Tea at Trianon: States' Rights

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, 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 which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, August 22, 2009

States' Rights

The tradition that nobody knows. An article by Thomas Woods. Share

2 comments:

MadMonarchist said...: I feel for the guy because anytime the word "nullification" comes up people think segregation and there the conversation ends. The War of 1812 ended before things really came to a head on the political front and since the Civil War it is an unspoken truth that states have rights only until they do something the federal government or the majority in the rest of the country disapproves of. It was so on inter-racial marriages, it was so on segregation and likely would have been so on abortion but there was no willingness to wait for the game to play out. It will likely be the same on gay marriage. The whole issue of states rights has been effectively vilified to the point that if states rights are invoked a majority immediately think something unspeakably evil must be afoot and thwarted by the "benevolent" federal government.; August 22, 2009 at 4:44:00 AM EDT
Julygirl said...: Having grown up in the 'South', the importance of States Rights was drummed into our heads in Social Studies and History class. Yes, that was what the Civil War was all about, tragic as it was, and wrong as slavery was. If the New Englanders had been itching for a fight as the Southern States were, there would have been a war much sooner than when the cannons were fired at Fort Sumter.; August 22, 2009 at 8:12:00 AM EDT