Discourse on the Causes of Political Revolutions

by Thomas Bailey

Excerpt: In discoursing on Revolutions, in the brief space designed to be occupied by this disquisition, it will be necessary to seize but on the prominent parts of the investigation; to overlook those secondary or proximate causes which only serve to develop latent properties; and endeavour, if possible, to reach the first principle of those disturbances in states, which the writer, above quoted, pronounces to be indescribable and hidden. Nor will it be necessary for my purpose, to enter into an elaborate or erudite history of the Revolutions of antiquity, in order to establish the theory I purpose to illustrate: a glance at the principal Revolutions of modern days will be all that I shall attempt; and among such, those of England, in 1610 and 1688, that of America, in 1780, and the Revolutions of France, in 1789 and 1830, will prove sufficient, I conceive.

38 pages, Paperback

First published September 27, 2015