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Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797

"The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12)"


From my best observation, I should greatly doubt, whether, in the end,
these gentlemen would obtain their object, so as to make the exclusion
of two millions of their countrymen a fundamental article in the union.
The demand would be of a nature quite unprecedented. You might obtain
the union; and yet a gentleman, who, under the new union establishment,
would aspire to the honor of representing his county, might possibly be
as much obliged, as he may fear to be under the old separate
establishment, to the unsupportable mortification of asking his
neighbors, who have a different opinion concerning the elements in the
sacrament, for their votes.
I believe, nay, I am sure, that the people of Great Britain, with or
without an union, might be depended upon, in oases of any real danger,
to aid the government of Ireland, with the same cordiality as they would
support their own, against any wicked attempts to shake the security of
the happy Constitution in Church and State. But before Great Britain
engages in any quarrel, the _cause of the dispute_ would certainly be a
part of her consideration.


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