Edmund Burke 1729-1797 Anglo-Irish conservative British writer:

1790 Reflections on the Revolution in France “Manifesto of the Counter Revolution”

1. Attack on “natural right” theories of the Enlightenment, defense of “inherited rights”
as basis of the English Revolution of 1688:

“The Revolution (of 1688 in England) was made to preserve our ancient, indisputable laws and liberties,
and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty… The very idea of a
new government is enough to fill us with disgust and horror. We wished at the period of the Revolution [1688]
and do now wish, to derive all we possess as an inheritance from our forefathers. All the reformations we have
hitherto made, have proceeded upon the principle of reference to antiquity….In the Petition of Right submitted to
Charles I, the Parliament says to the King ‘Your subjects have inherited this freedom,’ claiming their franchises not
on abstract principles such as ‘the rights of man,’ but as the rights of Englishmen,and as a patrimony derived from t
heir forefathers….They preferred this positive, recorded, hereditary title… to that vague speculative idea of ‘natural right.’”

2. Defense of hierarchy, aristocratic distaste for levelling, democratic trend in society,
defense of property against ability: .

“Nothing is a due and adequate representation of a state that does not represent its ability as well as its property.
But since ability is a vigorous and active principle, and since property is sluggish, inert, and timid, it never can be safe from
the invasions of ability, unless it be out of all proportion predominant in the representation. The characteristic essence of
property, formed out of the combined principles of its acquisition and conservation, is to be unequal. Some decent regulated
preeminence, some preference (though not exclusive) given to birth is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic.

It is said that 24 million people [population of France in 1790] ought to prevail over two hundred thousand [Burke’s estimate
of French nobility]. True, if the constitution of a kingdom be a problem in arithmetic…. Is every landmark of the country to be done
away with in favor of a geometrical and arithmetical constitution? Are all orders, ranks and distinctions to be confounded?”

3. Chivalric defense of Royalty:

“History will record, that on the morning of the 6th of October 1789, the King and Queen of France, after a day of confusion,
alarm, dismay and slaughter lay down under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of untroubled melancholy
repose. From this sleep the Queen was first startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her to save herself by flight,
and that this was the last proof of fidelity he could give, that they were upon him and he was dead. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins,
reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the Queen, and pierced with a hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed, from
whence this persecuted woman had but just time to fly almost naked, and had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a King and husband, not
secure of his own life for a moment….

Little did I dream that I should live to see such disasters fallen upon her [the Queen] in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of
honor and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with
insult. But the age of chivalry is gone….Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission. That
dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom…

All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off… Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle.”