Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils

Ambrose Bierce, master of cynicism and dark wisdom, once defined with a sharp blade of wit: “Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.” In this sentence, drawn from The Devil’s Dictionary, he captures the endless cycle of politics, where men argue not over the absence of evil, but over which version of it shall endure. His irony unveils a grim truth: that neither faction holds perfection, for one clings to the flaws of the present, while the other risks forging new flaws for the future.

The origin of these words lies in the turbulence of the late 19th century, an America scarred by civil war, corruption, and the rise of industrial power. Bierce, who had fought in the Union army and seen death without illusion, distrusted the noble masks of political speech. He had watched conservatives defend the status quo, even when that status quo reeked of injustice. He had seen liberals push for change, but often replace one burden with another. His definition, though mocking, carries the bite of lived experience: both camps promise salvation, yet both carry ruin in their hands.

History itself offers confirmation. In Britain, conservatives once defended monarchy and aristocracy as eternal order, blind to the suffering of the common man. Liberals pressed for reforms—factory laws, suffrage, free trade—yet even these “solutions” birthed new hardships, as workers were cast into global competition and families into urban squalor. Neither side was wholly villain nor wholly savior. Bierce’s wit slices through the illusions to show that politics often shuffles the deck of evils, rather than banishing them.

So too in America after the Civil War. Conservatives sought to preserve the racial and social hierarchies of the Old South, clinging to the “existing evils” of segregation and disenfranchisement. Liberals pressed for Reconstruction, aiming to build a just society—but their efforts faltered, replaced with corruption and compromise that abandoned the very freedmen they sought to uplift. Bierce’s words echo here: change itself can betray, even as stasis destroys.

Therefore, O seekers of wisdom, do not be blinded by labels alone. See clearly that Conservative and Liberal are not gods of purity, but flawed men with competing visions. One may clutch the evils he knows; the other may trade them for new ones yet untested. The task of the wise is not blind allegiance, but vigilance—judging each policy by its fruit, not its banner. For the true enemy is not conservatism nor liberalism, but the evils that endure when men mistake names for justice.