_Appendix_ 2
CAUSES FOR THE AMERICAN SPIRIT OF LIBERTY
(From the _Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies_)
By EDMUND BURKE
In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating
feature which marks and distinguishes the whole; and as an ardent is
always a jealous affection, your Colonies become suspicious, restive, and
untractable whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by
force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only advantage
worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English
Colonies probably than in any other people of the earth, and this from a
great variety of powerful causes; which, to understand the true temper of
their minds and the direction which this spirit takes, it will not be
amiss to lay open somewhat more largely.
First, the people of the Colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England,
Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her
freedom. The Colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character
was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment
they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to
liherty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English
principles.
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