112 Facts About Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish statesman, economist, and philosopher.

Edmund Burke was a proponent of underpinning virtues with manners in society and of the importance of religious institutions for the moral stability and good of the state.

Edmund Burke criticised the actions of the British government towards the American colonies, including its taxation policies.

Edmund Burke supported the rights of the colonists to resist metropolitan authority, although he opposed the attempt to achieve independence.

Edmund Burke is remembered for his support for Catholic emancipation, the impeachment of Warren Hastings from the East India Company, and his staunch opposition to the French Revolution.

Edmund Burke adhered to his father's faith and remained a practising Anglican throughout his life, unlike his sister Juliana who was brought up as and remained a Roman Catholic.

Edmund Burke received his early education at a Quaker school in Ballitore, County Kildare, some 67 kilometres from Dublin; and possibly like his cousin Nano Nagle at a Hedge school near Killavullen.

Edmund Burke remained in correspondence with his schoolmate from there, Mary Leadbeater, the daughter of the school's owner, throughout his life.

In 1744, Edmund Burke started at Trinity College Dublin, a Protestant establishment which up until 1793 did not permit Catholics to take degrees.

The minutes of the meetings of Edmund Burke's Club remain in the collection of the Historical Society.

Edmund Burke's father wanted him to read Law and with this in mind he went to London in 1750, where he entered the Middle Temple, before soon giving up legal study to travel in Continental Europe.

Edmund Burke imitated Bolingbroke's style and ideas in a reductio ad absurdum of his arguments for deistic rationalism in order to demonstrate their absurdity.

Edmund Burke claimed that Bolingbroke's arguments against revealed religion could apply to all social and civil institutions as well.

Some reviewers failed to notice the ironic nature of the book which led to Edmund Burke stating in the preface to the second edition that it was a satire.

In 1757, Edmund Burke published a treatise on aesthetics titled A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful that attracted the attention of prominent Continental thinkers such as Denis Diderot and Immanuel Kant.

Edmund Burke completed the work to the year 1216 and stopped; it was not published until after Edmund Burke's death, in an 1812 collection of his works, An Essay Towards an Abridgement of the English History.

On commenting on the story that Edmund Burke stopped his history because David Hume published his, Lord Acton said "it is ever to be regretted that the reverse did not occur".

The extent to which Edmund Burke contributed to the Annual Register is unclear.

Edmund Burke remained the chief editor of the publication until at least 1789 and there is no evidence that any other writer contributed to it before 1766.

At about this same time, Edmund Burke was introduced to William Gerard Hamilton.

When Hamilton was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, Edmund Burke accompanied him to Dublin as his private secretary, a position he held for three years.

In 1765, Edmund Burke became private secretary to the liberal Whig politician Charles, Marquess of Rockingham, then Prime Minister of Great Britain, who remained Edmund Burke's close friend and associate until his untimely death in 1782.

The first great subject Edmund Burke addressed was the controversy with the American colonies which soon developed into war and ultimate separation.

At about this time, Edmund Burke joined the circle of leading intellectuals and artists in London of whom Samuel Johnson was the central luminary.

Edmund Burke took a leading role in the debate regarding the constitutional limits to the executive authority of the King.

Edmund Burke argued strongly against unrestrained royal power and for the role of political parties in maintaining a principled opposition capable of preventing abuses, either by the monarch, or by specific factions within the government.

Edmund Burke spoke in favour of the bill, but it was opposed by some, including Charles James Fox, not becoming law.

Edmund Burke was prominent in securing the right to publish debates held in Parliament.

In 1772, Edmund Burke was instrumental in the passing of the Repeal of Certain Laws Act 1772 which repealed various old laws against dealers and forestallers in corn.

Edmund Burke saw it as "the first very great breach in the modern political system of Europe" and as upsetting the balance of power in Europe.

Edmund Burke failed to win re-election for that seat in the subsequent 1780 general election.

Edmund Burke resisted their protestations and said: "If, from this conduct, I shall forfeit their suffrages at an ensuing election, it will stand on record an example to future representatives of the Commons of England, that one man at least had dared to resist the desires of his constituents when his judgment assured him they were wrong".

Edmund Burke supported the attempts of Sir George Savile to repeal some of the penal laws against Catholics.

Edmund Burke called capital punishment "the Butchery which we call justice" in 1776 and in 1780 condemned the use of the pillory for two men convicted for attempting to practice sodomy.

Edmund Burke expressed his support for the grievances of the American Thirteen Colonies under the government of King George III and his appointed representatives.

Edmund Burke appealed for peace as preferable to civil war and reminded the House of Commons of America's growing population, its industry and its wealth.

Edmund Burke warned against the notion that the Americans would back down in the face of force since most Americans were of British descent:.

Edmund Burke was not merely presenting a peace agreement to Parliament, but rather he stepped forward with four reasons against using force, carefully reasoned.

Edmund Burke laid out his objections in an orderly manner, focusing on one before moving to the next.

Third, Edmund Burke brought up the issue of impairment, stating that it would do the British government no good to engage in a scorched earth war and have the object they desired become damaged or even useless.

Edmund Burke proposed six resolutions to settle the American conflict peacefully:.

Unfortunately, Edmund Burke delivered this speech just less than a month before the explosive conflict at Concord and Lexington.

Edmund Burke was appalled by celebrations in Britain of the defeat of the Americans at New York and Pennsylvania.

Edmund Burke claimed the English national character was being changed by this authoritarianism.

Edmund Burke was appointed Paymaster of the Forces and a Privy Counsellor, but without a seat in Cabinet.

Accordingly, having supported Fox and North, Edmund Burke was in opposition for the remainder of his political life.

Third, Edmund Burke warned that democracy would create a tyranny over unpopular minorities, who needed the protection of the upper classes.

Edmund Burke proposed a bill to ban slaveholders from being able to sit in the House of Commons, claiming they were a danger incompatible with traditional notions of British liberty.

Furthermore, Edmund Burke seemed to believe that Christianity would provide a civilising benefit to any group of people, as he believed Christianity had "tamed" European civilisation and regarded Southern European peoples as equally savage and barbarous.

Collins suggests that Edmund Burke viewed the "uncivilised" behaviour of African slaves as being partially caused by slavery itself, as he believed that making someone a slave stripped them of any virtues and rendered them mentally deficient, regardless of race.

Edmund Burke proposed a gradual program of emancipation called Sketch of a Negro Code, which Collins argues was quite detailed for the time.

For years, Edmund Burke pursued impeachment efforts against Warren Hastings, formerly Governor-General of Bengal, that resulted in the trial during 1786.

Edmund Burke claimed that the advent of East India Company domination in India had eroded much that was good in these traditions and that as a consequence of this and the lack of new customs to replace them the Indian populace under Company rule was needlessly suffering.

Edmund Burke set about establishing a set of imperial expectations, whose moral foundation would in his opinion warrant an overseas empire.

Edmund Burke was already known for his eloquent rhetorical skills and his involvement in the trial only enhanced its popularity and significance.

Immediately after reading Price's sermon, Edmund Burke wrote a draft of what eventually became Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Edmund Burke argued against the idea of abstract, metaphysical rights of humans and instead advocated national tradition:.

Edmund Burke defended this prejudice on the grounds that it is "the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages" and superior to individual reason, which is small in comparison.

Edmund Burke criticised social contract theory by claiming that society is indeed a contract, although it is "a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born".

Philip Francis wrote to Edmund Burke saying that what he wrote of Marie-Antoinette was "pure foppery".

Edmund Burke was informed by an Englishman who had talked with the Duchesse de Biron that when Marie-Antoinette was reading the passage she burst into tears and took considerable time to finish reading it.

Edmund Burke called for external forces to reverse the Revolution and included an attack on the late French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau as being the subject of a personality cult that had developed in revolutionary France.

Edmund Burke cited Rousseau's Confessions as evidence that Rousseau had a life of "obscure and vulgar vices" that was not "chequered, or spotted here and there, with virtues, or even distinguished by a single good action".

Edmund Burke contrasted Rousseau's theory of universal benevolence and his having sent his children to a foundling hospital, stating that he was "a lover of his kind, but a hater of his kindred".

In debate in Parliament on Britain's relations with Russia, Fox praised the principles of the Revolution, although Edmund Burke was not able to reply at this time as he was "overpowered by continued cries of question from his own side of the House".

Edmund Burke asserted that those ideas were the antithesis of both the British and the American constitutions.

Edmund Burke was interrupted and Fox intervened, saying that Edmund Burke should be allowed to carry on with his speech.

However, a vote of censure was moved against Edmund Burke for noticing the affairs of France which was moved by Lord Sheffield and seconded by Fox.

Edmund Burke questioned the sincerity of Burke, who seemed to have forgotten the lessons he had learned from him, quoting from Burke's own speeches of fourteen and fifteen years before.

Fox appealed to Edmund Burke to remember their inalienable friendship, but he repeated his criticisms of Edmund Burke and uttered "unusually bitter sarcasms".

Edmund Burke wanted to demonstrate his fidelity to Whig principles and feared that acquiescence to Fox and his followers would allow the Whig Party to become a vehicle for Jacobinism.

Edmund Burke knew that many members of the Whig Party did not share Fox's views and he wanted to provoke them into condemning the French Revolution.

Edmund Burke owned two copies of what has been called "that practical compendium of Whig political theory", namely The Tryal of Dr Henry Sacheverell.

Edmund Burke wrote of the trial: "It rarely happens to a party to have the opportunity of a clear, authentic, recorded, declaration of their political tenets upon the subject of a great constitutional event like that of the [Glorious] Revolution".

Edmund Burke then provided quotations from Paine's Rights of Man to demonstrate what the New Whigs believed.

Finally, Edmund Burke denied that a majority of "the people" had, or ought to have, the final say in politics and alter society at their pleasure.

Edmund Burke sent a copy of the Appeal to the King and the King requested a friend to communicate to Edmund Burke that he had read it "with great Satisfaction".

Edmund Burke supported the Bill as it would exclude "murderous atheists, who would pull down Church and state; religion and God; morality and happiness".

Edmund Burke revealed a dagger he had concealed in his coat and threw it to the floor: "This is what you are to gain by an alliance with France".

Edmund Burke supported the war against Revolutionary France, seeing Britain as fighting on the side of the royalists and emigres in a civil war, rather than fighting against the whole nation of France.

Edmund Burke argued that he was rewarded on merit, but the Duke of Bedford received his rewards from inheritance alone, his ancestor being the original pensioner: "Mine was from a mild and benevolent sovereign; his from Henry the Eighth".

Edmund Burke hinted at what would happen to such people if their revolutionary ideas were implemented and included a description of the British Constitution:.

Edmund Burke regarded this as appeasement, injurious to national dignity and honour.

Edmund Burke regarded the war with France as ideological, against an "armed doctrine".

Edmund Burke wished that France would not be partitioned due to the effect this would have on the balance of power in Europe and that the war was not against France, but against the revolutionaries governing her.

Edmund Burke said: "It is not France extending a foreign empire over other nations: it is a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning with the conquest of France".

Edmund Burke criticised policies such as maximum prices and state regulation of wages and set out what the limits of government should be:.

The economist Adam Smith remarked that Edmund Burke was "the only man I ever knew who thinks on economic subjects exactly as I do, without any previous communications having passed between us".

For more than a year prior to his death, Edmund Burke knew that his stomach was "irrecoverably ruind".

Mr Edmund Burke is convinced that the principles which he has endeavoured to maintain are necessary to the welfare and dignity of his country, and that these principles can be enforced only by the general persuasion of his sincerity.

Edmund Burke is regarded by most political historians in the English-speaking world as a liberal conservative and the father of modern British conservatism.

Edmund Burke was utilitarian and empirical in his arguments while Joseph de Maistre, a fellow conservative from the Continent, was more providentialist and sociological and deployed a more confrontational tone in his arguments.

Edmund Burke viewed the social changes brought on by property as the natural order of events which should be taking place as the human race progressed.

Christopher Hitchens summarises as follows: "If modern conservatism can be held to derive from Edmund Burke, it is not just because he appealed to property owners in behalf of stability but because he appealed to an everyday interest in the preservation of the ancestral and the immemorial".

William Windham spoke from the same bench in the House of Commons as Edmund Burke had when he had separated from Fox and an observer said Windham spoke "like the ghost of Edmund Burke" when he made a speech against peace with France in 1801.

William Hazlitt, a political opponent of Edmund Burke, regarded him as amongst his three favourite writers and made it "a test of the sense and candour of any one belonging to the opposite party, whether he allowed Edmund Burke to be a great man".

Edmund Burke later revised his poem The Prelude to include praise of Burke and portrayed him as an old oak.

George Canning believed that Edmund Burke's Reflections "has been justified by the course of subsequent events; and almost every prophecy has been strictly fulfilled".

The Gladstonian Liberal MP John Morley published two books on Edmund Burke and was influenced by Edmund Burke, including his views on prejudice.

Two contrasting assessments of Edmund Burke were offered long after his death by Karl Marx and Winston Churchill.

The historian Piers Brendon asserts that Edmund Burke laid the moral foundations for the British Empire, epitomised in the trial of Warren Hastings, that was ultimately to be its undoing.

One of the topics that he first addresses is the fact that Edmund Burke creates a definitive separation between happiness and virtue and explains that "Edmund Burke, therefore, seeks the foundation of government 'in a conformity to our duties' and not in 'imaginary rights of man".

Strauss views Edmund Burke as believing that government should focus solely on the duties that a man should have in society as opposed to trying to address any additional needs or desires.

Edmund Burke expresses the view that theory cannot adequately predict future occurrences and therefore men need to have instincts that cannot be practised or derived from ideology.

Edmund Burke dismisses a widely held view amongst theorists that reason should be the primary tool in the forming of a constitution or contract.

Edmund Burke instead believes that constitutions should be made based on natural processes as opposed to rational planning for the future.

Strauss notes that Edmund Burke would oppose more newly formed republics due to this thought, although Lenzner adds the fact that he did seem to believe that America's constitution could be justified given the specific circumstances.

Edmund Burke's religious writing comprises published works and commentary on the subject of religion.

Edmund Burke's religious thought was grounded in the belief that religion is the foundation of civil society.

Edmund Burke sharply criticised deism and atheism and emphasised Christianity as a vehicle of social progress.

Edmund Burke linked the conservation of a state-established religion with the preservation of citizens' constitutional liberties and highlighted Christianity's benefit not only to the believer's soul, but to political arrangements.

In 1770, it is known that Edmund Burke wrote in "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents":.