Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke, Irish politician and political theorist, was born on January 12, 1729, in Dublin, Ireland. His actual date of birth, however, is in question, due to the changeover from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar. His father was a “middle class Anglican lawyer” [Chapman, 283] and his mother was a Roman Catholic. He attended both Catholic and Quaker schools. From 1743-1749, he attended Trinity College in Dublin. “In 1750, Burke’s father packed him off to London to study law in the Middle Temple” [Lucas, 134]. However, Burke was not pleased with law school so he entered a career of journalism.
Burke’s first work, published in 1756 in “the short lived periodical The Reformer”, [Chapman, 283] was entitled “A Vindication of Natural Society: A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind”, This work “was originally taken as a serious treatise on anarchism” [Wikipedia]. Burke later described this work as a satire when he was involved in politics. However, it was “taken seriously by later anarchists such as William Godwin” [Ibid]. In 1757, Burke went on to publish “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful'', which is widely viewed as a treatise on aesthetics. This was important because it influenced Continental European thinkers including Denis Diderot and Immanuel Kant. In 1758, working with Robert Dodsley, “he created the influential ‘Annual Register’” [Ibid], which was a “yearly review of contemporary history, politics, and literature” [Chapman, 283]. Publication in which various authors evaluated the international political events of the previous year.
Burke got married to Jane Mary Nugent on March 12, 1757. She was the “daughter of a Catholic physician who had treated him at Bath, Somerset” [Wikipedia]. They had two sons, Richard and Christopher, but the latter died in infancy.
Burke was a great Classical Liberal thinker. He first entered politics when he “was introduced to William Gerard Hamilton” [Ibid]. Burke served as Hamilton’s private secretary in Dublin for three years starting in 1759 when the latter became Chief Secretary for Ireland. Burke became the private secretary of Charles Watson-Wentworth, a Liberal Whig statesman was serving as Prime Minister of England. The two “remained close friend and associates” [Ibid] until Watson-Wentworth’s death in 1782. But it wasn’t until 1765 that Burke became a politician on his own merits. At that time, he “entered the British Parliament as a member of the House of Commons for Wendover, a pocket borough in the control of Lord Fermanagh, later 2nd Earl Verney, a close political ally of Rockingham” [Ibid].
In his role as a parliamentarian, Burke was involved in the efforts to limit the executive authority of the King. He supported “the role of political parties” [Ibid] in their quest to maintain a “principled opposition capable of preventing abuses by the monarch or by specific factions within the government”. His 1770 work entitled “Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents served as “a major statement of constitutional principles and party government in an attack on Toryism and the court clique of King George III” [Chapman, 283].
Burke supported the American colonies in their complaints against King George III and his government. Acting as “agent for the colony of New York” [Ibid], he was against the royal policies of “severe sovereignty in relation to the colonists” [Wikipedia]. He led the charge in England on behalf of the colonies when in 1775, “he launched a new attack on ministerial policy” [Graubard, 35]. He hoped for reconciliation not in war but by peace. He said that this could be achieved if “looked for ‘in its natural course, aand in its ordinary haunts’” [Ibid].
In addition to Burke’s support of America, he was a champion to the causes of other British colonies. In fact, he was critical of British “persecution of Catholics in Ireland” [Wikipedia]. As an Irishman, he felt for his fellow countrymen and the injustices they were being dealt with at the hands of the imperial British regime. Ireland was a guinea pig experiment for British domination in other parts of the World. On the model of the colonization of Ireland, Britain went on to colonize America and eventually Non-Western countries as well.
Burke was also a champion to the cause of defending the rights of India. In fact, he was critical of “the abuses and corruption of the East India Company” [Ibid]. He reminded “Parliament that the people of India were not ‘gangs of savages, like the Guaranies, and Chiquitos, who wander on the waste borders of the River of Amazons, or the Plate; but a people for ages civilized and cultivated; cultivated by all the arts of polished life, whilst we were yet in the woods.’” [Chapman, 247] He also defended the History and Antiquity of India. He appreciated other cultures and was not just Eurocentric. In fact, he recognized that other cultures pre-date European culture by thousands of years.
Burke was elected as Bristol’s MP In 1774, which was an important British city at that time. He was instrumental in addressing his electors on “the principles of representative democracy against the notion that elected officials should act narrowly as advocates for the interests of their constituents” [Wikipedia]. Burke helped to create the “delegate and trustee models of political representation” [Ibid]. He also advocated “free trade with Ireland” [Ibid] and Catholic emancipation but these policies “were unpopular with his constituents and caused him to lose his seat in 1780” [Ibid]. As a result of that, he was forced to represent Malton for the rest of his time in Parliament.
Burke was instrumental in bringing the American war to an end during “the Tory administration of Frederick North” [Ibid]. He made a speech entitled ''Conciliation with America'' (1775), and wrote ''Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol'' (1777). Following the fall of Prime Minister North, “Burke became Paymaster of the Forces and Privy Councilor” in Prime Minister Rockingham's administration. However, this administration only lasted for a couple of months due to the “unexpected death in July of 1782” [Ibid] of Rockingham.
Following the death of Prime Minister Rockingham, Burke supported his “fellow Whig Charles James Fox in his coalition against Lord North, a decision that many came to regard later as his greatest political error” [Ibid]. He continued serving as Paymaster but the coalition collapsed in 1783, and was succeeded by William Pitt the Younger’s Tory government “which lasted until 1801” [Ibid]. As a result of this, Burke was in the opposition for the rest of his political career.
The fact that Burke remained in the opposition didn’t change his activities and ideas. In fact he made the monumental speech about ''The Nabob of Arcot's Debts'' in 1785 and in 1786, he led proceedings that led to the impeachment of Warren Hastings, British Governor of India. Although Hasting was eventually acquitted of the impeachment charges, the proceedings lasted from 1787 until 1794. The results of this was better “treatment of all subjects the Realm” [Ibid], another one of Burke’s great achievements in his fight for the rights of all British colonial subjects.
The fact that Burke was a huge supporter of the American Revolution didn’t stop him from opposing the French Revolution. While he saw the former “as [the] legitimate assertion of the rights of the American colonists” [Ibid], he criticized the latter in his ''Reflections on the Revolution in France’’, which was published in November, 1790. As a result of this, he “became one of the earliest and fiercest critics in Britain of the French Revolution” [Ibid] since he didn’t see it “as [a] movement towards a representative, constitutional democracy, but rather as a violent rebellion against tradition and proper authority and as an experiment disconnected from the complex realities of human society” [Ibid]. He correctly predicted its ultimate demise. Unfortunately, this led his former supporters “such as Thomas Jefferson, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and fellow Whig politician Charles James Fox, to denounce Burke as a ‘reactionary’ and an ‘enemy of democracy’”. This was irrational of them since the French Revolution was nothing but a reign of terror of the revolutionary elite against the masses. It wasn’t until Napoleon came about that there was any sort of resemblance of freedom in France, even though it came in the form of an empire. “Thomas Paine penned ‘The Rights of Man’ in 1791 as a response to Burke’s assessment of the French situation although other pro-democratic politicians, such as the American John Adams, agreed with him” [Ibid] on his assessment.
Edmund Burke’s stands on these issues make him into one of the greatest British politicians of his time. He stood up to the evils his government was committing in its colonies. Not only that, he denounced evil everywhere, and just because the French Revolution was disguised as “democracy”, he didn’t cave into pressures and blindly support it. Although he did what was right, “the disagreements which arose regarding them within the Whig party, led to its breakup and to the rupture of Burke's friendship with Fox”, leading Burke to publish his 1791 piece entitled ''Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs'', “in which he renewed his criticism of the radical revolutionary programmes inspired by the French Revolution and attacked the Whigs who supported them” [Ibid]. This shows a great quality in him that he didn’t cave into political pressure and did what was right, something that is so rare in politicians. In the end, “most of the Whigs sided with Burke and voted their support for the conservative government of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, which declared war on the revolutionary government of France in 1793”.
After the tragic death of Burke’s son Richard and the end of the Hastings trials, Burke retired from Parliament. King George III wanted to make him a Lord but Burke didn’t want the title because “the death of his son had deprived such an honor of all its attractions” [Ibid]. The King had wanted to make him Lord Beaconsfield since he gained the King’s favor “by his attitude on the French Revolution” [Ibid]. “The only reward Burke would accept was a pension of £2,500”, which led to criticism by the John Russell, the 6th Duke of Bedford and James Maitland, the 8th Earl of Lauderdale, “to whom Burke replied in the ‘Letter to a Noble Lord’ (1796)”. Burke’s final publications called for making peace with France, although he was a strong supporter of the ongoing war with France for the rest of his life.
Burke died on July 9, 1797, in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire after a long illness, “probably of stomach cancer” [Chapman, 286] and was buried six days later next to his son and brother. His wife lived for fifteen more years.
Edmund Burke was a man ahead of his time. At a time when Britain was acting evil and the King was abusing powers, he stood up against this. He is to Britain how the great luminary Founding Fathers of the United States of America are to American History. He was a great man just like his American contemporaries, George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. John Adams especially stands out among the three as being like Burke in that they both realized the fraud of the French Revolution. Edmund Burke should be considered a hero in British History. Not only did he work to help oppressed parts of the British Empire, but he also worked to help end royal oppression back home in Britain. He was a man of peace and able to help democratize his country without a bloody civil war as the bloody revolutionary gangs in France attempted to do.
We can learn a great deal from Edmund Burke today as well. In a day when the World is facing oppression at the hands of multi-national forces such as the United Nations, European Union, and NATO, we should defend the rights of the peoples of the world to decide for themselves how to rule their countries without foreign intervention, not even the invention of the American Government. Just like Edmund Burke stood up to the oppression by his government in foreign lands, there too needs to be an American leader who will decide that America has to be isolationist and fight for American interests rather than fight wars intervening in the affairs of other countries. The Democratic and Republican Parties today have basically become like King George III. Not only do they oppress other countries, they also oppress their own people. America needs an Edmund Burke to be President. This is the legacy of Edmund Burke.
Bibliography
Chapman, Gerald W., Edmund Burke: The Practical Imagination. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1967.
Graubard, Stephen R., Burke, Disraeli, and Churchill: The Politics of Perseverance. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1961.
Lucas, F.L., The Art of Living: Four Eighteenth-Century Minds. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1959.
Edmund Burke. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke (December 12, 2007).
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