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15 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: assemblies, councils, and senates · political legitimacy and consent · forms of government · justice as a virtue · crime and punishment · act of indemnity · strategy and the aims of war · naval warfare and sea power · elections and representation · counsel and advisers to rulers · censorship and the press · treaties, truces, and peacemaking
Usually: skepticism (7) · argument (5) · curiosity (5) · record or table (3) · injustice endured (3) · censure (3) · detachment (3) · narrative (2) · reflection (2) · exhortation (2)
“Peace by treaty is only a cessation of violence for a reformation of sentiment.” Thomas Paine, The Writings of Thomas Paine — Volume 1 (1774-1779): · insight
“In private life we call it by the plain name of bullying, and the elevation of rank cannot alter its character.” Thomas Paine, The Writings of Thomas Paine — Volume 1 (1774-1779): · observation
“To say that the constitution of England is a union of three powers reciprocally checking each other, is farcical, either the words have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions.” Thomas Paine, Common Sense · wit
“I hope he sees and feels, and that every member sees and feels along with him, the difference between amicable dissent and civil discord.” Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speeches · precept
“As all government stands upon opinion, they know that the way utterly to destroy it is to remove that opinion, to take away all reverence, all confidence from it; and then, at the first blast of public discontent and popular tumult, it tumbles to the ground.” Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speeches · insight
“So you moved from Henley to Maidenhead! You were determined not to lose sight of the Thames.” David Ricardo, Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Robert Malthus, 1 · wit
“Even the debates about Act should express the time from six at night to six in the morning, whereby the prohibition of night-work came to mean the limitation of working-hours to twelve, including free hours, or ten hours of actual work a day.” Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 184 · observation
“The new bill was exactly the old Twelve Hours' Bill with some changes of form, and the same House of Commons which had rejected the principal points of this bill in March, now swallowed it whole.” Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 184 · observation
Samuel Pepys stands in a balcony to watch people in the street, then converses with Mr. Coventry about Sir G. Carteret, Jersey’s provisioning, and court politics involving the Chancellor.
streets full of people. I stood in Mr. --'s balcone. They dine all at my Lord Mayor's; but what he do for victualls, or room for them, I know not. 24th. To St.James's,and there an hour's private discourse with Mr. Coventry; he speaking of Sir G. Carteret slightly, and diminishing of his services for the King in Jersey; that he was well rewarded, and had good lands and rents, and other profits from the King, all the…
Pepys reports Chatham-related business is going well in the House and notes Laurence Hyde’s Roman-style remark about prosecuting Lord Chancellor Clarendon if only one charge were true.
instrumentall musick. Here was the King and Queene, and some of the ladies; among whom none more jolly than my Lady Buckingham, her Lord being once more a great man. 19th. I was told this day that Lory Hide, [Laurence Hyde, Master of the Robes, afterwards created Earl of Rochester.] second son of my Lord Chancellor, did some time since in the House say, that if he thought his father was guilty but of one of the th…
Pepys attends Royal Society officer elections and observes a bloodletting procedure, then continues noting Commons likely to yield or force Clarendon’s commitment, including a fear of falling into a Commonwealth.
peace for what he had done; for that he never could foresee that what he meant so well, in the counselling to lay by the Chancellor, should come to this. 30th. To Arundell House, to the election of officers [Of the Royal Society.] for the next year; where I was near being chosen of the Council, but am glad I was not, for I could not have attended, though above all things I could wish it; and do take it as a mighty…
Pepys records Commons and Lords debates over the Act of Indemnity, especially the case of “Carr” and the disgrace of Lord Gerard, including the pillory ordered without reopening evidence he says was cleared in court.
plain fellow for my sister; though I shall, I see, have no pleasure nor content in him, as if he had been a man of reading and parts, like Cumberland. 8th. The great talk is of Carr's coming off in all his trials, to the disgrace of my Lord Gerard to that degree, and the ripping up of so many notorious rogueries and cheats of my Lord's, that my Lord, it is thought, will be ruined: and above all do show the madness…
Citing Great Britain’s House of Commons, Madison argues that even with relatively small representative proportions, freedom was preserved, concluding that about one representative per thirty thousand inhabitants will be safe and competent.
fuller representation. The foresight of the convention has accordingly taken care that the progress of population may be accompanied with a proper increase of the representative branch of the government. The experience of Great Britain, which presents to mankind so many political lessons, both of the monitory and exemplary kind, and which has been frequently consulted in the course of these inquiries, corroborates t…
Paine attacks the English constitution as a complicated mix of hereditary monarchy, aristocratic peerage, and commons, claiming none truly serve freedom because hereditary powers cannot be trusted or checked consistently.
Thirdly.--The new republican materials, in the persons of the commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England. The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people; wherefore in a constitutional sense they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the state. To say that the constitution of England is a union of three powers reciprocally checking each other, is farcical, either the words have n…
Paine argues that England’s “national honor” is wrongly understood and causes bullying and war, citing Admiral Saunders’s remark about Madrid; he contrasts England’s harshness toward America with the “mother country” title’s supposed tenderness.
dismiss this part of my address, I shall mention one more circumstance in which I think the people of England have been equally mistaken: and then proceed to other matters. There is such an idea existing in the world, as that of national honor, and this, falsely understood, is oftentimes the cause of war. In a Christian and philosophical sense, mankind seem to have stood still at individual civilization, and to reta…
Paine claims England’s leaders should have avoided war with America and instead used the prestige from the last war, arguing British politics at St. James’s is driven by corruption, precedent, and a lack of understanding of human passions.
to suppose that the world can admire a want of humanity or that national honor depends on the violence of resentment, the inflexibility of temper, or the vengeance of execution. I would willingly convince you, and that with as much temper as the times will suffer me to do, that as you opposed your own interest by quarrelling with us, so likewise your national honor, rightly conceived and understood, was no ways call…
Engels recounts a parliamentary session over the Masters' and Servants' legislation and factory working hours, arguing that debates on night-work were treated as merely a twelve-hour limit and then reversed by the ministry.
Philanthropy, 27, 28, 88, 173, 212, 278. Police, 132, 221, 225, 226, 281, 282. Reform Bill, ix., 17, 214, 229, 285. Reserve Army, 85, 90. Schools--Day, 110, *et seq*. 173, 200, 207, 250. Night, 110, 250. Sunday, 111, 202, 250. Socialism, vi., vii., xii., 122, 236, *et seq*. 275, 297. Starvation, 25, 29, 73, 76, 88, 117, 167, 189, 285. Strikes, ix., xiv., xv., 168, 215, 218, 223, 224, 231, 254, 256, 257. …
In the House of Commons, Burke argues for conciliation with America after the return of a penal bill, framing peace as reconciliation through concession and urging careful government based on America’s population and circumstances.
3. Burke. John Morley. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 4. History of the English People. Green. Vol. IV., pp 193-271. 5 History of Civilization in England. Buckle. Vol I, pp. 326-338 6. The American Revolution. Fiske. Vol. I, Chaps. I., II. 7. Life of Johnson. Boswell. (Use the Index) EDMUND BURKE ON MOVING HIS RESOLUTIONS FOR CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES. HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 22, 1775 I hope, Sir, that notwith…
Burke discusses fears about aristocratic power and insists that new legislative or royal actions should worry free people, but he rejects labeling peer influence as purely aristocratic rather than rooted in popular importance.
our own, to hear arguments convincing indeed, before we depart from the maxims of that reign, or fly in the face of this great body of strong and recent experience. One of the principal topics which was then, and has been since, much employed by that political school, is an effectual terror of the growth of an aristocratic power, prejudicial to the rights of the Crown, and the balance of the constitution. Any new p…
Burke advises trying reforms first and then judging results, disputes a reformer’s tone by contrasting “amicable dissent” with “civil discord,” and then pivots into his later June 1784 speech on reform of representation.
try them first, see how the House relishes them, see how they will operate in the nation; and then, having felt your way, you will be prepared against these inconveniences. The honourable gentleman sees that I respect the principle upon which he goes, as well as his intentions and his abilities. He will believe that I do not differ from him wantonly, and on trivial grounds. He is very sure that it was not his embr…
Ricardo writes from Gatcomb Park to Malthus, explaining he delayed his reply but has agreed to write for the Encyclopedia Britannica on the Sinking Fund, and he teases Malthus about his Thames-focused move.
Ever truly yours, D. RICARDO. NOTE.--Between this letter and the next come probably the two quoted by McCulloch (Ricardo, Works, p. XXVI), to whom (if not to Mill) they were no doubt addressed: 7th April, 1819, 'You will have seen that I have taken my seat in the House of Commons. I fear that I shall be of little use there. I have twice attempted to speak; but I proceeded in the most embarrassed …
Mill explains why he resisted entering Parliament: he believes candidates should not pay election expenses, since doing so effectively buys seats and excludes independent candidates.
and the People's Editions have begun to yield me a small but unexpected pecuniary return, though very far from an equivalent for the diminution of profit from the Library Editions. In this summary of my outward life I have now arrived at the period at which my tranquil and retired existence as a writer of books was to be exchanged for the less congenial occupation of a member of the House of Commons. The proposal ma…
In extended audiences, Gulliver delivers a structured, admiring description of England’s two-island dominions, parliament (House of Peers and House of Commons), bishops, courts, treasury, forces, and recent history for about a hundred years.
the tongue of Demosthenes or Cicero, that might have enabled me to celebrate the praise of my own dear native country in a style equal to its merits and felicity. I began my discourse by informing his majesty, that our dominions consisted of two islands, which composed three mighty kingdoms, under one sovereign, beside our plantations in America. I dwelt long upon the fertility of our soil, and the temperature of ou…