j&p 10 edmund burke

BurkeJustice & Power, session x

Topics in This Session

i. Careerii. Speechesiii.Reflections on the Revolution in France;

1790

iv.Criticism

Career

I. Career A. origins

1. the Irish question2. religion and schooling

B. Trinity College, Dublin, 1744C. Middle Temple, London, 1750D. Burke’s Enlightenment phase

1. A Vindication of Natural Society in a Letter to Lord...by a Late Noble Writer, 1756

2. aesthetics and coffee houses3. The Annual Register, 1758 et seq.

E. Parliament, 1765-941. Whigs vs. Kings Friends 2. patrons

a. Ralph, 2nd earl of Verneyb. Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd marquess of Rockingham, d. 1782

3. “open constituency,” Bristol 1774-794. “pocket borough,” Malton 1780-94

I.A.1-the Irish question

The Cambro-Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169 began more than 700 years of English, then British, involvement in Irish history. The sixteenth century Reformation introduced religious division into the two camps: the “Pale” of Anglo settlement which became Anglican Protestant, and the “wild Irish,” who remained Catholic. The seventeenth century English civil war intensified the division. Cromwell’s Penal Laws were, according to Edmund Burke:

By the end of the seventeenth century, recusant Roman Catholics, as adherents to the old religion were now termed, representing some 85% of Ireland's population, were then banned from the Irish Parliament. Political power rested entirely in the hands of an Anglican minority.

Wikipedia

“a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.”

I.A.2-religion...Burke was born [in 1729] in Dublin, Ireland, to a prosperous solicitor father Richard … of the Church of Ireland…. His mother Mary...was a Roman Catholic and came from an impoverished but genteel County Cork family....

Burke was raised in his father's faith and remained throughout his life a practicing Anglican.... His political enemies were later repeatedly to accuse him of having been educated at the Jesuit seminary of St. Omer's and of harboring secret Catholic sympathies at a time when membership of the Catholic Church would disqualify him from public office.... As Burke told Mrs. Crewe:

Once an MP, Burke was required to take the oath of allegiance and abjuration, the oath of supremacy, and declare against transubstantiation. No Catholic is known to have done so in the 18th century.

Wikipedia

Mr. Burke's Enemies often endeavored to convince the World that he had been bred up in the Catholic Faith, & that his Family were of it, & that he himself had been educated at St. Omer—but this was false, as his father was a regular practitioner of the Law at Dublin, which he could not be unless of the Established Church: & it so happened that though Mr. B— was twice at Paris, he never happened to go through the Town of St. Omer.

CINCINNATUS in Retirement. falsely supposed to represent Jesuit-Pad driven back to his native Potatoes. see Romish Common-Wealth.

SUMMARY: Cartoon showing Edmund Burke, as an Irish Jesuit, seated at a table eating potatoes from a pot labeled "Relick No. 1. used by St. Peter." Upon the appointment of Shelburne, following the death of Rockingham, Burke resigned from his position as Rockingham's secretary in protest.Burke is portrayed as a Jesuit because he supported the 1778 Relief Act which relaxed restrictions on the rights of Catholics. The poverty of the Irish is parodied by the potatoes. Catholicism is parodied by the pictures on the wall, the mutilated crucifix, the pot labeled as a relic of St. Peter, and the demons dancing under the table.

Wikipedia

I.A.2-religion and schooling

he received his early education at a Quaker school some 30 miles from Dublin

1744-age 15, he went to Trinity College, Dublin


he received his early education at a Quaker school some 30 miles from Dublin

1744-age 15, he went to Trinity College, Dublin

1747-he set up a debating club, now the oldest undergraduate society in the world

1750-at his father’s request he attended the Middle Temple law school in London. But he soon gave it up for a writing career


Part of Middle Temple c.1830 as drawn by Thomas Shepherd.

I.D.1-A Vindication...

In almost the same time, 1756, as Rousseau’s Second Discourse (1755), Burke produced a parody of the writings of deist Lord Bolingbroke.

Contrasted with natural Liberty and natural Religion, the author sets three general forms of government,: Despotism, the simplest and most universal, where "unbounded Power proceeds Step by Step, until it has eradicated every laudable Principle"; Aristocracy, which is scarcely better, as "a Genoese, or a Venetian Republick, is a concealed Despotism"; and giddy Democracy, where the common people are "intoxicated with the Flatteries of their Orators":

Wikipedia

Republicks have many Things in the Spirit of absolute Monarchy, but none more than this; a shining Merit is ever hated or suspected in a popular Assembly, as well as in a Court.

I.D.1-A Vindication…(cont)

Having employed fulminating rhetoric to dispense with the artificial Political Societies...the author, it might be expected, will turn to his idea of Natural Society for contrast. Instead, he turns his critical eye upon the Mixed government, which combines monarchy, aristocracy and a tempered democracy, the form of politics this essay's British readers would immediately identify as their own. His satirist's view takes it all in, painting once again in broad strokes the dilemmas of the law courts or the dissatisfactions of wealth, and closes— without actually having vindicated natural society at all.

Wikipedia

Republicks have many Things in the Spirit of absolute Monarchy, but none more than this; a shining Merit is ever hated or suspected in a popular Assembly, as well as in a Court.

I.D.1-A Vindication…(concl.)

"The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any

of their own." A Vindication of Natural Society..

Wikipedia

I.D.2-aesthetics and coffee houses

Just as 18th century France had its salons where the intelligentsia gathered to talk of Enlightenment topics, the corresponding British institution was private clubs which met in coffee houses. Their topics were not narrowly political. So the young Burke (late twenties) was welcomed into one of the most glittering gatherings. It featured literary giants like Dr. Samuel Johnson, the lexicographer, and his biographer, James Boswell; the painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds; the Anglo-Irish playwright, Oliver Goldsmith; actor, David Garrick; Thomas Wharton, poet laureate; music historian, Charles Burney; and political exile and Corsican patriot, Pasquale Paoli. They called themselves simply, The Club.

jbp

I.D.3-The Annual Register, 1758 to the present

is a long-established reference work, written and published each year, which records and analyses the year’s major events, developments and trends throughout the world. It was first written in 1758 under the editorship of Edmund Burke, [only 29 years old at the time] and has been produced continuously since that date. In its current form the first half of the book comprises articles on each of the world’s countries or regions, while the latter half contains articles on international organizations, economics, the environment, science, law, religion, the arts and sport, together with obituaries, a chronicle of major events and selected documents. In addition to being produced annually in hardback, the book is also published electronically and its entire 250-year archive is available online from its publisher, ProQuest.

Wikipedia

I.D.3-The Annual Register, 1758 to the present

is a long-established reference work, written and published each year, which records and analyses the year’s major events, developments and trends throughout the world. It was first written in 1758 under the editorship of Edmund Burke, [only 29 years old at the time]• and has been produced continuously since that date. In its current form the first half of the book comprises articles on each of the world’s countries or regions, while the latter half contains articles on international organizations, economics, the environment, science, law, religion, the arts and sport, together with obituaries, a chronicle of major events and selected documents. In addition to being produced annually in hardback, the book is also published electronically and its entire 250-year archive is available online from its publisher, ProQuest.

Wikipedia

I.E.-Parliament, 1765-94-1. Whigs vs “King’s Friends” & 2. patrons

December, 1765-Burke entered the House of Commons for Wendover, a “pocket borough” under the control of Ralph, Lord Fermanagh, later 2nd earl of Verney. This fellow Anglo-Irishman was an ally of the marquess of Rockingham, the current prime minister. Burke first became secretary to Rockingham, then was given this “safe seat.” Before the Reform Bill of 1832 election to the House of Commons was a travesty by modern standards.

Burke was a Whig, as were his patrons. They were, therefore, the opponents of the court faction, then styled the “King’s Friends.” They are famous to us as the authors of that series of repressive measures which led to our revolution: Lord North, George Grenville (Stamp & Sugar Acts, 1764-65); Charles Townshend (Revenue Act, 1767)

jbp

I.E.-Parliament, 1765-94-3. “open constituency” Bristol, 1774-79 4.”pocket borough,” Malton,1780-94

His career was sufficiently successful that in 1774 he ran in a real election in Britain’s second largest city, the seaport of Bristol. It was here that he developed his famous position that he was chosen by his constituents to use his own judgement in voting, not “take a poll” to see what the most popular vote might be.

After being voted out for following his conscience, he spent the rest of his career in a safe “pocket borough.”

jbp

In May 1778 Burke supported a motion in Parliament to revise the restrictions on Irish trade. However his constituents in Bristol, a great trading city, urged Burke to oppose free trade with Ireland. Burke resisted these demands and said: "If, from this conduct, I shall forfeit their suffrages at an ensuing election, it will stand on record an example to future representatives of the Commons of England, that one man at least had dared to resist the desires of his constituents when his judgment assured him they were wrong".--Wiki

Speeches

II. Speeches A. constitutional issue - Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, 1770

1. “Prerogative” vs “Influence”2. parties vs factions

B. colonial policy 1. American - American Taxation, 1774, Conciliation with America, 1775

2. Irish3. Indian - Hastings impeachment, 1787-954. African- Wilberforce and the slave trade, 1788-89

C. French Revolution 1. Reflections (below)

a. Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man, 1791-92 2. An Appeal from the Old to the New Whigs, 1791 3. Three Letters on a Regicide Peace, 1796-97

“After Burke's maiden speech, William Pitt the Elder [the great “bringer of victory” in the Seven Years War] said Burke had ‘spoken in such a manner as to stop the mouths of all Europe’ and that the Commons should congratulate itself on acquiring such a member.””-Wikipedia

Even the Anglo-Irish can sometimes acquire the “gift of gab.” Burke’s speeches as well as his writings became a model of political oratory. Bartlett’s quotes him extensively.

George III, our George, had been advised by his mother to “be a king!” The first two “German” Georges had allowed their British parliaments to direct affairs. George III and “the King’s Friends” were determined to restore executive power. This constitutional crisis would be the occasion of Burke’s first great political struggle.

jbp

II.A.-Thoughts on the Present Discontents, 1770

II.A.1- “What once was dead and rotten as prerogative is now sprung back to life in the odious form of influence.

II.A.2-”When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

“Public life is a situation of power and energy; he trespasses against his duty who sleeps upon his watch, as well as he that goes over to the enemy.”

II.B.Colonial Policy-1. American Taxation, 1774

“Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not.

“Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading up to your eyes in blood, you could only end where you had begun;

“that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found, to--my voice fails me; my inclination is to go no farther--all is confusion beyond it.”

II.B.Colonial Policy-2. Conciliation with America, 1775

“The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.

“The religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principles of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion.

“It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, reason and justice tell me I ought to do.”

In Burke's view the British government was fighting "the American English" ("our English Brethren in the Colonies"), with a German-descended King employing "the hireling sword of German boors and vassals" to destroy the colonists' English liberties. On American independence, Burke wrote: "I do not know how to wish success to those whose Victory is to separate from us a large and noble part of our Empire. Still less do I wish success to injustice, oppression and absurdity".

Wikipedia

II.B.Colonial Policy-2. Ireland

May, 1778-Burke fell out with the merchants of Bristol because he advocated free trade with Ireland

later that year he supported the Catholic Relief Act which reduced the restrictions on Irish Catholics

subject to an oath renouncing Stuart claims, they could own property, inherit land, and join the army

his political enemies began the false charges that he was a Jesuit-trained crypto-Catholic

II.B.Colonial Policy-3. Indian: Hastings’ impeachment

1750-of humble origins, Hastings joined His Majesty’s East India Company (HEIC)

he was an able and enlightened administrator and rose to be the first Governor General of a unified Indian Raj. Nevertheless, he followed a pattern of profiting from his position.

1784-after ten years, he was recalled to face impeachment proceedings brought by Edmund Burke

Burke’s speeches began the shift from exploitation to paternalism as the enlightened goal of imperialism

Warren Hastings 1732 – 1818

II.B.Colonial Policy-3. Indian: Hastings’ impeachment

1750-of humble origins, Hastings joined His Majesty’s East India Company (HEIC)

he was an able and enlightened administrator and rose to be the first Governor General of a unified Indian Raj. Nevertheless, he followed a pattern of profiting from his position.

1784-after ten years, he was recalled to face impeachment proceedings brought by Edmund Burke

Burke’s speeches began the shift from exploitation to paternalism as the enlightened goal of imperialism

1795-after a long and interrupted series of legal maneuvers, Hastings was acquitted

Warren Hastings 1732 – 1818

II.B.Colonial Policy-4. suppression of the slave trade

1788-as the 28-year-old Wilberforce began his long struggle in Parliament to outlaw the detestable slave trade, Burke was among his earliest supporters

Josiah Wedgwood created what is probably the first iconic image to be used in a political movement

William Wilberforce

1759 – 1833

II.B.Colonial Policy-4. suppression of the slave trade

1788-as the 28-year-old Wilberforce began his long struggle in Parliament to outlaw the detestable slave trade, Burke was among his earliest supporters

Josiah Wedgwood created what is probably the first iconic image to be used in a political movement

the resistance of the West Indian Sugar bloc faction in Parliament was huge, determined, and well-financed. It delayed victory until long after Burke’s death

William Wilberforce

1759 – 1833

Throughout his parliamentary career Burke spoke out for the victims of cruelty and oppression. Since he was a Whig and a “friend” of the American Revolution, it would be reasonable to expect him to take a similar stance with those fellow Whigs who celebrated the fall of the Bastille, July 14, 1789. But within a year Burke had seen enough to become a most famous enemy of the French Revolution.

Reflections on the

Revolution in

France1790

In January 1790, Burke read Dr. Richard Price's sermon of 4 November 1789 to the Revolution Society, called “A Discourse On the Love of our Country.” The Revolution Society was founded to commemorate the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In this sermon Price espoused the philosophy of universal "rights of men". Price argued that love of our country "does not imply any conviction of the superior value of it to other countries, or any particular preference of its laws and constitution of government". Instead, Englishmen should see themselves "more as citizens of the world than as members of any particular community".... Price claimed that the principles of the Glorious Revolution included "the right to choose our own governors, to cashier them for misconduct, and to frame a government for ourselves". Immediately after reading Price's sermon, Burke wrote a draft of what eventually became the Reflections on the Revolution in France. On 13 February 1790, a notice in the press said that Burke would shortly publish a pamphlet on the Revolution and its British supporters, however he spent the year revising and expanding it.

Wikipedia

What provoked Burke?

Origin of the Reflections

21 January 1790-Burke read Price’s sermon praising the French Revolution

Richard Price 1723 – 1791



next, a letter from Tom Paine predicted that it would spread across Europe

Tom Paine 1737 – 1809



next, a letter from Tom Paine predicted that it would spread across Europe

this changed Burke’s “wait and see” attitude into positive scepticism--Clark, p. 63

he began an essay in the form of a letter to a French friend expressing his concerns about the perils which he saw inherent in events

the longer he rewrote, the more French violence confirmed his pessimism

1 November 1790-The finished essay went to print and became an immediate best seller

Richard Price 1723 – 1791Tom Paine 1737 – 1809

III. Reflections on the Revolution in France A. “metaphysical abstraction”

1. “circumstances give...principle...its...effect”B. “cashiering kings”

1. servants of the people?2. “the [Glorious] Revolution of 1688”

a. object? b. difference from French?

C. the British way 1. constitution a. Magna Carta, 1215 b. Petition of Right, 1628 c. Declaration of Right (Bill of Rights), 1689 2. society a. organic and “natural” b. intergenerational ties and tradition

D. French errors 1. material for a British style “reparation” 2. two better alternatives 3. equality 4. the evils of the Revolution a. poverty, immorality, and irreligion b. counterrevolution building abroad c. Burke’s fallacy of unnatural revolution d. “church pillaged” e. “paper securities” (assignats)

1. instead of “recognized species” (Au & Ag)

“I flatter myself that I love a manly, moral, regulated liberty as well as any gentleman of that [Revolution] society, be he who he will; and perhaps I have given as good proofs of my attachment to that cause, in the whole course of my public conduct….But I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to any thing which relates to human actions...on a simple view of the object, as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of a metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances...give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every...political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.”

III.A.1.”...metaphysical abstraction…”

This and all subsequent quotations from Reflections are taken from Clark, op.cit. He indicates the pages in the 1790 edition. I will cite those pages as, here,

Burke, pp. 7-8

Kings, in one sense, are undoubtedly the servants of the people, because their power has no other rational end than that of the general advantage; but it is not true that they are, in the ordinary sense, (by our constitution at least), anything like servants; the essence of whose situation is to obey the commands of some other, and to be removable at pleasure. But the king of Great Britain obeys no other person; all other persons are...under him, and owe to him a legal obedience…. The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force. (cont.)* cashier, v. = to dismiss in disgrace, especially from the armed forces

III.B.1.”...cashiering* kings…”

force. (cont.) It then becomes a case of war, and not of constitution. Laws are commanded to hold their tongues amongst arms; and tribunals fall to the ground with the peace they are no longer able to uphold. The Revolution of 1688 was obtained by a just war, in the only case in which any war, and much more a civil war, can be just. “Justa bella quibus necessaria.” [Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.”] The question of dethroning, or, if these gentlemen like the phrase better, “cashiering kings,” will always be, as it has always been, an extraordinary question of state, and wholly out of the law; a question...of dispositions, and of means, and of probable consequences, rather than of positive rights. As it was not made for common abuses, so it is not to be agitated by common minds.

III.B.1.”...cashiering* kings…”

Burke, pp. 41-43

The third...right, asserted by [Price], namely the “right to form a government for ourselves,” has, at least, as little countenance from anything done at the Revolution [of 1688], either in precedent or principle, as the two first of their claims [1.“to choose our own governors” 2. “to cashier them for misconduct”]. The Revolution was made to preserve our ancient, indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty….The very idea of the fabrication of a new government is enough to fill us with disgust and horror.

Burke, p. 44

III.B.2.”the [Glorious] Revolution of 1688”a. object?

Since Price’s sermon attempted to praise the French revolutionaries for following Britain’s example during the Glorious Revolution, Burke now proceeds to show how the two events are polar opposites. First, he will give his interpretation of English history as a gradual, organic movement towards liberty, always keeping the best of the past:

Then he will show how the French have “thrown the baby out with the bath water.”

III.B.2.”the [Glorious] Revolution of 1688”b. difference from French?

jbp

...that all and singular the rights and liberties asserted and declared, [in the Bill of Rights of 1689] are the true ancient and indubitable rights and liberties of the people of this kingdom.”

Burke, p. 47

Our experience of 1787, the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, leads most Americans to think that a constitution must be a document, a “supreme Law of the Land”(how our Constitution defines itself in Article VI, clause 2). The British have an “unwritten constitution.” Rather, it’s better thought of as an “uncollected constitution.” A series of historical legal landmarks define what the shape of the British government is. Burke now recounts this history--[a]Magna Carta, 1215; [b]Petition of Right, 1628; and [c]Declaration of Right (better known as the English Bill of Rights) 1689.

III.C.the British way-1. constitution

jbp


Burke, p. 47

“You will observe that from Magna Charta [sic] to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties, as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity; as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right [like “natural rights” or the French “Rights of Man and the Citizen,” jbp].

Contemporary French poster

listing the Rights of Man

note the similarity to the tablets of the ten commandments


Burke, p. 47

“You will observe that from Magna Charta [sic] to the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform policy of our constitution to claim and assert our liberties, as an entailed inheritance derived to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity; as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference whatever to any other more general or prior right [like “natural rights” or the French “Rights of Man and the Citizen,” jbp]. “This policy appears to me to be the result of profound reflection; or rather the happy effect of following nature, which is wisdom without reflection, and above it. A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will never look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.”

Unlike the mechanistic philosophers who saw government as a machine and thought of the job of repairing government as designing a better mechanical device (Hobbes’ ‘robot’),

III.C.the British way-2. society a. organic & natural

jbp

Unlike the mechanistic philosophers who saw government as a machine and thought of the job of repairing government as designing a better mechanical device (Hobbes’ ‘robot’)•, Burke was fond of the analogy of a living organism. This makes him an organic political philosopher. If a machine is worn out or broken you can simply discard it or replace the broken parts. But if you’re dealing with a living organism, a different approach is necessary.


jbp

Unlike the mechanistic philosophers who saw government as a machine and thought of the job of repairing government as designing a better mechanical device (Hobbes’ ‘robot’), Burke was fond of the analogy of a living organism. This makes him an organic political philosopher. If a machine is worn out or broken you can simply discard it or replace the broken parts. But if you’re dealing with a living organism, a different approach is necessary.


jbp

“The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of providence, are handed down to us, and from us, in the same course and order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts; wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom [cf. “Nature and Nature’s God,” jbp], moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middleaged, or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. (cont.)

III.C.the British way-2. society b. intergenerational ties & tradition

“... through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. (cont.) Thus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state, in what we improve, we are never wholly new; in what we retain, we are never wholly obsolete….In this choice we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable, and cherishing with the warmth of all their...charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchers, and our altars.”

III.C.the British way-2. society b. intergenerational ties & tradition

Burke, pp. 48-49

III. Reflections on the Revolution in France A. “metaphysical abstraction”

1. “circumstances give...principle...its...effect”B. “cashiering kings”

1. servants of the people?2. “the [Glorious] Revolution of 1688”

a. object? b. difference from French?

C. the British way 1. constitution a. Magna Carta, 1215 b. Petition of Right, 1628 c. Declaration of Right (Bill of Rights), 1689 2. society a. organic and “natural” b. intergenerational ties and tradition

D. French errors 1. material for a British style “reparation” 2. two better alternatives 3. equality 4. the evils of the Revolution a. poverty, immorality, and irreligion b. counterrevolution building abroad c. Burke’s fallacy of unnatural revolution d. “church pillaged” e. “paper securities” (assignats)

1. instead of “recognized species” (Au & Ag)

“You [in France], if you pleased, might have profited from our example, and have given to your recovered freedom a corresponding dignity. Your privileges, though discontinued [i.e., lost to the absolutism, beginning with Louis xiv] were not lost to memory….you possessed in some parts the walls, and, in all, the foundations. Your constitution was suspended before it was perfected; but you had the elements of a constitution very nearly as good as could be wished…. You had all these advantages in your ancient states [the Estates General, which had last met almost two centuries before 1789]; but you chose to act as if you had never been moulded into civil society, and had everything to begin anew.”

III.D.French Errors-1. material for a British style reparation

Burke, pp. 50-51

[1] “You might have built on those old foundations….Respecting your forefathers, you would have been taught to respect yourselves…. [2] “...or, if diffident of yourselves, and not clearly discerning the almost obliterated constitution of your ancestors, you had looked to your neighbors in this land [Britain], who had kept alive the ancient principles...of the old common law of Europe meliorated and adapted to its present state--by following wise examples you would have given new examples of wisdom to the world…. You would have shamed despotism from the earth....”

III.D.French Errors-2. two better alternatives

Burke, pp. 50-53

“You would have had a free constitution; a potent monarchy, a disciplined army; a reformed and venerated clergy; a mitigated but spirited nobility...; you would have had a liberal order of commons, to emulate and to recruit that nobility; you would have had a protected, satisfied, laborious, and obedient people, taught to seek...the happiness that is to be found by virtue in all conditions; in which exists the true moral [emphasis added, jbp] equality of mankind, and not in that monstrous fiction, which, by inspiring false ideas and vain expectations into men destined to travel in the obscure walk of laborious life, serves only to aggravate and embitter that real inequality, which it never can remove; and which the order of civil life establishes as much for the benefit of those whom it must leave in an humble state, as those whom it is able to exalt to a condition more splendid, but not more happy.”

III.D.French Errors-3. equality

Burke, pp. 53-54

“Compute your gains: see what is got by those extravagant… speculations….By following those false lights [Burke compares the revolutionary leaders to the false beacons which wreckers would erect to lure coastal ships onto rocks where they might be looted], France has bought undisguised calamities at a higher price than any nation has purchased the most unequivocal blessings! [a]France has bought poverty by crime! France has not sacrificed her virtue to her interest; but she has abandoned her interest that she might prostitute her virtue….France, when she let loose the reins of regal authority, doubled the license of a ferocious dissoluteness in manners•, and of an insolent irreligion in opinions and practices, and has extended through all ranks of life...the unhappy corruptions that usually were the disease of wealth and power.”

III.D.French Errors-4. the evils of the Revolution

Burke, pp. 53-54

“France, by the perfidy of their leaders, has utterly disgraced the tone of lenient council in the cabinets of princes….She has sanctified the dark, suspicious maxims of tyrannous mistrust and taught kings to tremble….Sovereigns will consider those, who advise them to place an unlimited confidence in their people, as subverters of their thrones; as traitors who aim at their destruction….This alone (if there were nothing else) is an irreparable calamity to you and to mankind.”

III.D.4. the evils of the Revolution b. counterrevolution building abroad

Burke, p. 55

so gradual reform will not occur and kings will become even more oppressive

“They have seen the French rebel against a mild and lawful monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult, than ever any people has been known to rise against the most illegal usurper, or the most sanguinary tyrant. Their resistance was made to concession; their revolt was from protection; their blow was aimed at a hand holding out graces, favors and immunities. “This was unnatural. The rest is in order. They have found their punishment in their success”

III.D.4. the evils of the Revolution c. Burke’s fallacy of “unnatural revolution”

Burke, p. 56

Revolution is more likely when regimes start to reform. Tyrants are rarely rebelled against

“Laws overturned; tribunals subverted; industry without vigor; commerce expiring; the revenue unpaid, yet the people impoverished; a church pillaged, and a state not relieved; civil and military anarchy…;everything human and divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit, and national bankruptcy the consequence; and , to crown it all, the paper securities of a new, precarious, tottering power, the discredited securities of impoverished fraud and beggared rapine, held out as a currency for the support of an empire,

III.D.4. the evils of the Revolution d. “church pillaged” & e. “paper securities”

Burke, p. 56

“Laws overturned; tribunals subverted; industry without vigor; commerce expiring; the revenue unpaid, yet the people impoverished; a church pillaged, and a state not relieved; civil and military anarchy…;everything human and divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit, and national bankruptcy the consequence; and , to crown it all, the paper securities• of a new, precarious, tottering power, the discredited securities of impoverished fraud and beggared rapine, held out as a currency for the support of an empire, in lieu of the two great recognized species [Au & Ag] that represent the lasting, conventional credit of mankind, which disappeared and hid themselves in the earth from whence they came….”

III.D.4. the evils of the Revolution d. “church pillaged” & e. “paper securities”

Burke, p. 56

III. Reflections on the Revolution in France A. “metaphysical abstraction”B. “cashiering kings”C. the British way D. French errorsE. National Assembly 1. misleading name a. popular selection and merit 2. Tiers Etat a. what they lack b. history, 1788-90 c. lawyers d. “country clowns,” merchants, doctors, financiers, and others e. differences from House of Commons 3. First and Second Estates a. country curates b. “discontented men of quality” c. “the first principle...of public affections”?

F. Other “pearls” 1. “ten thousand swords”

2. “half a dozen grasshoppers” 3. “a partnership agreement”

“This unforced choice, this fond election of evil, would appear perfectly unaccountable, if we did not consider the composition of the National Assembly; I do not mean its formal constitution...but the materials of which it is composed, which is of ten thousand times greater consequence than all the formalities in the world.”

III.E.National Assembly.

Burke, p. 58

1. It sounds great, but a. just because the people have selected its members doesn’t make the legislators any wiser than they were to begin with



Burke, p. 58



Burke, p. 58

1. It sounds great, but a. just because the people have selected its members doesn’t make the legislators any wiser than they were to begin with

“After I had read over the list of the persons and descriptions elected into the Tiers Etat, nothing which they did afterwards could appear astonishing. Among them, indeed, I saw some of known rank; some of shining talents; but of any practical experience in the state, not one man was to be found”

III.E.National Assembly. 2. Tiers Etat

Burke, p. 59

a. what they lack--experience in governingb. since the 3rd was = to both the 1st & 2nd combined, they came to predominate



Burke, p. 59



Burke, p. 59

a. what they lack--experience in governingb. since the 3rd was = to both the 1st & 2nd combined, they came to predominate

“Judge, sir, of my surprize, when I found that a very great proportion...was composed of practitioners of the law. It was composed not of distinguished magistrates...not of leading advocates, the glory of the bar…;--but...of the inferior, unlearned, mechanical, merely instrumental members of the profession….the fomentors and conductors of the petty war of village vexation. From the moment I read the list I saw distinctly, and very nearly as it happened, all that was to follow….“Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and, as it were, by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?”

III.E.National Assembly. 2. Tiers Etat c. lawyers

Burke, p. 61

“Well! but these men were to be tempered and restrained by other descriptions, of more sober minds, and more enlarged understandings. Were they then to be awed by the...awful dignity of a handful of country clowns [peasant farmers] who have seats in the assembly, some of whom are said not to be able to read and write? and by not a greater number of traders, who, though somewhat more instructed, ...had never known any thing beyond their counting house? No! both these descriptions were more formed to be overborne and swayed by the intrigues and artifices of lawyers, than to become their counterpoise”

III.E.National Assembly. 2. Tiers Etat d. “country clowns,” merchants, doctors, financiers and others

Burke, pp. 63-64

“We know that the British house of commons, without shutting its doors to any merit in any class, is, by the sure operation of adequate causes, filled with every thing illustrious in rank, in descent, in hereditary and in acquired opulence, in cultivated talents, in military, civil, naval, and politic distinction, that the country can afford”

III.E.National Assembly. 2. Tiers Etat e. differences from the House of Commons

Burke, pp. 64-65

III.E.National Assembly. 3. First and Second Estates

Burke, p. 67

a. country curates

“Having considered the composition of the third estate…, I took a view of the representatives of the clergy. There too it appeared, that full as little regard was had to the general security of property, or to the aptitude of the deputies for their public purposes, in the principles of their election. That election was so contrived as to send a very large proportion of mere country curates to the great and arduous work of new-modeling a state;...men who knew nothing of the world beyond the bounds of an obscure village; who, immersed in hopeless poverty, could regard all property, whether secular or ecclesiastical, with no other eye than that of envy….Instead of balancing the power of the active chicaners in the other assembly….”


Burke, p. 67

a. country curates

“This preponderating weight being added to the force of the body chicane in the Tiers Etat, completed the momentum of ignorance, rashness, presumption, and lust of plunder, which nothing has been able to resist.”

Burke, p. 68


b. “discontented men of quality” & c. “the first principle...of public affections”

Honoré Gabriel Riqueti

comte de Mirabeau

1749-1791(The Bill Clinton of

the Revolution)

Honoré Gabriel Riqueti

comte de Mirabeau

1749-1791(The Bill Clinton of

the Revolution)

“[in the Second Estate, the nobility] Turbulent, discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order. One of the first symptoms they discover of a selfish and mischievous ambition, is a profligate disregard of a dignity which they partake with others. To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is [c] the first principle ( the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind.”


Burke, pp. 68-69

b. “discontented men of quality” & c. “the first principle...of public affections”

It is now sixteen or seventeen years[1773] since I [age 44]saw the queen of France [age 18], then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision.

III.F.Other Pearls- 1.”...ten thousand swords…”

It is now sixteen or seventeen years[1773] since I [age 44]saw the queen of France [age 18], then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,--glittering like the morning-star, full of life and splendor and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom! (cont.)

III.F.Other Pearls- 1.”...ten thousand swords…”

antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom! (cont.) little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever….

III.F.1.”...ten thousand swords…”

Burke, pp. 112-113

the Queen’s Bedchamberthe Queen’s Bedchamber

The memorable day at Versailles, Monday 5 The memorable day at Versailles, Monday 5 October 1789October 1789In this general riot, several bodyguards have been In this general riot, several bodyguards have been massacred; two among them were decapitated and their massacred; two among them were decapitated and their heads carried in triumph by this same people, friend of heads carried in triumph by this same people, friend of national libertynational liberty

Our Modern Amazons, glorious for their victories, return on horse and upon cannons, Our Modern Amazons, glorious for their victories, return on horse and upon cannons, with several good men of the National Guard, holding poplar branches to the with several good men of the National Guard, holding poplar branches to the repeated cries of Vive la Nation, Vive le Roirepeated cries of Vive la Nation, Vive le Roi

This orgy of disrespect for the monarchy was “the last straw” to Burke. Much of the venomous emotion which colors his prose stems from this episode.

jbp

“The vanity, restlessness, petulance, and spirit of intrigue, of several petty cabals, who attempt to hide their total want of consequence in bustle and noise, and puffing, and mutual quotations of each other, makes you imagine that our contemptuous neglect of their abilities is a mark of general acquiescence in their opinions….Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, 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 (cont.)

III.F.2.”...half a dozen grasshoppers…”

silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise (cont.) 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, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour….”

III.F.2.”...half a dozen grasshoppers…”

Burke, pp. 126-127

“Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure; but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature (cont.)

III.F.3.”...a partnership agreement…”

existence of a temporary and perishable nature (cont.) It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world….”

III.F.3.”...a partnership agreement…”

Burke, pp. 143-144

Criticism

Criticism

Hanna Pitkin1931-

T. B. Macaulay1800-1859

Sir Philip Francis1740-1818

Thomas Paine1737-1809

Russell Kirk1918-1994

Winston Churchill1874-1965

Lord Acton1834-1902

IV. Criticism A. Historical Critics

1. 18th century2. 19th century3. 20th century

B. Criticism from Justice & Power, 19771. historic vision2. Burke’s role in history3. rejection of systematic or abstract doctrines4. Nature and God5. change6. reason and emotion7. validity of status, hierarchy and tradition

IV.A.1-Thomas Paine Rights of Man, 1791

sent to the printer three months after Burke’s Reflections appeared

March, 1791-Paine, who had been in London since 1787, fled to France as he was charged with seditious libel

Feb, 1792-undeterred by the British government’s campaign to discredit him , he issued a Rights of Man, Part the Second

IV.A.1-Thomas Paine Rights of Man, 1791sent to the printer three months after Burke’s Reflections appeared

March, 1791-Paine, who had been in London since 1787, fled to France as he was charged with seditious libel

Feb, 1792-undeterred by the British government’s campaign to discredit him , he issued a Rights of Man, Part the Second

Satirist James Gilray responded with a famous poster

Cartoon showing Britannia clasping trunk of a large oak, while Thomas Paine tugs with both hands at her stay laces, his foot on her posterior. From his coat pocket protrudes a pair of scissors and a tape inscribed: Rights of Man. Behind him is a thatched cottage inscribed: Thomas Pain, Staymaker from Thetford. Paris Modes, by express. Published by H. Humphrey, 1793.

The most famous passage in Burke's Reflections was his description of the events of 5–6 October 1789 and Marie Antoinette's part in them. Burke's account differs little from modern historians who have used primary sources. His use of flowery language to describe it, however, provoked both praise and criticism. Philip Francis [his friend and ally in the Hastings impeachment] wrote to Burke saying that what he wrote of Marie Antoinette was "pure foppery". Edward Gibbon however reacted differently: "I adore his chivalry".

Wiki

IV.A.1-18th century--Philip Francis

1740-1818

Macaulay recorded in his diary: "I have now finished reading again most of Burke's works. Admirable! The greatest man since Milton".

Thomas Babington Macaulay,as quoted in Wiki

IV.A.2-19th century

1800-1859

The Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli "was deeply penetrated with the spirit and sentiment of Burke's later writings".The Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone considered Burke "a magazine of wisdom on Ireland and America" and in his diary recorded: "Made many extracts from Burke—sometimes almost divine".

Wiki

IV.A.2-

Gladstone1809-1898

Disraeli1804-1881

The Liberal historian Lord Acton considered Burke one of the three greatest liberals, along with William Gladstone and Thomas Babington Macaulay..

Wiki

IV.A.2-19th cent

1834-1902

On the one hand [Burke] is revealed as a foremost apostle of Liberty, on the other as the redoubtable champion of Authority. But a charge of political inconsistency applied to this life appears a mean and petty thing. History easily discerns the reasons and forces which actuated him, and the immense changes in the problems he was facing which evoked from the same profound mind and sincere spirit these entirely contrary manifestations. His soul revolted against tyranny, whether it appeared in the aspect of a domineering Monarch and a corrupt Court and Parliamentary system, or whether, mouthing the watch-words of a non-existent liberty, it towered up against him in the dictation of a brutal mob and wicked sect. No one can read the Burke of Liberty and the Burke of Authority without feeling that here was the same man pursuing the same ends, seeking the same ideals of society and Government, and defending them from assaults, now from one extreme, now from the other.

Winston Churchill, in “Consistency in Politics”,as quoted in Wiki

IV.A.3-20th century

1874-1965

Russell Kirk was an American political theorist, moralist, historian, social critic, literary critic, and fiction author known for his influence on 20th century American conservatism. His 1953 book, The Conservative Mind, gave shape to the amorphous post–World War II conservative movement. It traced the development of conservative thought in the Anglo-American tradition, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke. Kirk was also considered the chief proponent of traditionalist conservatism.--Wiki

IV.A.3-20th century

1918-1994

Burke was a leading skeptic with respect to democracy.... He opposed democracy for three basic reasons. First, government required a degree of intelligence and breadth of knowledge of the sort that was very uncommon among the common people. Second he thought that common people had dangerous and angry passions that could be easily aroused by demagogues if they had the vote; he feared the authoritarian impulses that could be empowered by these passions would undermine cherished traditions and established religion, leading to violence and confiscation of property. Thirdly, Burke warned that democracy would tyrannize unpopular minorities who needed the protection of the upper classes.

Hanna Pitkin, Cal Berkeley, as quoted in Wiki

IV.A.3-20th century

“Burke’s language seemed extreme; it was soon to seem prophetic.”--J.C.D.Clark, ed. op. cit,. p. 77

IV.B.1.historic vision

Two years before the guillotine came to symbolize the worst excesses of the Terror Burke wrote:

“On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is the offspring of cold hearts and muddy understandings...laws are to be supported only by their own terrors….In the groves of their academy, at the end of every visto [sic], you see nothing but the gallows.”

(cont.)

Burke, p. 115

IV.B.1.historic vision (cont.)Nine years before Napoleon came to power Burke wrote:

“In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of the army will remain… mutinous...until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account….But the moment in which that event shall happen, the person who really commands the army is your master; The master (that is little)of your king,the master of your assembly, the master of your whole republic. Everything depends upon the army in such a government as yours; for you have industriously destroyed...all the instincts which support government….you must have recourse to force. Nothing else is left to you; or rather you have left nothing else to yourselves.

Burke, pp. 317-318

IV.B.1.historic vision (concluded)

“...the force of Burke’s analysis for his contemporaries derived not just from his rhetorical skill, but from the way in which his strangely haunting intuitions were apparently realised [sic] in years to come.”

Clark, p. 84

Burke is regarded by most political experts in the English-speaking world as the father of modern English conservatism. His liberal conservatism favoured gradual reform over government based on abstract ideas and can be contrasted with the autocratic conservatism of continental figures such as Joseph de Maistre.--Wiki

IV.B.2.Burke’s role in history

His stands on so many of the questions of his day appear, in retrospect, to have been on the ‘right side’ of history. He warned against the British oppression of Ireland, the short-sighted policies against British North America, the wickedness of the slave trade. But, long before men as wise as Jefferson, he saw the dangers of the French Revolution. Most people have come to regard the spurious quotation, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil…” as emblematic of his wisdom.

jbp

IV.B.3.rejection of systematic or abstract doctrinesOn page 7, Burke wrote:

“...all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction.”

In Clark’s critical edition, he notes:

“...Burke certainly came to use the term ‘metaphysics’ in a derogatory sense for the doctrines associated with the French Revolution, e.g., Reflections, pp. [86, 90, 134, 272-4, 313, 321, 325, 344, 348].”

Clark, p. 151 , note 20

IV.B.4.Nature and God

Although many 18th century Deists tended to use Nature (with the capitaL ‘N’) as a sort of code word for God, this was not Burke’s usage. He was an Anglican and events as well as his own maturing tended to move him towards more orthodox views about the workings of Divine Providence in history. Capitalization tended to be more idiosyncratic in his time. Witness our Declaration of Independence.

jbp

IV.B.5.change

On page 30 Burke expressed his views on change:

jbp

A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation….The two principles of conservation and correction operated strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution, when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the nation had lost the bond of union in their ancient edifice; they did not, however, dissolve the whole fabric.

Only reactionaries oppose all change. Conservatives accept the need for correction but they place conservation ahead of it (as in the sentence above) and believe that it is possible to do both.

IV.B.6. reason and emotion

What made Burke such an effective advocate, then and now, was his ability to combine both of these ‘tools’ in his rhetorical arguments.

jbp

“Because of [Burke’s] conviction that people desire to be ruled and controlled, the division of property formed the basis for social structure, helping develop control within a property-based hierarchy.”--Wiki

IV.B.7.validity of status, hierarchy and tradition

“Thanks to our sullen resistance to innovation, thanks to the cold sluggishness of our national character, we still bear the stamp of our forefathers. We have not (as I conceive) lost the generosity and dignity of thinking of the fourteenth century; nor as yet have we subtilized ourselves into savages. We are not the converts of Rousseau; we are not the disciples of Voltaire….”

Burke, p. 127

Burke denounced what he considered to be the evils of the Revolution and prophesied rather well how it would plunge first France, then Europe, into bloodshed--driven by the most remarkable military dictator the world had ever seen. For much of the next century the forces of reaction tried to contain the energies of the Industrial Revolution. Then a prophet would arise to inspire the greatest revolution the world had ever seen. But, that’s another story...

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