministers continually resident, is now so strongly established, that t
he refusal of a conformity to it would, without very good reasons, give offence. These reasons may arise from particular conjunctures; but there are also common reasons always subsisting, and such as relate to the constitution of a Government, and the state of a Nation. The Republicks have often very good reasons of the latter kind, to excuse themselves from continually suffering Foreign Ministers, who corrupt the Citizens, in order to gain them over to their Masters, to the great prejudice of the Republick, and fomenting of the Parties, &c. And should they only diffuse among a Nation, formerly plain, frugal, and virtuous, a taste for luxury, avidity for money, and the manners of courts, these would be more than sufficient for wise and provident Rulers to dismiss them.

  FINIS.

  THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY