Viscount Bryce reflects on how modern nation states which achieved their own freedom through struggle are not sympathetic to the similar struggles of other repressed peoples (1901)
About this Quotation:
Viscount Bryce, an acute observer of American and European affairs, notes that nations like the U.S., Germany, and France, which achieved their national independence via war or revolution, are much less sympathetic in 1901 to the plight of other oppressed peoples who also wish to achieve national freedom and independence, often from European or American domination. The specific case he cites is the United States and its actions in the Philippines between 1898-1901 and wonders how this squares with the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
Other quotes from this week:
- 2009: Lysander Spooner argues that according to the traditional English common law, taxation would not be upheld because no explicit consent was given by individuals to be taxed (1852)
- 2009: Captain John Clarke asserts the right of all men to vote in the formation of a new constitution by right of the property they have in themselves (1647)
- 2008: Alexis de Tocqueville stood up in the Constituent Assembly to criticize socialism as a violation of human nature, property rights, and individual liberty (1848)
- 2008: Edward Gibbon gloomily observed that in a unified empire like the Roman there was nowhere to escape, whereas with a multiplicity of states there were always gaps and interstices to hide in (1776)
- 2006: Adam Ferguson observed that social structures of all kinds were not “the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design” (1782)
- 2005: The Australian radical liberal Bruce Smith lays down some very strict rules which should govern the actions of any legislator (1887)
- 2004: Sir Edward Coke defends British Liberties and the Idea of Habeas Corpus in the Petition of Right before Parliament (1628)
Other quotes about Politics & Liberty:
- 2009: The Abbé de Mably argues with John Adams about the dangers of a “commercial elite” seizing control of the new Republic and using it to their own advantage (1785)
- 2009: Samuel Smiles on how an idle, thriftless, or drunken man can, and should, improve himself through self-help and not by means of the state (1859).
- 2009: John Adams thought he could see arbitrary power emerging in the American colonies and urged his countrymen to “nip it in the bud” before they lost all their liberties (1774)
- 2009: Benjamin Constant distinguished between the Liberty of the Ancients (“the complete subjection of the individual to the authority of the community”) and that of the Moderns (“where individual rights and commerce are respected”) (1816)
- 2009: Edward Gibbon called the loss of independence and excessive obedience the "secret poison" which corrupted the Roman Empire (1776)
- 2009: Étienne de la Boétie provides one of the earliest and clearest explanations of why the suffering majority obeys the minority who rule over them; it is an example of voluntary servitude (1576)
- 2009: Sir William Blackstone differentiates between “absolute rights” of individuals (natural rights which exist prior to the state) and social rights (contractural rights which evolve later) (1753)
- 2009: John Stuart Mill on the need for limited government and political rights to prevent the “king of the vultures” and his “minor harpies” in the government from preying on the people (1859)
- 2009: Mercy Otis Warren asks why people are so willing to obey the government and answers that it is supineness, fear of resisting, and the long habit of obedience (1805)
- 2008: James Madison on the need for the “separation of powers” because “men are not angels,” Federalist 51 (1788)
- 2008: James Madison on the mischievous effects of mutable government in The Federalist no. 62 (1788)
- 2007: Augustin Thierry laments that the steady growth of liberty in France had been disrupted by the cataclysm of the French Revolution (1859)
- 2007: Herbert Spencer concludes from his principle of equal freedom that individuals have the Right to Ignore the State (1851)
- 2006: Condorcet writes about the inevitability of the spread of liberty and prosperity while he was in prison awaiting execution by the Jacobins (1796)
- 2006: Catharine Macaulay supported the French Revolution because there were sound "public choice" reasons for not vesting supreme power in the hands of one’s social or economic "betters" (1790)
- 2006: Montesquieu was fascinated by the liberty which was enjoyed in England, which he attributed to security of person and the rule of law (1748)
- 2006: Edward Gibbon wonders if Europe will avoid the same fate as the Roman Empire, collapse brought on as a result of prosperity, corruption, and military conquest (1776)
- 2006: J.S. Mill was convinced he was living in a time when he would experience an explosion of classical liberal reform because “the sprit of the age” had dramatically changed (1831)
- 2005: The Australian radical liberal Bruce Smith lays down some very strict rules which should govern the actions of any legislator (1887)
- 2005: John Milton gave a speech before Parliament defending the right of freedom of speech in which he likened the government censors to an “oligarchy” and free speech to a “flowery crop of knowledge” (1644)
- 2005: David Hume ponders why the many can be governed so easily by the few and concludes that both force and opinion play a role (1777)
- 2005: William Emerson, in his oration to commemorate the Declaration of Independence, reminded his listeners of the “unconquerable sense of liberty” which Americans had (1802)
- 2005: Edmund Burke asks a key question of political theory: quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (how is one to be defended against the very guardians who have been appointed to guard us?) (1756)
- 2005: Andrew Fletcher believed that too many people were deceived by the “ancient terms and outwards forms” of their government but had in fact lost their ancient liberties (1698)
- 2004: David Hume argued that Individual Liberty emerged slowly out of the “violent system of government” which had earlier prevailed in Europe (1778)
- 2004: Bernhard Knollenberg on the Belief of many colonial Americans that Liberty was lost because the Leaders of the People had failed in their Duty (2003)
- 2004: Adam Smith on the Dangers of sacrificing one’s Liberty for the supposed benefits of the “lordly servitude of a court” (1759)
- 2004: Richard Price on the true Nature of Love of One’s Country (1789)
- 2004: George Washington on the Difference between Commercial and Political Relations with other Countries (1796)
20 August, 2007
 | Viscount Bryce reflects on how modern nation states which achieved their own freedom through struggle are not sympathetic to the similar struggles of other repressed peoples (1901) |
Viscont James Bryce in an essay on "Obedience" which appeared in 1901 notes that countries which have already achieved their national freedom no longer respect the struggles of others to maintain theirs:
Peoples which have achieved their own national freedom show no more disposition than did the tyrants of old time to respect the struggles of other peoples to maintain theirs. The sympathy which Germans and Frenchmen used to feel for the oppressed races of the East has disappeared. France has ceased to care about the Cretans or the Poles. England, whose heart went out forty years ago to all who strove for freedom and independence, feels no compunction in blotting out two little republics whose citizens have fought with a valour and constancy never surpassed. The United States ignore the principles of their Declaration of Independence when they proceed to subjugate by force the Philippine Islanders. The modern ideal is no longer liberty, but military strength and commercial development.
The full passage from which this quotation was taken can be be viewed below (front page quote in bold):
There is less love of liberty—so our pessimist pursues—than there used to be, perhaps less value set upon the right of a man to express unpopular opinions. There is less sympathy in each country for the struggles which are maintained for freedom in other countries. National antagonisms are as strong as ever they were, and nations seem quite as willing as in the old days of tyranny to forgo domestic progress for the sake of strengthening their militant force against their rivals. There is less faith in, less regard for, that which used to be called the principle of nationality. Peoples which have achieved their own national freedom show no more disposition than did the tyrants of old time to respect the struggles of other peoples to maintain theirs. The sympathy which Germans and Frenchmen used to feel for the oppressed races of the East has disappeared. France has ceased to care about the Cretans or the Poles. England, whose heart went out forty years ago to all who strove for freedom and independence, feels no compunction in blotting out two little republics whose citizens have fought with a valour and constancy never surpassed. The United States ignore the principles of their Declaration of Independence when they proceed to subjugate by force the Philippine Islanders. The modern ideal is no longer liberty, but military strength and commercial development.