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The Conservative Revolution of Edmund Burke

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Extract

EdmundBurke enjoys the rather unusual distinction of having been both a revolutionary and a conservative at one and the same time. Before and after Burke, men have begun life as radical firebrands and ended it as reactionaries; but Burke combined the two attitudes, although in differing proportions, now one or the other predominating, almost throughout the course of his life. For example, Burke approved unreservedly of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, accepted the American Revolution of 1776, and called for a drastic change in the administration of British India; yet, he became the first thinker to propound a comprehensive statement of modern conservatism. He favored the Polish Reform of 1791, the freeing of Irish trade, the relief from religious disabilities of the Catholics, and the promotion of religious tolerance; yet, he lauded prescription and traditionalism. It is this ever-present dualism of thought in Burke which has so consistently disturbed scholars and historians of political theory and made it so difficult for them to place him in one camp or another.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1958

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References

1 For the notion of conservatism as self-conscious traditionalism, cf. Mannheim, Karl's article, “Das konservative Denken,” Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, LVII (1927).Google Scholar

2 Trilling, Lionel, E. M. Forster, A Study (London, 1951), p. 14.Google Scholar

3 Correspondence of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke; Between the Year 1744, and the Period of his Decease, in 1797. Edited by William, Charles, Fitzwilliam, Earl, and Lt. Gen. Sir Brooke, Richard, K. G. B., in 4 vols. (London, 1844), Vol. I, 48.Google Scholar

4 Ibid., Vol. III, 229.

5 The decline in Burke's Indian stock holdings forced him to mortgage Gregories, as he named his estate, to the hilt.

6 Samuels, Arthur P. I., The Early Life, Correspondence & Writings of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke, LL.D.Google Scholar, with an Introduction and Supplementary Chapters on Burke's Contributions to the Reformer and his part in the Lucas Controversy (1784) by the Rt. Hon. Arthur Warren Samuels. (Cambridge, 1928), pp. 219–20.

7 Burke, , Correspondence, Vol. III, 13.Google Scholar

8 Quoted in SirMagnus, Philip, Edmund Burke. A Life (London, 1939), p. 116.Google Scholar

9 Cf. Copeland, Thomas W., Our Eminent Friend Edmund Burke. Six Essays (New Haven, 1949), especially Chapter II.Google Scholar

10 The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke (hereafter referred to as Works) in 12 Vols., (Printed by the Colonial Press, Boston, no date given) Vol. II, 65.

11 Burke, , Correspondence, Vol. III, 4142.Google Scholar

12 Burke, , Works, Vol. VI, 164.Google Scholar

13 Burke's future respect for the “letter of the law” must be placed next to his disdain for lawyers and his own abandonment of the profession.

14 Cf. Fletcher, F. T. H., Montesquieu and English Politics (1750–1800) (London, 1939), p. 212.Google Scholar

15 Burke, , Works, Vol. VI, 178–79.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., Vol. II, 473.

17 Ibid., 439.

18 Burke, , Correspondence, Vol. III, 145.Google Scholar

19 Fletcher, , op. cit., p. 77.Google Scholar

20 Compare the earlier use of this idea by Halifax in his Character of a Trimmer, where he says: This innocent word Trimmer signifieth no more than this, that if men are together in a boat, and one part of the company would weigh it down on one side, another would make it lean as much to the contrary; it happeneth there is a third opinion of those who conceive it would do as well if the boat went even, without endangering the passengers.” This is quoted in Reed, A. W., “George Saville, Marquis of Halifax” in The Social and Political Ideas of Some English Thinkers of the Augustan Age A. D. 1650–1750, ed. by Hearnshaw, F. J. C. (London, 1928), pp. 6263.Google Scholar

21 Burke, , Works, Vol. II, 522.Google Scholar

22 Burke, , Correspondence, Vol. III, 349.Google Scholar

23 Burke, , Works, Vol. III, 271.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., 226.

25 Ibid., Vol. IV, 101.

26 Ibid., 197.

27 Burke, , Correspondence, Vol. III, 116–17.Google Scholar

28 Burke, , Works, Vol. V, 188Google Scholar. This motif of reform was strong throughout Burke's life, and it is interesting to note that the name of his undergraduate effort at a periodical was the Reformer.

29 Ibid., 186.

30 Ibid., Vol. VI, 259.

31 Ibid., Vol. II, 217.

32 This shift, in essence, marked the appearance in history of the “people” as a major political force.