Quote of the Day (Edmund Burke, on Why ‘Law and Arbitrary Power Are in Eternal Enmity’)

“Law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity. Name me a magistrate, and I will name property; name me power, and I will name protection. It is a contradiction in terms, it is blasphemy in religion, it is wickedness in politics, to say that any man can have arbitrary power. In every patent of office the duty is included. For what else does a magistrate exist? To suppose for power is an absurdity in idea. Judges are guided and governed by the eternal laws of justice, to which we are all subject. We may bite our chains, if we will, but we shall be made to know ourselves, and be taught that man is born to be governed by law; and he that will substitute will in the place of it is an enemy to God.”—Anglo-Irish politician-statesman—and conservative theorist—Edmund Burke (1729-1797), “Speech on The Impeachment of Warren Hastings,” Feb. 15, 1788

The subject of this searing meditation on power and the law was Warren Hastings, born on this day in Churchill, Oxfordshire, England, in 1732. Having risen through the East Indian Company to become the first de facto Governor-General of India, Hastings was accused of mismanagement and personal corruption while in power from 1772 to 1785. Edmund Burke (pictured), outraged by reports of abuses on the subcontinent, spearheaded the impeachment process against Hastings. 

The resulting trial before the House of Lords, extraordinarily long (from 1788 to 1795), ended in Hastings’ acquittal on charges of extortion and bribery, but not before Burke gave voice to some of the most compelling and eloquent thoughts on the proper exercise of power ever delivered by a Western statesman.

British historian and Whig politician Thomas Babington Macaulay vividly conveys the impact of Burke’s blistering four-day opening speech against Hastings, an autumnal burst of eloquence by the aging statesman:

“The energy and pathos of the great orator extorted expressions of unwonted admiration even from the stern and hostile Chancellor Thurlow; and, for a moment, seemed to pierce even the.resolute heart of the defendant. The ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed to such displays of eloquence, excited by the solemnity of the occasion, and perhaps not unwilling to display their taste and sensibility, were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were pulled out; smelling bottles were handed round; hysterical sobs and screams were heard: and Mrs. [Richard Brinsley] Sheridan was carried out in a fit.”

The Hastings impeachment trial has had implications beyond Britain or even its overseas possessions such as India. Politics in the early U.S. republic still avidly followed the fortunes of Burke, who, even upon the outbreak of the American Revolution, had advocated for the necessity of reconciliation with the rebellious colonies and against the folly of abusing their rights.

For the United States, then in the midst of a furious debate on its own Constitution, the Hastings trial threw into sharp relief the question of impeachment’s use as a tool to redress maladministration, corruption, and abuse of power. 

The framers were influenced enough by what they read overseas to insert the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” into the founding document of their new republic, indicating that more than just treason was enough to require removal from office. The proceedings in England would influence the debates and denouements of subsequent landmark American impeachment attempts involving Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase and Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

Burke pursued the case against Hastings despite the fact that Britain as a whole and even his own Whig Party was indifferent at best and hostile at worst to his cause. As the above quote indicates, he recognized the moral, not just political or legal, dimensions of the problem posed by Hastings’ wielding of power through the East India Company. His warning is as valid for 2017 America as it was for 1788 Britain: “he that will substitute will in the place of [law] is an enemy to God.”

At some time in the not-so-distant future, I hope that an American politician (and this is a real dream--a Republican!) will take the President and rake him over the coals with the same sense of outrage that Burke summoned against Hastings:

“I impeach him in the name of the Commons' House of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient honour he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all!"