Edmund Burke

The Right Honourable Edmund Burke (January 12, 1729 – July 9, 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator and political philosopher, who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. He is chiefly remembered for his support of the American colonies in the struggle against King George III that led to the American Revolution, as well as for his strong opposition to the French Revolution. The latter made Burke one of the leading figures within the conservative faction of the Whig party (which he dubbed the "Old Whigs"), in opposition to the pro-revolutionary "New Whigs," led by Charles James Fox. Burke also published philosophical work on aesthetics and founded the Annual Register, a political review. In his day he was considered one of the finest parliamentary orators in Britain.

Life

Born in Dublin, Ireland, Burke was the son of a Protestant solicitor and a Catholic mother, whose maiden name was Nagle. He received his early education at a Quaker school in Ballitore and in 1744 he proceeded to Trinity College, Dublin. In 1747, he set up a Debating Club, known as Edmund Burke's Club, which in 1770 merged with the Historical Club to form the College Historical Society. The minutes of the meetings of Burke's club remain in the collection of the Historical Society. He graduated in 1748. Burke's father wished him to study for the law, and with this object he went to London in 1750 and entered the Middle Temple, but soon thereafter he gave up his legal studies in order to travel in Continental Europe.

Related Topics:
Dublin - Ireland - Protestant - Solicitor - Catholic - Quaker - Ballitore - 1744 - Trinity College, Dublin - 1747 - College Historical Society - 1748 - Law - London - 1750 - Middle Temple - Europe

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Burke's first published work, A Vindication of Natural Society, appeared in 1756. It was a satire on the views of Bolingbroke, but so close was the imitation to the writer's style, and so grave the irony, that its point as a satire was largely missed. In 1757 he published a treatise on aesthetics, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, which attracted the attention of prominent Continental thinkers such as Denis Diderot and Immanuel Kant. The following year, with Robert Dodsley, he created the influential Annual Register, a publication in which various authors evaluated the international political events of the previous year. In London, Burke became closely connected with many of the leading intellectuals and artists, including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith, and Joshua Reynolds.

Related Topics:
A Vindication of Natural Society - 1756 - Bolingbroke - 1757 - A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful - Denis Diderot - Immanuel Kant - Robert Dodsley - Samuel Johnson - David Garrick - Oliver Goldsmith - Joshua Reynolds

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At about this same time, Burke was introduced to William Gerard Hamilton (known as "Single-speech Hamilton"). When Hamilton was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, Burke accompanied him to Dublin as his private secretary, a position he maintained for three years. In 1765 Burke became private secretary to liberal Whig statesman Charles Watson-Wentworth, the Marquess of Rockingham, at the time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who remained Burke's close friend and associate until his death.

Related Topics:
William Gerard Hamilton - Chief Secretary for Ireland - 1765 - Whig - Charles Watson-Wentworth - Marquess of Rockingham - Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

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Political career

In 1765 Burke entered the British Parliament as a member of the House of Commons for Wendover, a Whig, and Rockingham's protegé. Thus began his distinguished career as an orator and philosophic statesman. Burke took a leading role in the debate over the constitutional limits to the executive authority of the King. He argued strongly against unrestrained royal power and for the role of political parties in maintaining a principled opposition capable of preventing abuses by the monarch or by specific factions within the government. His most important publication in this regard was his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents of 1770. Later he was noted for his defense of representative democracy against the notion that elected officials should act narrowly as advocates for the interests of their constituents; (a particularly famous instance being his address to the electors of Bristol, which was then England's 'second city,' in 1774). He summed up his thoughts by formulating the delegate and trustee models of representation.

Related Topics:
1765 - British Parliament - Wendover - Political parties - Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents - 1770 - Representative democracy - Bristol - 1774 - Delegate - Trustee

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Always concerned with enforcing constitutional constraints on royal power, Burke expressed his support for the grievances of the American colonies under the government of King George III and his appointed representatives. He also campaigned against the persecution of Catholics in Ireland and denounced the abuses and corruption of the East India Company. In 1769 he published, in reply to George Grenville, his pamphlet on The Present State of the Nation. In the same year he purchased the small estate of Gregories near Beaconsfield. His speeches and writings had now made him famous, and among other effects had brought about the suggestion that he was the author of the Letters of Junius. In 1774 he was elected member for Bristol, and continued so until 1780, when differences with his constituency on the questions of Irish trade and Catholic emancipation led to his resignation, after which he sat for Malton until his final retirement from public life.

Related Topics:
Catholics - Ireland - East India Company - 1769 - George Grenville - Beaconsfield - 1774 - 1780 - Malton

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Under the Tory administration of Lord North (1770-1782) the American war went on from bad to worse, and it was in part owing to the splendid oratorical efforts of Burke that it was at last brought to an end. To this period belong two of his most brilliant performances, his speech on Conciliation with America (1775), and his Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777). The fall of North led to Rockingham being recalled to power. Burke became Paymaster of the Forces and Privy Councillor, but Rockingham's unexpected death in July of 1782 put an end to his administration after only a few months.

Related Topics:
Tory - Lord North - 1770 - 1782 - 1775 - 1777 - Paymaster of the Forces - Privy Councillor

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Burke then supported fellow Whig Charles James Fox in his coalition with Lord North, a decision that many came to regard later as his greatest political error. Under that short-lived coalition he continued to hold the office of Paymaster and he distinguished himself in connection with Fox's India Bill. The coalition fell in 1783, and was succeeded by the long Tory administration of William Pitt the Younger, which lasted until 1801. Burke was accordingly in opposition for the remainder of his political life. In 1785 he made his great speech on The Nabob of Arcot's Debts, and in the next year (1786) he moved for papers in regard to the Indian government of Warren Hastings, the consequence of which was the impeachment of that statesman, which, beginning in 1787, lasted until 1794, and of which Burke was the leading promoter.

Related Topics:
Charles James Fox - 1783 - William Pitt the Younger - 1801 - 1785 - 1786 - India - Warren Hastings - Impeachment - 1787 - 1794

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Response to the French Revolution

Given his record as a strong supporter of American independence and as a campaigner against royal prerogative, many were surprised when Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France in 1790. With it, Burke became one of the earliest and fiercest British critics of the French Revolution, which he saw not as 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, which would end in disaster. Former admirers of Burke, such as Thomas Jefferson and fellow Whig politician Charles James Fox, proceeded to denounce Burke as a reactionary and an enemy of democracy. Thomas Paine penned The Rights of Man in 1791 as a response to Burke. However, other pro-democratic politicians, such as the American John Adams, agreed with Burke's assessment of the French situation. Many of Burke's dire predictions for the outcome of the French Revolution were later borne out by the execution of King Louis XVI, the subsequent Reign of Terror, and the eventual rise of Napoleon's autocratic regime.

Related Topics:
Reflections on the Revolution in France - 1790 - Thomas Jefferson - Charles James Fox - Reactionary - Thomas Paine - The Rights of Man - 1791 - John Adams - Louis XVI - Reign of Terror - Napoleon

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These events, and the disagreements which arose regarding them within the Whig part, led to its breakup and to the rupture of Burke's friendship with Fox. In 1791 Burke published his Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, in which he renewed his criticism of the radical revolutionary programs inspired by the French Revolution and attacked the Whigs who supported them. Eventually 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.

Related Topics:
1791 - Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs - Prime Minister - William Pitt the Younger - 1793

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In 1794 a terrible blow fell upon Burke in the loss of his son Richard, to whom he was tenderly attached, and in whom he saw signs of promise, which were not patent to others, and which in fact appear to have been non-existent. In the same year the Hastings trial came to an end. Burke felt that his work was done and indeed that he was worn out; and he took leave of Parliament. The King, whose favour he had gained by his attitude on the French Revolution, wished to make him Lord Beaconsfield, but the death of his son had deprived such an honour of all its attractions, and the only reward he would accept was a pension of £2,500. Even this modest reward was attacked by the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, to whom Burke made a crushing reply in the Letter to a Noble Lord (1796). His last publication were the Letters on a Regicide Peace (1796), called forth by negotiations for peace with France.

Related Topics:
1794 - Duke of Bedford - Earl of Lauderdale - 1796

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Burke died in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire in 1797.

Related Topics:
Beaconsfield - Buckinghamshire - 1797

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