Politics

The British Statesman Who Recognized America's 'Fierce Spirit of Liberty'

"When you drive him hard, the boar will surely turn upon the hunters," Edmund Burke warned Parliament. What if the British government had followed his advice?

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An illustration of George Washington kicking a British official | Photo: An 1890s caricature of Americans kicking out the British; Wikimedia
(Photo: An 1890s caricature of Americans kicking out the British; Wikimedia)

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Damon Root is a senior editor at Reason and the author of A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass and the Fight for an Antislavery Constitution (Potomac Books). His next book, Emancipation War: The Fall of Slavery and the Coming of the Thirteenth Amendment (Potomac Books), will be published in June 2026.