Skip to content
Shawords

Quote#Heart

The transfer of the allegiance and citizenship, of no small part of…

Quote byWilliam Ewart Gladstone · 1809–1898

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter to Lord Granville (24 September 1870), quoted in Harold Temperley and Lillian M. Penson, Foundations of British Foreign Policy from Pitt (1792) to Salisbury (1902) or Documents, Old and New (1938), pp. 325–326.

English (original)

The transfer of the allegiance and citizenship, of no small part of the heart and life, of human beings from one sovereignty to another, without any reference to their own consent, has been a great reproach to some former transactions in Europe; has led to many wars and disturbances; is hard to reconcile with considerations of equity; and is repulsive to the sense of modern civilization.

— William Ewart Gladstone

More from William Ewart Gladstone