BURKE, EDMUND (1729-1797). In the stormy days before the American Revolution, during a bitter debate in the English Parliament over the question of taxing the American colonies, one of the members of the House of Commons hotly asked : " Should not America belong to this country?" A calm clear voice replied : " If we have equity, wisdom, and justice, it will belong to this country; if we have not, it will not belong to this country." The voice was that of Edmund Burke, and his words were prophetic; for if England had adopted the wise and moderate policies which he advocated, the history of America would probably have been very different. Again and again this Irishman—awkward in his tight brown coat and little bob-wig, yet a commanding figure nevertheless—rose in Parliament and fought, now with all the warmth of his passionate sense of right, now with the cold penetrating strength of his logic, for the principles of justice and liberty as he believed they applied to the great questions of the day.
Burke was usually on the losing side, but his in fluence was felt as a powerful force in his own time.
His speeches—especially his magnificent addresses On Conciliation with the Colonies' and On American Taxation'—are read and studied today as master pieces of oratory; and he is regarded as one of the greatest thinkers of his time on questions of state.
Born in Dublin, Ireland, and educated there at Trinity College, Burke came to London to study law.
His Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas on the Sub lime and Beautiful' brought him recognition as a philosophical writer, and he became a member of the famous literary club of which Dr. Johnson was leader.
Johnson once remarked that "no man of sense could meet Mr. Burke by accident under a gateway to avoid a shower, without being convinced that he was the first man in England." Burke was soon able to support himself by his literary work, especially his yearly review and commentary on American affairs in the Annual Register.
Burke's Political Career In 1765 he became private secretary to Lord Rockingham, the Whig Prime Minister of the day, and the next year was elected from a " pocket borough" to Parliament. Though Burke never held high office, he at once became prominent because of his wide knowledge, his penetrating judgment, and his brilliant oratory.
After his unsuccessful struggle in behalf of the American colonists, Burke came forward as the champion of another subject people, this time the natives of India. He moved the impeachment of Warren Hastings, the governor of India, whom he charged with plundering the hapless natives. Al though Hastings was acquitted, and many now believe that Burke was mistaken in his judgment, his power ful speeches drove home the lesson that the rights of a subject people must be respected.
When Burke later came out in opposition to the French Revolution, many of his former political friends regarded him as a " turncoat," for now he seemed to have abandoned the cause of liberty. But Burke had before argued only for the rights of the individual as against an unjust government. He was essentially a conservative and never a believer in " government of the people, for the people, by the people"; thus he persistently opposed the reform of Parliament. Liberty, he held, is "inseparable from order" ; and the lawlessness and bloodshed of strug gling democracy in France so aroused his indignation and filled his mind that he could see no good in it.
His views were expressed in a pamphlet entitled Reflections on the Revolution in France', to which James Mackintosh's Vindiciae Gallicae' and Thomas Paine's Rights of Man' were replies.
The Blow that Crushed Burke's Soul Until he published his attack on the French Rev olution Burke is described as " a man decried, per secuted, and proscribed ; not being much valued even by his own party." His attitude on the great move ment across the channel completed the breach with Fox and the Whigs; but to compensate he was made much of by the Court and the Tories. King George III wished to honor the champion of the old order by making him a peer ; but before the title was conferred Burke suffered a blow which took from him all am bition for honor. He lost his only son, whom he loved passionately. " The storm has gone over me," he wrote, " and I lie like one of those old oaks which the late hurricane has scattered about me. I am stripped of all my honors; I am torn up by the roots and lie prostrate on the earth." A pension was all the broken-hearted man would accept. He retired from Parliament and died three years later.