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Charles James Fox

Geburtstag: 24. Januar 1749
Todesdatum: 13. September 1806

Charles James Fox war ein britischer Staatsmann und Redner.

Photo: Anton Hickel / Public domain

Zitate Charles James Fox

„Ich sterbe glücklich.“

— Charles James Fox

Letzte Worte, 13. September 1806
Original engl.: "I die happy."

„I stand, said Mr. Fox, upon this great principle. I say that the people of England have a right to control the executive power, by the interference of their representatives in this House of parliament. The right honourable gentleman [William Pitt] maintains the contrary. He is the cause of our political enmity.“

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— Charles James Fox

Speech in the House of Commons (27 February 1786), reprinted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume III (1815), p. 201.
1780s

„…for the truth is, I am gone something further in hate to the English Government than perhaps you and the rest of my friends are, and certainly further than can with prudence be avowed. The triumph of the French Government over the English does in fact afford me a degree of pleasure which it is very difficult to disguise.“

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— Charles James Fox

Letter to Lord Grey (22 October 1801), quoted in E. A. Smith, Lord Grey. 1764-1845 (Alan Sutton, 1996), p. 86.
1800s

„We shall have several hard fights in the H. of Cs. this week and next, in some of which I fear we shall be beat, but whether we are or not I think it certain that in about a fortnight we shall come in; If we carry our questions we shall come in in a more creditable and triumphant way, but at any rate the Prince must be Regent and of consequence the Ministry must be changed…I am rather afraid they will get some cry against the Prince for grasping as they call it at too much power, but I am sure that I can not in conscience advise him to give up any thing that is really necessary to his Government, or indeed to claim any thing else as Regent, but the full power of a King, to which he is certainly entitled.“

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— Charles James Fox

Letter to Mrs. Armistead (15 December 1788), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 84.
1780s

„The worst of revolutions is a restoration.“

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— Charles James Fox

Speech to the House of Commons (December 10, 1785).
1780s

„Toleration in religion was one of the great rights of man, and a man ought never to be deprived of what was his natural right.“

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— Charles James Fox

Speech in the House of Commons (19 April 1791), quoted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume IV (1815), p. 192.
1790s

„Persecution always says, 'I know the consequences of your opinion better than you know them yourselves.' But the language of toleration was always amicable, liberal, and just: it confessed its doubts, and acknowledged its ignorance … Persecution had always reasoned from cause to effect, from opinion to action, [that such an opinion would invariably lead to but one action], which proved generally erroneous; while toleration led us invariably to form just conclusions, by judging from actions and not from opinions.“

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— Charles James Fox

Speech in the House of Commons (2 March 1790), quoted in Loren Reid, Charles James Fox: A Man for the People (1969), p. 261.
1790s

„I die happy.“

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— Charles James Fox

Last words. Quoted in Lord John Russell Life and Times of C J Fox, Vol.3 (1860), Ch. 9.
1800s

„He would never forgo inquiry into the causes of the war, and measures to prevent similar calamities in future. This was due to the people, least, in the enjoyment of peace, they should forget their former sufferings from war, and again yield themselves up to delusion. Both the present and the American war were owing to a court party in this country, that hated the very name of liberty; and to an indifference, amounting to barbarity, in the minister, to the distresses of the people. It was some consolation to him that he had done his utmost to prevent the war, and to know that those who provoked it could not but feel, even while they were endeavouring to persuade others of the contrary, that they must, in no very long space of time, adopt the very course which he was recommending as fit to be adopted now.“

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— Charles James Fox

Speech in the House of Commons (30 December 1794), quoted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume V (1815), p. 339-340.
1790s

„I asked him [Samuel Johnson] if it was true as reported, that he had said lately, ‘I am for the King against Fox; but I am for Fox against Pitt.’ JOHNSON: ‘Yes, Sir; the King is my master; but I do not know Pitt; and Fox is my friend.’ ‘Fox, (added he,) is a most extraordinary man; here is a man (describing him in strong terms of objection in some respects according as he apprehended, but which exalted his abilities the more) who has divided the Kingdom with Caesar; so that it was a doubt whether the nation should be ruled by the sceptre of George the Third, or the tongue of Fox.“

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— Charles James Fox

Samuel Johnson in conversation with James Boswell (11 June 1784), quoted in James Boswell, Life of Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 1292.
About

„…a greater evil than the restoration of the Bourbons to the world in general, and England in particular, can hardly happen.“

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— Charles James Fox

Letter to Lord Holland (28 July 1795), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 160.
1790s

„What acquaintance have the people at large with the arena of political rectitude, with the connections of kingdoms, the resources of national strength, the abilities of ministers, or even with their own dispositions?…I pay no regard whatever to the voice of the people: it is their duty to do what is proper, without considering what may be agreeable.“

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— Charles James Fox

Speech in the House of Commons (25 March 1771), reprinted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume I (1815), pp. 13–14.
1770s

„The true simple question of the present dispute is, whether the House of Lords and Court Influence shall predominate over the House of Commons, and annihilate its existence, or whether the House of Commons…shall have power to…. regulate the prerogative of the Crown, which was ever ready to seize upon the freedom of the Electors of this country.“

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— Charles James Fox

Speech to his constituents in Westminster (1784), quoted in W. T. Laprade, 'William Pitt and the Westminster Election', American Historical Review, 23 (1912), p. 263.
1780s

„But at no one time had he given an unqualified opinion of the governments which succeeded that event [the abolition of the French monarchy]; much less would he stand pledged to give the least countenance to the scenes of blood and cruelty which had been the almost inseparable attendants on the varied and successive governments that followed one another. He formed his opinion of government by the test of practice, and not by the theory and on paper.“

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— Charles James Fox

Speech in the House of Commons (29 October 1795), reprinted in J Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume V (1815), p. 505.
1790s

„Religion was best understood when least talked of.“

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— Charles James Fox

Speech in the House of Commons (7 February 1773), quoted in Lord John Russell (ed.), Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox. Volume I (London: Richard Bentley, 1853), p. 71.
1770s

„However it may have happened, it is an excellent thing, and I do not like it the worse for its being so very triumphant a peace for France…The sense of humiliation in the Government here will be certainly lost in the extreme popularity of the measure…this rascally people are quite overjoyed at receiving from Ministers what, if they had dared to ask it, could not have been refused them at almost any period of the war. Will the Ministers have the impudence to say that there was any time (much less that when Bonaparte's offer was refused) when we might not have had terms as good? Bonaparte's triumph is now complete indeed, and, since there is to be no political liberty in the world, I really believe he is the fittest person to be the master.“

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— Charles James Fox

Letter to T. Maitland (1801), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), pp. 169-170.
1800s

„[Napoleon has now] surpassed…Alexander & Caesar, not to mention the great advantage he has over them in the Cause he fights in.“

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— Charles James Fox

Letter to Denis O'Bryen (16 July 1800), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 167.
1800s

„So fully am I impressed with the vast importance and necessity of attaining what will be the object of my motion this night, that if, during the almost forty years that I have had the honour of a seat in parliament, I had been so fortunate as to accomplish that, and that only, I should think I had done enough, and could retire from public life with comfort, and the conscious satisfaction, that I had done my duty.“

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— Charles James Fox

Speech in the House of Commons (10 June 1806) on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, quoted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume VI (1815), p. 659.
1800s

„Our Sovereign's Health, the Majesty of the People.“

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— Charles James Fox

Toast given at the Whig Club (1 May 1798), quoted in John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt. The Consuming Struggle (London: Constable, 1996), p. 116. The King struck off Fox's name from the list of Privy Councillors in response. Fox also gave the toast "may the ancient Nobility of England ever think it their highest honour to support the Rights of the People".
1790s

„As to War I can only say that my opinion is clearly that it will not be. I can tell you my reasons for this opinion in two sentences. 1st. I am sure that Bonaparte will do everything that he can to avoid it. 2nd. that, low as my opinion is of our Ministry, I cannot believe them quite so foolish as to force him to it, without one motive either of ambition or interest to incite them.“

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— Charles James Fox

Letter to Lord Lauderdale (18 November 1802), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 177.
1800s