Exemplary Edmund Burke

Burke had immense knowledge of politics, a wonderful imagination, and he was passionately sympathetic to many causes such as freedom of religion.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ¹

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was a British statesman, orator, and political thinker.  He was active in politics from 1765 through 1795, and his works continue to be a good influence throughout the world.  Burke was born in Dublin, and his father was a protestant. His mother was a Roman Catholic. Following custom, Burke’s parents raised Edmund as an Anglican and his sister Catholic. In 1744, Burke entered Trinity College in Dublin. In 1750 he settled in London then wrote: “A Vindication of Natural Society” (1756) and “A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful” (1757).  He married Jane Nugent, the daughter of an Irish Catholic doctor, in 1757.

His political career started in 1765 when he became the private secretary of Marquis of Rockingham, one of the Whig leaders in Parliament. A year later, he became a Member of Parliament representing the borough of Rockingham. Burke’s political insight and honesty led him to be a principal character in the constitutional controversy in Britain under George III (who was trying to establish more actual power for the crown). Burke responded to this threat by writing “Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents” (1770). In this work, he argued that George III’s goal might be legal under the constitution, but it was against the underlying principle of the balance of powers. As such, Burke believed that the British government was recklessly conducting itself.

As we know, during the lifetime of Burke, significant historical events occurred, such as the unsuccessful coercion of the American colonies. In this era, corruption, extravagance, and reaction persisted. Accordingly, Burke and his followers (Whigs) could only raise a strong protest. Burke was a pragmatic and practical man, but he would put on a splendid oratorical display when stirred. However, these speeches often went on for eight hours, sometimes emptying Parliament. Nevertheless, the quintessential examples were his speech during the impeachment of Warren Hastings and when he denounced the French Revolution.

Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) is the classic statement of conservative social theory. This treatise focuses on social and political issues while at the same time it contains several incisive sections dealing with the crucial economic problems of wealth redistribution and monetary debasement. His main concern was with morality and the concepts of honor and loyalty undermined by the French government’s revolutionary politics and financial corruption. Burke’s fear of instability was becoming the order of the day in France. Burke understood that this instability was undermining the French family. Does this sound familiar?

Burke was a lone voice calling for reconciliation with the American Colonists. He called for “legislative reason” in two of his parliamentary speeches on the subject: On American Taxation (1774) and On Moving His Resolutions for Conciliation With America (1775). However, British imperial policy in the controversy would continue to ignore these questions.

Burke defended private property in land as a form of ownership superior to stocks, bonds, and other “paper” investments. He viewed landed property owners as men with a more significant stake in society than either the property-less or those owning non-landed property.

Burke had immense knowledge of politics, a wonderful imagination, and he was passionately sympathetic to many causes such as freedom of religion. Even though he was an Anglican, he defended Catholics as he lamented the prejudice against “popery.” Unfortunately, throughout his lifetime, he was branded as a “secret Catholic.” He suffered torment by being called a “former Jesuit,” “Old Honesty the Jesuit,” “Neddy St. Omers,” “Black Jesuit,” etc. Verbal attacks all of his life also included “Catholic,” “Irish,” and “poor.” As with any person subject to such an unrelenting ordeal, Burke would occasionally lose his temper in Parliament.

Burke possessed a gift of a deep analysis presented in contemporary English writings. However, in the Politically Correct charged world of today, Burke’s writings are considered by some to be “controversial.” Poet William Wordsworth called Burke “the most sagacious politician of his age.” In his atheist book Das Kapital, Karl Marx wrote that Burke was a bourgeois stooge (in this author’s opinion, that’s a badge of honor). Marxists then and now find offense at Burke’s critique of collectivism. Maybe Burke makes them realize that their utopianisms are a threat to society.

Academia ignores Burke’s conservative defense of Parliament, the nation, and the Anglican Church. Today’s (neo?) Conservative Party would dare to call on Burke’s writings; after all, they have recently embraced the European Union and a secular ideology. Today and beyond, Burke is a forgotten man except to those few of us who are challenging the prevailing orthodoxy, the “New Absolutes.”

On July 9, 1797, the extraordinary statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke passed away due to stomach cancer. He was buried in Beaconsfield Church near his Buckinghamshire home. Godspeed Edmund!

At 11th and L Streets in Washington, DC stands a lonely statue of Edmund Burke with the following chiseled on its base: “This Statue.  A copy of the work of Harvard Thomas in the city of Bristol, England, was presented through the Sulgrave Institution to the peoples of America by Sir Charles Wakefield Baronet, formerly Lord Mayor of London.  Erected A.D. 1922.”

Photo by Frederic R. Smith August 2004.

My Favorite Quotes

“The practice of Virtue and Religion is indispensable at all Times; but never more than this, when we commemorate the Time our Creator became our Redeemer, and for our sake manifested in the highest manner the highest Attributes of his Divinity, his Love and his Power, the one in dying for us, and the other in conquering Death, by giving that glorious Proof of our Immorality, and being himself the first Fruits of the Resurrection.” (The Reformer, 1748)

“We owe an implicit reverence to all the institutions of our ancestors.” (A Vindication of Natural Society, 1756)

“Therefore, when men come before us, and rise up like an exhalation from the ground, they come in a questionable shape, and we exorcise them, and try whether their interests be wicked or charitable, whether they bring airs from heaven or blasts from hell.” (Speech on the Petition of the Unitarian Society, 1773)

“All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter we give and take; we remit some rights, that we may enjoy others.” (Speech, Conciliation with America, 1775)

“That doctrine of the equality of all men, which has been preached by knavery, and so greedily adopted by malice, envy, and cunning.” (1778)

“Property was not made by government, but government by and for it. The one is primary and self-existent; the other is secondary and derivative.” (Speech, 1779)

“The seeds of destruction are sown in civil discourse, in social habitudes. The blood of wholesome kindred is infected. Their tables and beds are surrounded with snares. All the means given by Providence to make life safe and comfortable are preserved into instruments of terror and torment.” Address at Bristol on Gordon Riots and Catholic Question, 1780)

“…. inexpugnable tape-worms…. Tyrannous exaction brings on servile concealment; and that again calls forth tyrannous coercion.  They move in a circle, mutually producing and produced; till at length nothing of humanity is left in the government, no trace of integrity, spirit, or manliness in the people, who drag out a precarious and degraded existence under this system of outrage upon human nature.” (Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s Debt. 1785)

“Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate clink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course, they are many in number, or that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meager, hopping, through loud and troublesome, insects of the hour.” (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

“In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.” (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

“Liberty without wisdom, and without virtue is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.” (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

“We cannot be ignorant of the spirit of atheistical fanaticism that is inspired by a multitude of writings dispersed with incredible assiduity and expense, and by sermons delivered in all the streets and places of public resort in Paris. These writings and sermons have filled the populace with a black and savage atrocity of mind, which supersedes in them the common feelings of nature as well as all sentiments of morality and religion…” (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

“The truly melancholy part of the policy of systematically making a nation of gamesters is this, that though all are forced to play, few can understand the game; and fewer still are in a condition to avail themselves of the knowledge. The many must be the dupes of the few who conduct the machine of these speculations.” (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

“Of this, I am certain, that in a democracy the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon minority whenever strong divisions prevail in that kind of polity, as they often must; and that oppression of the minority will extend to far greater numbers and will be carried on with much greater fury than can almost ever be apprehended from the domination of a single scepter.” (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

“The literary cabal had some time ago formed something like a regular plan for the destruction of the Christian religion. … These atheistical fathers have a bigotry of their own, and they have learned to talk against monks with the spirit of monks. …. To this system of literary monopoly was joined an unremitting industry to blacken and discredit in every way, and by every means, all those who did not hold to their faction.” (Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790)

“There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equality – the law of nature, and of nations.” (Speech, Impeachment of Warren Hastings, 1794)

“I call it atheism by establishment, when any state, as such, shall not acknowledge the existence of God as a moral governor of the world; when it shall offer to him no religious or moral worship; - when it shall abolish the Christian religion by a regular decree; - when it shall persecute with a cold, unrelenting, steady cruelty, by every mode of confiscation, imprisonment, exile, and death all its minister; when it shall generally shut up or pull down churches; when the few buildings which remain of this kind shall be opened only for the purpose of making a profane apotheosis of monsters, whose vices and crimes have no parallel amongst men, and whom will other men consider as objects of general detestation, and the severest animadversion of law.  When, on the place of that religion of social benevolence, and of individual self-denial, in mockery of all religion, they institute impious, blasphemous, indecent theatric rites, in honor of their vitiated, perverted reason, and erect altars to the personification of their own corrupted and bloody republic; - when schools and seminaries are founded at the public expense to poison mankind, from generation to generation, with the horrible maximums of this impiety; - when wearied out with incessant martyrdom, and the cries of a people hungering and thirsting for religion, they permit it, only as a tolerated evil – I call this atheism by establishment.” The French Revolution Letters on a Regicide Peace (1795)

“The most unjust and impolitick of all things, unequal taxation.” (1797)

“In the fog and haze of confusion all is enlarged.” (1797)

“Before men can transact any affair, they must have a common language to speak otherwise all is cross-purpose and confusion.” (1797)

Quick Timeline of Burke’s Life

1729 Burke is born in January.

1750 Starts his study of the law by entering the Middle Temple.

1756 Published “A Vindication of Natural Society.”

1757 Marries Jane Nugent of Bath, “Sublime & Beautiful” published.

1759 Begins a six-year political apprenticeship by becoming the private secretary and political advisor to William Gerald Hamilton (1729-96).

1760 George III becomes the king.

1765 Becomes the private secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham (Charles Wentworth; 1730-1782).

1766 Elected Member of Parliament representing the borough of Rockingham.

1768 Purchases his estate “Gregories” near Beaconsfield.

1769 Observations on the Present State of the Nation, a reply to George Grenville.

1771 Chosen by the New York assembly as their London agent (just as Benjamin Franklin was that of Massachusetts).

1773 Loses his seat at Wendover, but gets elected in Malton (he resigned this seat in October for the seat at Bristol).

1774 Elected M.P. for Bristol and Speech on American Taxation.

1775 Delivers speech n “Conciliation with the American Colonies.”

1780 Speech to the Electors of Bristol but in spite of his brilliant speech, Burke loses his seat. Burke’s loss came about as a result of his Irish support, both for trade and the Catholics.  The Rockingham interests then found him a seat, the pocket borough of Malton, a seat Burke kept until 1794.

1788 Impeachment of Warren Hastings, governor-general of India, on corruption charges.  Burke instigated the impeachment and made several speeches, “masterpieces of English eloquence.”

1789 The French court, the envy of and model for foreign courts, was literally and figuratively bankrupt.  The States-General (like congress) is called into session for the first time since 1610 (France, in the intervening years, was ruled by an absolute monarch).  The French Revolution began, and the monarchy and its attending aristocratic order collapsed. “Leadership” evolves - States-General, National Assembly, Jacobins, Revolutionary tribunal, guillotine, and finally Napoleon.  In these years, blood flows throughout France between the execution of Louis XVI (1793) and the Battle of Waterloo (1815).

1790 Publishes “Reflections on the French Revolution.”

1791 “To a member of the National Assembly, On The French Revolution,” a public letter where Burke further sets out his views.

1792 Thomas Paine replies to Burke’s writings against the French Revolution with “The Rights of Man” and more massacres occur in Paris.

1794 Burke retires, but he is in debt.  The government and the king rescue him by granting a pension, allowing Burke and his wife to keep their home, “Gregories,” in Beaconsfield.

1797  Edmund Burke dies at Beaconsfield.

Primary sources for this blog which this author had the extreme pleasure of reading:

• The Portable Edmund Burk edited by Isaac Kramnick, Paperback: 688 pages Publisher: Penguin USA; (July 1999).  This is a beautiful read and highly recommended to set your mind free from today’s pabulum.

• Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France edited by Oskar Piest, Paperback 307 pages Publisher: The Liberal Arts Press USA; (1955).

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Cogent author and publisher, Frederick R. Smith

1. There is a reference to this quote in a letter he wrote to William Smith on January 9, 1795 (to date, I have not found a copy of this letter). However, other writings suggest that it is a compilation of words from Burke’s “Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents” (1770).  After reading that particular work, the famous quote may be derived from the following text:

… When bad men combine, the good must associate else they fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

It is not enough in a situation of trust in the commonwealth, that a man means well to his country; it is not enough that in his single person he never did an evil act, but always voted according to his conscience, and even harangued against every design which he apprehended to be prejudicial to the interests of his country. This innoxious and ineffectual character, that seems formed upon a plan of apology and disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That duty demands and requires, that what is right should not only be made known, but made prevalent; that what is evil should not only be detected, but defeated. When the public man omits to put himself in a situation of doing his duty with effect, it is an omission that frustrates the purposes of his trust almost as much as if he had formally betrayed it. It is surely no very rational account of a man’s life, that he has always acted right; but has taken special care, to act in such a manner that his endeavors could not possibly be productive of any consequence.