The object of the war [of Spanish Succession], the containment of Louis XIV and French power, had been secured as far as the Tories were concerned. But the Dutch, the Emperor, and Marlborough wanted more. The French must be driven from Spain. “No peace without Spain” became the Whig cry. But the patience of the country esquires was exhausted. Tory opposition to the war became a political outlet for their grievances against what the Tory writers called the “modern Whigs.” The modern Whig with his war and his new financial order was undermining the country. Land taxes, national debt, the Bank, the moneyed corporation, stockjobbers, the Dutch-Emperor alliance, redcoats trudging through foreign lands–all were sponsored and defended by the “modern Whig.” ~Isaac Kramnick, Bolingbroke & His Circle
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September 27th, 2006 at 8:31 am
Maximos
I have to suppose that there are many potential Bolingbrokes in our society. It is merely the case that, upon observing the degradation of our public life in all of its manifold aspects, they have likely retired to private life, realizing that the cause of right order is futile, and that any involvement in so degraded a public sphere would, most probably, only serve to implicate one in the corruption. It may well also be that we have forfeited the capacity to recognize such persons in our public life, broadly conceived. They would probably be dismissed by the chattering classes as “agrarocommunists”, or consigned to the outer, utter darkness where dwell those who look askance at a world dominated by the factional interests of moneyed elites.