Edmund Burke: The Conscience of a Nation
When this silver-tongued Dubliner spoke, the British people listened
By Joseph E. Gannon
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good
men to do nothing."
-- Edmund Burke
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"Edmund Burke" by English painter Joshua Reynolds |
Edmund Burke was one of the most famous political thinkers of the 18th century. Through his speeches and writings, he raised the level of political debate in England, attempting to make moral
principles a part of English politics. A champion of Catholic emancipation,
Burke wielded his influence to weaken the heinous Penal Laws. He was born
on Jan. 12, 1729, in Arran Quay, Dublin.
Burke was the son of a mixed marriage, his mother Catholic and his
father Protestant. He would later marry an Irish Catholic woman.
Perhaps it was these two factors which led him to advocate a compassionate
policy toward Ireland for most of his life. Burke graduated from Trinity
College in 1748 and studied law at Middle Temple in London; however, he
failed to secure a call to the bar and instead began a literary career.
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"June Nugent Burke" by Joshua Reynolds |
In 1756, Burke published his first book, "A Vindication of Natural Society"
and an essay titled "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas
of the Sublime and the Beautiful." In 1757, he married June Nugent, the
daughter of a Catholic physician, and in 1759 he became editor of the
Annual Register.
By 1761, Burke had begun to involve himself with politics. That year, after living in England, he returned to Dublin as secretary to W.G. Hamilton, chief secretary for Ireland. He left that post two years later to become secretary to the new prime minister, Lord Rockingham.
In 1765, Earl Verney brought him into the House of Commons as a member for
Wendover. His first speeches in the early months of 1766 impressed the
members of Parliament. In the space of a few short weeks, Burke rose from
obscurity to being recognized as one of the leading figures in the House of
Commons. He now began to make his own mark in politics through his writing
and public speaking.
Burke had come to Parliament just as the controversy
over the Stamp Act was beginning. He urged repeal of the act and
consistently supported a policy of reconciliation with the American
colonies. Burke wrote four well-known pamphlets on the America question from 1770 to 1777: "Thoughts on the Present Discontents" (1770), "American Taxation" (1774),
"Conciliation with the Colonies" (1775), and "A Letter to the Sheriffs of
Bristol" (1777).
Burke's colleagues in Parliament never took his advice on
the American colonies, but many since have recognized the wisdom of the
policy he advanced. In commenting on Burke's writings on the American
question, John Morley, the Liberal politician and writer, said that "taken
together they compose the most perfect manual in our literature, or in any
literature, for one who approaches the study of public affairs, whether for
knowledge or practice.'' After Yorktown, it was Burke and the Whigs who
would eventually force King George III to recognize the futility of
continuing the war in America.
 Burke was the leading Parliamentary proponent of civil rights for Catholics
in Ireland. Since the late 17th century, Catholics in Ireland had been
barred from full citizenship and the vast majority forced into abject
poverty by the Penal Laws. During the last part of the 18th century, the
threat of French intervention in Ireland and Burke's efforts together
forced the passage of several reductions of the severe restrictions of the
Penal Laws.
The championing of that cause would cost Burke his MP seat in
1780, but he returned to Parliament as the member from Malton and became
Paymaster of Forces when a Whig, Lord Rockingham, became prime minister
again. When Lord Rockingham died in July 1786, Burke resigned and never
held public office again, but he continued his involvement with British
politics and writing for the rest of his life.
Burke was a constant critic of British colonial policies, and, in the 1780s,
his investigation into The East India Company led to the impeachment of
Warren Hastings, governor general of India. Although Hastings would
eventually be acquitted of all charges, the entire affair led to reforms in
England's administration in India and helped bring the inequities of
England's colonial system before the public. Burke believed this was the
most important political contribution of his career.
 Burke is often remembered for his vehement opposition to the French
Revolution, which he expounded in 1790 in what is, perhaps, his best-known work: "Reflections on the Revolution in France." The work was widely published and read all over Europe, and his articulation of what he viewed as the dangers of the
Revolution caused a sensation in England. It caused him to break with many
of his longtime friends and colleagues in the Whig party and invoked
replies from many English writers, the most famous one being Thomas Paine's
"Rights of Man."
In what might seem a contradiction, given his support of the civil rights
of Irish Catholics, Burke was opposed to the Volunteer movement in Ireland
and to the establishing of Henry Grattan's Irish Parliament. Burke's
opposition to these movements may well have been his fear that Grattan's
Parliament would not be a government of all the Irish people but merely
one that continued, and perhaps even strengthened, the long tradition or
Irish Protestant rule and Irish Catholic subservience. Burke was never an
advocate of any form of Irish independence, though he supported the
emancipation of Irish Catholics within the British Empire.
Burke's writing on the Irish question are less known than those of his
on the American and the French Revolutions, but he left behind several that
would have served the British well -- had they ever been heeded. In his
"Speech at the Guildhall" (1780), "To a Peer of Ireland on the Penal Laws"
(1782), and "To Sir Hercules Langrishe" (1792), he sends them a clear
message: Your foolish colonial policies have lost America and your foolish
policies will lose Ireland. His counsel was ignored but the correctness of
his theme has been proved by history.
Burke died in London on July 9, 1797, one year before Ireland erupted in
revolution. That revolt might have been avoided if some of Burke's ideas on
Catholic emancipation and other legislative reforms had been more fully
implemented by the English government. Then, as ever, the country's rulers
seemed to suffer from a complete inability to make the compromises that
could avoid repeated disasters on that long-suffering island. As Burke once said, in words that should echo down to those debating Ireland's future today: "All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is
founded on compromise and barter."
Burke is not a hero of Irish nationalists, nor should he be, for he never
was a proponent of Irish republicanism. But he did help put the
corruption of England's colonial system before the English people. Most of
all, he started the process that would eventually bring the despised
malignancy known as the Penal Laws to an end; for this, he should be well
remembered in the land of his birth.
Selected Bibliography:
Ayling, Stanley. Edmund Burke: His Life and Opinions. John Murray Publishers, 1988.
Boylan, Henry. A Dictionary of Irish Biography. St. Martin's Press, 1988.
Foster, R. F. Modern Ireland 1600-1972. Penguin Books, 1989.
Harvey, Sir Paul, The Oxford Companion to English
Literature. Oxford University Press, 1969.
O'Brien, Conor Cruise. Burke, Ireland, and America. Vol. 49,
National Review, Sept. 15, 1997, pp. 35(5).
Wallace, Martin. Famous Irish Lives. Appletree Press, 1991.
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