"History, Macaulay believed, should serve politics by teaching politicians and citizens how to maintain a moderate, constitutional regime in which both liberty and order are preserved, each balanced against the other, and neither promoted to the neglect of the other. This meant that the political centre had to be protected by politicians who opposed extremist parties on both sides of the political spectrum, for at the extremes one found doctrinairism, zeal, and fanaticism on behalf of policies that would lead, in one direction, to anarchy, or, in the other, to despotism. The extremes could be diminished and the centre defended, Macauay held, by making adjustments in institutions in response to demands for change, and by making concessions to those who had grievances."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Joseph Hamburger, 'Introduction', to Thomas Babington Macaulay, Napoleon and the Restoration of the Bourbons: The Completed Portion of Macaulay's Projected "History of France from the Restoration of the Bourbons to the Accession of Louis Philippe", ed. Joseph Hamburger (1977), p. 9
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Babington_Macaulay
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a nineteenth century British poet, historian and Whig politician.
208 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thomas Babington Macaulay →
Related Quotes
"But the time will come when New England will be as thickly peopled as old England. Wages will be as low, and will flu…"
"It is our deliberate opinion that the French Revolution, in spite of all its crimes and follies, was a great blessing…"
"He William Temple] was merely a man of lively parts and quick observation,—a man of the world amongst men of letters,…"
"The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to …"
"'It is scarcely possible to calculate the benefits which we might derive from the diffusion of European civilisation …"
"It may be that the public mind of India may expand under our system till it has outgrown that system; that by good go…"
"An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia. The smallest actual good is better than the most magnif…"
"To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god. The aim of th…"
"A life of action, if it is to be useful, must be a life of compromise. But speculation admits of no compromise. A pub…"
"Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be."