March 22, 1775—Pleading with colleagues in the House of Commons to exercise “legislative reason,” Edmund Burke called for backing off measures that would lose Britain its American colonies.
Nowadays, the Anglo-Irish Burke is probably best known as one of the early great proponents of conservatism, as propounded in Reflections on the Revolution in France. But his notion of conservatism was not the frequently knee-jerk obstinacy that often passes for that nowadays, but instead a philosophy that ameliorated injustice through legislation that did no damage to a cultural heritage.
The son of a Catholic mother, Burke pressed for better treatment of Irish Catholics and an end to mistreatment of Indian colonials—and well before Parliament came around to the idea, forcefully advocated the suppression of the African slave trade.
One of Burke’s greatest orations, Speech on Conciliation With America, solidified a reputation he had carved out, in an early speech opposing the Stamp Act, as one of the high-profile defenders of America in Westminster. In fact, this latest speech was delivered 10 years to the day that Parliament enacted the Stamp Act, the first step in what historian Barbara Tuchman would describe as a self-destructive “March of Folly.”
Things had gone from bad to far, far worse by the time Burke rose to speak. Parliament had forcefully rejected a proposal by former Prime Minister William Pitt to remove soldiers from Boston. Instead, what was on the table now was the New England Restraining Act, which called for prohibiting New England trade to other nations and banning New England ships from North Atlantic fisheries.
Burke desperately tried to persuade his colleagues from this additional punitive measure, realizing that the result would be the loss of much of the territory that the nation had spent 170 years to bring into being. Parliament might have the right to impose taxes on the colonists, Burke suggested, but that didn’t mean it should exercise it.
Unfortunately, the effect that Burke had upon his colleagues was, at least at first, negative. I was surprised to read several weeks ago that this politician—someone who, the history books all say, was a great “orator”—was actually, at best, an indifferent speaker. Other members found it difficult to endure the harsh sounds coming from his throat, not to mention his Irish accent.
Lawyer-politician Thomas Erskine, no mean hand at winning a crowd over himself, was present when Burke rose on this day in defense of the colonies. Years later, he observed that Burke had—as he had done on so many other occasions –emptied the chamber, a consistent phenomenon that led him to be nicknamed “dinner-bell Burke.”
(In fact, if you want an American counterpart to Burke as someone whose contemporary reputation as an orator was far less than what we believe it to be today, look to Thomas Jefferson. Historian Roger Kennedy has made the extraordinary point that not once in his entire career did Jefferson utter two audible words in a public address.)
But Burke’s closely argued, ringing address had a larger impact than the foregoing might explain. He made sure to have his speech published, increasing the audience far beyond his original audience.
Nowadays, the Anglo-Irish Burke is probably best known as one of the early great proponents of conservatism, as propounded in Reflections on the Revolution in France. But his notion of conservatism was not the frequently knee-jerk obstinacy that often passes for that nowadays, but instead a philosophy that ameliorated injustice through legislation that did no damage to a cultural heritage.
The son of a Catholic mother, Burke pressed for better treatment of Irish Catholics and an end to mistreatment of Indian colonials—and well before Parliament came around to the idea, forcefully advocated the suppression of the African slave trade.
One of Burke’s greatest orations, Speech on Conciliation With America, solidified a reputation he had carved out, in an early speech opposing the Stamp Act, as one of the high-profile defenders of America in Westminster. In fact, this latest speech was delivered 10 years to the day that Parliament enacted the Stamp Act, the first step in what historian Barbara Tuchman would describe as a self-destructive “March of Folly.”
Things had gone from bad to far, far worse by the time Burke rose to speak. Parliament had forcefully rejected a proposal by former Prime Minister William Pitt to remove soldiers from Boston. Instead, what was on the table now was the New England Restraining Act, which called for prohibiting New England trade to other nations and banning New England ships from North Atlantic fisheries.
Burke desperately tried to persuade his colleagues from this additional punitive measure, realizing that the result would be the loss of much of the territory that the nation had spent 170 years to bring into being. Parliament might have the right to impose taxes on the colonists, Burke suggested, but that didn’t mean it should exercise it.
Unfortunately, the effect that Burke had upon his colleagues was, at least at first, negative. I was surprised to read several weeks ago that this politician—someone who, the history books all say, was a great “orator”—was actually, at best, an indifferent speaker. Other members found it difficult to endure the harsh sounds coming from his throat, not to mention his Irish accent.
Lawyer-politician Thomas Erskine, no mean hand at winning a crowd over himself, was present when Burke rose on this day in defense of the colonies. Years later, he observed that Burke had—as he had done on so many other occasions –emptied the chamber, a consistent phenomenon that led him to be nicknamed “dinner-bell Burke.”
(In fact, if you want an American counterpart to Burke as someone whose contemporary reputation as an orator was far less than what we believe it to be today, look to Thomas Jefferson. Historian Roger Kennedy has made the extraordinary point that not once in his entire career did Jefferson utter two audible words in a public address.)
But Burke’s closely argued, ringing address had a larger impact than the foregoing might explain. He made sure to have his speech published, increasing the audience far beyond his original audience.
The address—part of a larger decade-long effort by Burke to restrain King George III from regaining much of the royal authority lost by his two Hanoverian predecessors—pinpointed six factors that made Americans resentful of Britain’s long-distance micromanaging:
* the love of liberty fostered by their English heritage;
* the love of liberty fostered by their English heritage;
* their form of government—provincial assemblies dependent on popular rule;
* the dissenting Protestant impulse in the Northern colonies;
* slaveholding in the South, which, though Burke abominated slavery, he also admitted made those who were free even more anxious to preserve the liberty they had;
* American leaders' high level of education, manifested especially in the law, which “renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources”; and
* geography—or, as he pointed out, “three thousand miles of ocean [that] lie between you and them.”
Burke’s brilliance and status as a member of Samuel Johnson’s literary circle led many in Great Britain to reconsider the mother country’s course, but by this time it was too late. The die was cast, and in only a month the “shot heard round the world” would be fired at Lexington.
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