On Empire, Liberty, and Reform: Speeches and Letters of Edmund
Burke, ed. David Bromwich (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2000).
Empire and Community: Edmund Burke’s Writings and Speeches
on International Relations, ed. David P. Fidler and Jennifer M.
Welsh (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999).
Edmund Burke was one of those rare figures who combined
profound political-philosophical observation with a highly
active political career. After he entered Parliament, almost all of
his writings and speeches addressed some sort of pressing public
policy concern, yet these works also form the major part of the
basis for most interpretations of his philosophic thought. Although
Burke’s policy focus provides a great deal of material for
political historians and biographers, it poses challenges for political
theorists, who must tease political philosophy out of works
which were not explicitly written as such. But, it also offers
important advantages. For one thing, one might argue that
Burke’s public career helps keep his thought attuned to “realworld””
issues in all their messiness and complexity, and forces him
to consider information which more speculative thinkers might
disregard. More significant for our immediate purpose is the fact
that Burke’s writings and speeches clearly demonstrate the application
of particular political-philosophical perspectives to public
policy questions.
In the past few years, the subject of empire has received
heightened interest from both a philosophical and public policy
perspective. Questions of empire also dominated much of Burke’s
career. It therefore makes sense to turn to Burke when looking for
wisdom on such matters. The temptation must be avoided,
however, to look to Burke for formulaic solutions to contemporary
questions, or to characterize his views with a broad brush.
Burke was neither a champion nor an opponent of empire in the
general sense (or of the British Empire, in a more specific sense).
His concern was with the specifics of how particular British
possessions were administered. But, it is Burke’s attention to
detail which helps to make his approaches to policy questions
philosophically rich, rather than ideological.
Perhaps the simplest way to characterize Burke’s politics is to
note the centrality of his opposition to “”caprice,”” or to the
arbitrary use of political power.1 This concern unites the “”conservative””
and “”reformist”” Burkes which have been identified by
various commentators. Burke has much more depth than this,
however. As illustrated by his views on imperial policy, his
approach to ethics and politics—that is, his understanding of
precisely how to limit abuses of power, while also promoting the
sort of stability people need and want—is both sophisticated and
relevant to contemporary concerns. One key dimension of Burke’s
thought is his emphasis on the “”moral imagination.”” This term,
which appears in Reflections on the Revolution in France2, was
most likely coined by Burke, and can be seen as central to his
ethical-epistemological outlook. While this outlook cannot be laid
out in detail here, one can state briefly that Burke understands
imaginative constructions or conceptions of reality (at severe risk
of oversimplification, one could say “”worldviews””) to be the
primary shapers of politics, and of human behavior in general.
These constructions are in turn shaped by the elements of the
“”wardrobe of a moral imagination,”” which include traditions,
customs, religion, and social structures, as well as art forms and
political dialogue. These provide the kinds of internalized standards which are necessary to the sort of political order that people
want to live in.
Burke’s emphasis on the moral imagination is very closely
related to another area addressed by his thought: the problem of
reconciling universal morality with cultural particularity. Given
the intense interactions between culturally distinct states today,
as well as the increasingly multicultural quality of individual
nation-states, this has become a central problem of contemporary
politics. Burke confronts it most directly when addressing British
policy toward India. The political reconciliation of the universal
with the particular is not just an important question for contemporary
politics, but for Burke scholarship. A respected body of
literature has identified Burke as a “”natural law””—and hence
universalist—thinker,3 but Burke is also famous for his emphasis
on the need to attend to the particulars of specific situations
instead of relying heavily upon broad formulae. While this question
of Burke’s thought cannot receive anything like a full treatment
here, both it and his broader emphasis on the moral
imagination will be explored through the selective examination of
his views in three areas of British “”imperial”” policy: India, Ireland,
and America.
In sheer volume, Burke’s writings and speeches on Indian policy
make up a much greater part of his works than those on any other
subject. Burke himself seems to view his actions regarding India
as the most important of his career. In his Letter to a Noble Lord,
he maintains that his (ultimately unsuccessful) pursuit of the
impeachment of Warren Hastings of the East India Company
would alone justify his pension from the Crown. Significantly,
Burke makes this observation shortly after he notes, in an
important passage, that government is “”made for the very purpose
of opposing that [sovereign] reason to will and to caprice, in . . .
the governors or in the governed.””4
In the sphere of Indian policy, Burke is best known for his
pursuit of the Hastings impeachment, but his concern with Indian
matters began long before that. In his first years in Parliament
Burke helped to promote the established Whig party line on India.
At that time the Whigs opposed any reform of Indian policy,
including closer government oversight of the East India Company,
fearing that the actions to be taken to curtail the company’s
independence would amount to a power grab for the Crown and
would enrich certain members of the administration. While in the
1760s Burke appears to be solidly behind the Whig position, in the
1770s strong tensions become evident within his speeches on
India. While ostensibly supporting the Whig party line, he nevertheless
launched, on occasion, into attacks on the East India
Company. By the late 1770s the Whigs’ consensus view on India
was looking more and more like Burke’s, and in 1783, Charles
James Fox, with Burke’s assistance and support, introduced bills
designed to reform British activities there. At that time India did
not have official colonial status; it had no clear status at all. The
French had established a toehold in India, and fears that they
might build their own an empire there had caused Britain to rush
in in a rather haphazard manner. The East India Company,
created to engage in commercial activities, had stepped into a
power vacuum and, with British might behind it, had assumed
control over much of the subcontinent.
The company’s strong-arm tactics were often perceived as
necessary, at least in the beginning, since India at that time
consisted of a confused patchwork of weak principalities, often
corrupt and hostile to one another, which made commerce
difficult. However, by the 1770s the manner in which many
fortunes were being made in India was not commerce. Instead, by
exerting their influence over local rulers, officials of the company
were essentially extorting vast sums from the local population.
Such activities were not highly coordinated; officials of the
company frequently acted on their own, sometimes against one
another. When the company’s directors, in an attempt to reform
the situation somewhat, sent a new governor to Madras, a local
company official had him imprisoned, where he died.5 If the
company was the closest thing India had to a de facto government,
it was not really a government at all, or else was an especially
haphazard and lawless one. Russell Kirk writes that “”the East
India Company, as its territories and power grew, had become
incapable of governing well an empire acquired almost in a fit of
absence of mind: many of its servants, intent upon making
immense fortunes in a few years, ignored the laws of the Indian
principalities and peoples, the laws of England, and the principles
of natural justice.””6
Fox’s India bills were the latest in a series of attempts by
members of Parliament, of varying political persuasions, to
respond to the chaotic situation in India. Some modest prior
initiatives had succeeded, generally to little effect; most, including
the more significant pieces of legislation, were defeated, and
Fox’s bills would meet a similar fate. The general thrust of the
legislation was to rein in the company’s activities and to limit its
role to a more strictly commercial one, while shifting political
control of India to commissioners directly answerable to Parliament.
These commissioners would, in fact, be appointed by
Parliament from among its own membership, a dramatic departure
from existing policy. In a work devoted entirely to Burke’s
views on India, Frederick G. Whelan maintains that Fox’s bills
amounted to “”a relatively radical legislative proposal.””7
By the time Fox introduced his bills, Burke had become an
expert on British activities in India. And, the more he had studied
the situation the more passionate he had become about the need
for reform. This passion is demonstrated by the fact that he had
actually purchased stock in the East India Company in order to
become eligible to participate in its deliberations; he was, however,
unsuccessful in changing policy at that level.8 In delving into
the Indian question Burke did not just study British activities in
India, but India itself, including its culture and religions. Whelan
observes that “”Burke was one of the first major European thinkers
. . . to have made a serious effort to understand a non-Western
civilization and to incorporate his findings into his general political
thought.””9 India, Burke maintained, consists of “”a people for
ages civilized and cultivated,—cultivated by all the arts of polished
life, whilst we were yet in the woods.””10 Although Burke’s
interest in Indian culture is atypical for an eighteenth-century
Briton, it is highly consistent with his concern for the moral
imagination, with his appreciation of the cultural elements which
help shape it, and, more broadly, with his attention to historical
particularity. Although Burke respected the uniqueness of Indian
culture, he saw Britain and India as, in some ways, equivalents. In
speaking on the legislation, he stated that “”this bill, and those
connected with it, are intended to form the Magna Charta of
Hindostan.”” This may seem to be a grandiose claim, but several
paragraphs earlier Burke mentioned that the “”Magna Charta is a
charter to restrain power,”” and this is what Fox’s legislation would
do.11 Unfortunately, various vested interests opposed the legislation
and it failed.
When Fox’s bills failed, Burke did not miss a beat. Drawing
upon his extensive research, and on the seventeen-volume report
of the select committee in which he had participated to investigate
matters in India, he turned his attention to pursuing the impeachment
of Warren Hastings, the Governor-General of Bengal and
the most powerful company official on the subcontinent. This
project dominated the latter part of Burke’s parliamentary career.
In 1787 Burke would actually succeed in persuading the House of
Commons to vote several articles of impeachment against
Hastings; the case would, however, be dragged out in the House
of Lords until 1795, when Hastings would be exonerated. There
is evidence that Burke saw the case as doomed as early as 1785 but
that he nonetheless felt compelled to continue, believing that the
judgment of history would, ultimately, be on his side.12 Burke’s
quest was not an entirely quixotic one. While it is clear that he was
convinced of Hastings’ personal guilt in perpetuating misrule,
corruption, and abuse, he was certainly well aware that these
problems predated Hastings and that his removal would not, by
itself, greatly improve British governance of India. In indicting
Hastings, Burke was indicting the entire system which he had
unsuccessfully attempted to reform through Fox’s bills. Even an
unsuccessful prosecution, then, could help serve Burke’s purpose
of drawing public and Parliamentary attention to the situation in
India and encouraging reform. Eventually, of course, British rule
in India would be reformed, although the more significant reforms
would not occur until long after Burke’s death.
Burke’s speeches and writings regarding the Hastings impeachment
are much more extensive than those regarding the
earlier Fox legislation. A major problem Burke highlights with the
East India Company is that it is not a government in anything like
the usual sense of the word. It is an alien, for-profit enterprise
which controls India but which lacks the usual ties to it. In his
speech on the Fox bill, Burke compares Britain’s conquest of
India with previous invasions by the “”Arabs, Tartars, and Persians.””
Although those conquests were bloody, “”the Asiatic conquerors
very soon abated of their ferocity, because they made the
conquered country their own. They rose or fell with the rise or fall
of the territory they lived in. Fathers there deposited the hopes of
their posterity; and children there beheld the monuments of their
fathers.””13 In contrast with such previous invaders,
Our conquest there, after twenty years, is as crude as it was the
first day. . . . Young men (boys almost) govern there, without
society and without sympathy with the natives. They have no
more social habits with the people than if they still resided in
England,—nor, indeed, any species of intercourse, but that
which is necessary to making a sudden fortune, with a view to a
remote settlement. . . . With us there are no retributory superstitions,
by which a foundation of charity compensates, through
ages, to the poor, for the rapine and injustice of a day. With us
no pride erects stately monuments which repair the mischiefs
which pride had produced, and which adorn a country out of its
own spoils. England has erected no churches, no hospitals, no
palaces, no schools; England has built no bridges, made no highroads,
cut no navigations, dug out no reservoirs.14
For Burke, customs and social bonds are at least as important,
and perhaps more important, than laws in constraining behavior.
In this case, however, there is no common social structure and,
consequently, “”no retributory superstitions”” to prompt the English
to behave charitably toward the Indians. Moreover, previous
conquerors settled in India and raised up children there. The
ties between the generations—the first generation of conquerors
striving to do right by their children, and then their children
striving to do right by their ancestors—kicked in. These ties
shaped the conquerors’ understanding of their world and of their
moral responsibilities. What passes for government in India,
however, is basically a loosely organized group of young-men-onthe-
make, who come there with an aim to make their fortunes as
quickly as possible, by whatever means available, and then to
return to England. Consequently their relationship to India and
its people is purely transactional, and purely exploitative. With
neither ancestors nor posterity there, they fail to place their
actions within a meaningful moral context which extends beyond
their own immediate self-interest.
#page#
Much of Burke’s concern regarding Britain’s Indian policy
revolves around these young men of the East India Company. He
explains that
[t]here is nothing in the boys we send to India worse than in the
boys whom we are whipping at school, or that we see trailing a
pike or bending over a desk at home. But as English youth in
India drink the intoxicating draught of authority and dominion
before their heads are able to bear it, and as they are full grown
in fortune long before they are ripe in principle, neither Nature
nor reason have any opportunity to exert themselves for remedy
of the excesses of their premature power. The consequences of
their conduct, which in good minds (and many of theirs are
probably such) might produce penitence or amendment, are
unable to pursue the rapidity of their flight.15
Burke is not only concerned about what the East India Company
may be doing to the Indians; he is concerned about the formative
role played by service in the East India Company on its own
personnel. These young men, who are “”without society,”” fail to
develop the kinds of internal checks, or the kind of character,
usually developed by young men in Britain. Instead, they become
accustomed to exercising arbitrary power over others, facing little
or no consequence for unethical or inappropriate conduct. As a
result they learn to give reign to a willfulness which, under other
circumstances, people generally learn to constrain.
Burke’s motivation here is of course less a concern for the
young men of the East India Company per se, than a concern for
the future of Britain. Whelan has observed that Burke was
“”determined that British rule should offer an exception to the
familiar historical pattern by which imperial states were corrupted
into tyrannies by their power and greed.””16 This corruption
of the state occurs through the corruption of the people in it.
From Burke’s point of view, the men of the East India Company
develop a particular sort of character, and there is no reason to
believe that this character changes dramatically once they return
to Britain. They become accustomed to ignoring the social
structures and conventions of India; consequently, they have
little respect for those of Britain. Indeed, they have little respect
or regard for other people in general. They have not learned selfrestraint,
or the art of setting aside one’s ego and of deciphering,
and doing, what is right. The applicable test for their actions is not,
in fact, whether something is ethically right, but whether something
is profitable and whether one can get away with it. Instead
of helping them learn to check their greed, their experience in
India has fed it. Many of these men have quickly accumulated
considerable wealth, and with this wealth has come power. The
unchecked willfulness of these men is, consequently, in a position
to do a great deal of harm. Burke explains that they infiltrate the
established families and otherwise gain influence over them; they
also gain considerable influence over British politics.17 Since their
governance of India is characterized by oppression and greed,
their influence on British politics and society can only be for ill.
In Reflections Burke famously remarks that European civilization
has been dependent upon the “”spirit of a gentleman and
spirit of religion.””18 Such outlooks on life help one to exercise
sound moral judgment and check one’s willfulness, in part by
contributing to a sense of standards. These “”spirits,”” however,
require careful cultivation and development, achieved in part
through proper upbringing in good families and through proper
socialization. The upstarts from the East India Company often
lack such upbringings, and much of their socialization has occurred
in the “”anything goes”” environment of British India. It is
no wonder that Burke fears that their influence will erode the
“”spirits”” which help blunt the rough edges of politics in Britain and
which help make a relatively liberal society possible.
Burke’s concern about the mentality fostered by the East
India Company can be compared to his broader concern about
commercial society, expressed in the context of the French
Revolution and elsewhere. J. G. A. Pocock maintains that “”in
suggesting that a class brought into being by commerce might
destroy itself by attacking the clerical foundations of culture he
gave expression to a new problem in social theory.””19 Pocock also
recounts David Hume’s concern that public credit would be
substituted for other property, particularly that of the landed
aristocracy, and would consequently undermine the “”natural
relations between men.””20 Burke would certainly have been
familiar with this argument and with similar lines of argument. It
is important, however, not to put too materialistic a spin on
Burke’s position. Burke was something of an expert on commercial
policy; he was also a Whig, and was certainly not known as an
opponent of commerce. His concern is specifically with those
approaches to commerce which encourage a shallow, transactional
view of life and of human relations. The men of the East
India Company think of the people of India as subjects for
exploitation, with little or no sense of obligation to them as human
beings. Their commercial interests trump the customs, structures,
and traditional rules of life in India; they also trump the
norms which the company’s officers should have carried from
Britain. This sense that anything can be bought, and that one’s
personal self-interest, understood largely in terms of wealth
acquisition, should be paramount, continues to rule the company
men once they return to Britain. What really concerns Burke is
not commerce but naked power relations, lacking the cloak of the
“”wardrobe of a moral imagination”” which softens those relations
with “”retributory superstitions”” and other norms.
It is concern regarding naked power relations which spurs
Burke to pursue the Hastings trial for so many years to its
unsatisfactory conclusion. Hastings had actually asserted in a
letter to William Pitt that he possessed “”arbitrary power”” and that
his use of “”despotic”” power in India was appropriate.21 In making
his case before Lords, Burke seeks, of course, to demonstrate the
truth of certain specific charges which have been made against
Hastings. He also, however, endeavors to show more broadly that
“”no man who is in his [Hastings’] power is safe from his arbitrary
will.””22 Burke wishes that Britain’s dominion in India “”would have
carried with it the full benefit of the vital principle of the British
liberty and Constitution.””23 This “”vital principle”” of liberty and
constitutionalism is, of course, the opposite of arbitrary will; it is
a spirit of constraint, of standards, of law. Such a principle has
not, of course, ruled British activities in India, and Hastings
asserts that it would be impossible to rule India in this way.
Hastings’ argument, Burke states, is “”that actions in Asia do
not bear the same moral qualities which the same actions would
bear in Europe.”” The men of the East India Company “”have
formed a plan of geographical morality, by which the duties of
men, in public and in private situations, are not to be governed by
their relation to the great Governor of the Universe, or by their
relations to mankind, but by climates, degrees of longitude,
parallels, not of life, but of latitudes.”” Burke rejects such relativism
and maintains that “”the laws of morality are the same
everywhere, and that there is no action which would pass for an
act of extortion, of peculation, of bribery, and of oppression in
England, that is not an act of extortion, of peculation, of bribery,
and oppression in Europe, Asia, Africa, and all the world over.
This I contend for not in the technical forms of it, but I contend
for it in the substance.””24
The final qualifying sentence is very important, and reflects
the tension between the concept of universal right and cultural
particularity. Burke is emphatically not arguing for the simple
application of British law and procedure in India, “”for if ever the
was a case in which the letter kills and the spirit gives life, it would
be an attempt to introduce British forms and the substance of
despotic principles together into any country.””25 He explains that
British laws are not designed for use in the very different context
of India, and their selective application under such circumstances
simply serves as another means for the officers of the East India
Company to tyrannize the local population. Burke seems to
believe that (a) there is such a thing as a universal humanity, and
all people, no matter who they are or where they are, are deserving
of humane treatment, which can be described as treatment in the
spirit (or “”vital principle””) of the best of the British tradition; (b)
for the sake of Britain as well as of subject peoples, the British
must be British everywhere—that is, they should always act in the
spirit of the best of the British tradition; but that (c) acting in this
spirit requires attunement to cultural differences, and the adjustment
of laws and administration to the specific circumstances of
particular places. A recognition of universal humanity does not
translate into the universal application of one nation’s specific
laws or governmental forms.
Burke clearly recognizes that a misapplied sense of universality
which leads one to export one’s own “”good”” laws can actually
have a oppressive effect, violating a deeper universality. In 1781
he had succeeded in convincing Parliament to enact the Bengal
Judicature Act, which, among other things, was supposed to
prohibit the application of British law to the Indians where
inappropriate. Although Burke was a great lover of British law, he
found the effects of its application by the British judges installed
in India to be “”arbitrary in the extreme.”” He speaks of “”the
incroachments [sic] which they made on the most sacred privileges
of the people, the violation of their dearest rights, particularly
in forcing the ladies before their courts; the contempt that
was shewn [sic] for their religious ceremonies and mysteries; and
the cruel punishments inflicted upon them in case of their
disobedience; new, strange, and obnoxious to them. . . .”” Although
British law may seem to be more desirable than that followed in
India, “”that which creates tyranny is the imposition of a form of
government contrary to the will of the governed; and even a free
and equal plan of government, would be considered despotic by
those who desired to have their old laws and their ancient system.””
Consequently, “”we must now be guided as we ought to have been
with respect to America, by studying the genius, the temper, and
the manners of the people, and adapting to them the laws that we
establish.””26
It is clear that during the Hastings impeachment Burke
continues to hold to this belief. On the first day of the trial Burke
remarks,
God forbid we should pass judgment upon people who framed
their laws and institutions prior to our insect origin of yesterday!
With all the faults of their nature and errors of their institutions,
their institutions, which act so powerfully on their natures, have
two material characteristics which entitle them to respect: first,
great force and stability; and next, excellent moral and civil
effects.””27
Burke displays a humility before the ancient Indian culture which
is consistent with that which he displays before the established
laws, institutions, and customs of Britain. His appreciation of the
effectiveness and morality of Indian law and custom may be
compared to contemporary approaches to cross-cultural differences
in norms which emphasize the internal coherence of
particular cultures and the general goal of “”societal viability””
which all cultures share.28
Burke’s argument that, while legal forms vary culturally, there
is no such thing as “”geographical morality,”” has often been cited
by those advocating a “”natural law”” interpretation of Burke.
Particularly popular is Burke’s eloquent diatribe against Hastings’
claim to “”arbitrary power.”” Peter Stanlis maintains that “”Burke’s
most extended and eloquent attack on Hasting’s claim of arbitrary
power . . . derives wholly from his ardent faith in Natural Law.””29
Burke argues,
We [members of Parliament and the king] have no arbitrary
power to give, because arbitrary power is a thing which neither
any man can hold nor any man can give. No man can lawfully
govern himself according to his own will; much less can one
person be governed by the will of another. We are all born in
subjection,—all born equally, high and low, governors and
governed, in subjection to one great, immutable, pre-existent
law, prior to all our devices and prior to all our contrivances . . .
by which we are knit and connected in the eternal frame of the
universe, out of which we cannot stir.This great law does not arise from our conventions or
compacts; on the contrary, it gives to our conventions and
compacts all the force and sanction they can have. . . . If then, all
dominion of man over man is the effect of the Divine disposition,
it is bound by the eternal laws of Him that gave it . . . .””30
This passage, perhaps more than any other passage in Burke,
demonstrates the extent of his Christian and classical orientation
and his belief in God-given universal standards. Particularly
noteworthy is his observation that one cannot “”lawfully”” govern
even oneself according to his own will. We are all subject to God’s
law, and are not morally free to do whatever we choose. The
legitimacy of human laws and institutions arises from their
conformity to more basic moral laws or standards. Arbitrary
actions are not “”lawful”” and are not legitimate or defensible. It is,
however, very important to note here that, although Burke
appeals to a universal or divine standard, he does not hold this up
in sharp contradiction to an inferior conventional or “”human””
standard. Further exploration of his treatment of culturallyspecific
Indian and British standards clarifies his position.
One argument advanced by those favoring the application of
British law and legal forms in India was that the local laws, power
structures, and customs were despotic. This same argument was
advanced during the Hastings trial to defend openly despotic
governance by the East India Company. It was generally accepted
in Europe that all Asian governments were despotic. The argument
of the East India Company’s defenders was that, since the
people of Asia are accustomed to such governance, they can only
be governed in this way. India under Islamic domination was, it
was argued, a particularly clear case of tyrannical government.
During consideration of the Bengal Judicature bill, Burke actually
conceded that India’s law was inferior to, and more despotic in
form than, that of Britain.31 Even so, he argued, this was the form
of law to which the people there were accustomed, and such law
would seem less tyrannical to them than the imposition of an alien
legal system. Burke did not hold that the inferiorities of Indian law
justified their wholesale replacement with British law. The cultural
attunement of Indian law gave it legitimacy, because it
created meaningful standards which were widely understood and
which prevented the sort of human willfulness that is contrary to
universal law. For Burke, it was British law that was being
implemented in India with a “”despotic spirit.”” Because British law
was not firmly integrated into Indian society but was instead
operating in an alien context, it gave free reign to caprice.
During the Hastings trial, Burke devoted considerable attention
to refuting the widespread belief that Asian laws, or Asian
governments, are necessarily despotic. For an active MP, Burke
engaged in a remarkable amount of research into the governments,
laws, religions, and cultures of Asia. Drawing upon this
study, he argued before the House of Lords that “”nothing is more
false than that despotism is the constitution of any country in Asia
that we are acquainted with”” and that the idea “”that the people of
Asia have no laws, rights, or liberty, is a doctrine that wickedly is
to be disseminated through this country.””32 In direct contradiction
to Hastings and his supporters, Burke insists that “”Oriental
governments know nothing of arbitrary power.”” This is especially
clear in the case of Islamic governments:
To name a Mahomedan government is to name a government by
law. It is a law enforced by stronger sanctions than any law that
can bind a Christian sovereign. Their law is believed to be given
by God; and it has the double sanction of law and of religion, with
which the prince is no more authorized to dispense than any one
else. And if any man will produce the Koran to me, and will but
show me one text in it that authorizes in any degree an arbitrary
power in the government, I will confess that I have read that
book, and been conversant in the affairs of Asia, in vain.33
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The above remarks may be linked to the observations Burke
would later make in Reflections regarding the importance of an
established church. There, Burke explains the benefit of religion
“”sanctifying”” government in order to impress a sense of sacred
trust upon those in power. Here, the law itself is sanctified. In
either case, the effect is to restrain the actions of political leaders
and prevent arbitrary rule. What imparts this restraint is a sense
of standards greater than one’s own will. Using language from
Burke’s aesthetic writings, one may describe these standards as
“”sublime,”” since they are seen as beyond human control or
alteration. When thinking of Islamic states, Burke is of course not
contemplating theocratic states, or states driven by radical political
Islam. He is thinking of a traditional Islamic state, with rulers
who are essentially secular but who are understood to be subject
to the law of the Koran. The rulers are, in fact, not even the law’s
chief interpreters; this function if performed by “”an order of
priesthood, whom they call men of the law. These men are
conservators of the law.””34 They can be compared to other
institutionalized countervailing forces which can exert some
checking power by declaring actions of government officials to be
in violation of recognized higher standards.
Burke makes the broader point that, in the case of any
government, “”law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity.””35 He
also uses examples of actual states to show that not only in theory,
but in practice, the scope of action of Asian princes is constrained,
and they do not exercise “”arbitrary power.”” This argument would
be paralleled in Reflections by his observation that France was not
really an “”absolute monarchy,”” since the king was constrained by
customs, ancient laws, and various political considerations. It is
when traditions and established structures are abandoned—even
in favor of an ostensively more liberal new regime—that the door
to arbitrary power is opened. Burke’s view of Asian regimes is not
idyllic; he concedes that corruption is often found in them. But, he
argues that this does not represent the Asian conception of a proper
constitution, but is a deviation from it. Corruption is actually a
problem and a weakness which endangers those regimes, and it
hardly makes sense for the East India Company to use such defects
in other governments as models for its own practices.
In denouncing “”geographical morality”” then, Burke does not
really reject local standards in favor of a universal standard.
Instead, for Burke local standards help to actualize universal
standards. They do not necessarily represent the fullest expression
of morality, but they help support moral behavior by helping
constrain the will. They serve as expressions of our obligations to
one another, and promote a sense of humility through the
recognition of an order greater than oneself. It is, in fact, largely
through our experience with local standards—and with all the
societal elements which embody and express those standards—
that we gain a sense of what universal standards are. Rather than
contrasting universal standards with local standards, Burke holds
up firmly established standards—of any society—against a lack of
standards. Hastings would be a law unto himself, free of the laws
and customs of both India and Britain, and this is what Burke
cannot stomach. Neither the laws and customs of India nor
Britain provide a justification for Hastings’ behavior. Burke
highlights the absurdity of Hastings’ position: “”Think of an
English governor tried before you as a British subject, and yet
declaring that he governed on the principles of arbitrary power!””36
And, “”never was there heard . . . such as thing as . . . an officer of
government who is to exert authority over the people without any
law at all, and who is to have the benefit of all laws, and all forms
of law, when he is called to an account.””37
On the opening day of the impeachment trial, Burke states,
Through the whole of this sketch of history [of India] I wish to
impress but one great and important truth upon your minds:
namely, that, through all these revolutions in government and
changes in power, an Hindoo polity, and the spirit of an Hindoo
government, did more or less exist in that province with which
he was concerned, until it was finally to be destroyed by Mr.
Hastings.38
Hastings stands in opposition to human society, and his actions
serve to undermine the imaginative framework which provides
the structure and meaning needed to support that society. Through
the example it sets, the use of “”arbitrary power”” harms not only
India, but Britain as well.
For Burke an even more longstanding concern than India was the
cause of Ireland and, particularly, of Ireland’s Catholics. This is
not surprising, since Burke was an Irishman and his roots were at
least partly, and more likely predominantly, Catholic. Writers
who emphasize Burke’s role as a fighter for justice devote considerable
attention to his involvement in Irish policy. Likewise,
Burke’s writings, speeches, and letters on Irish policy have often
been used to bolster a “”natural law”” understanding of his thought.
This short study is not the place for a detailed discussion of
Burke’s long engagement with Ireland. The focus will be on
linkages between his views on Irish policy and his fight against
Jacobinism, with an aim of examining the extent to which Burke’s
involvement in Irish affairs was shaped by his concern regarding
the moral-imaginative basis for politics, society, and morals.
While Burke’s interest in Irish policy was certainly derived
from his concern for the people of Ireland, it is striking that in the
last years of his political career he came to frame the Irish
question as part of his fight against Jacobinism. Writing in 1795
about his views on Irish policy, Burke remarks, “”My whole
politics, at present, centre in one point, . . . that is, what will most
promote or depress the cause of Jacobinism.””39 Although
Jacobinism had triumphed only in France, Burke recognized it as
a dangerous dynamic present throughout the European world
and, indeed, as a potential danger to human society everywhere.
In another letter that same year he explicitly links his concerns
regarding Ireland, India, and France:
I think I can hardly overrate the malignity of the principles of
Protestant ascendency, as they affect Ireland,—or of Indianism,
as they affect Asia,—or of Jacobinism, as they affect all Europe
and the state of human society itself. The last is the greatest evil.
But it readily combines with the others, and flows from them.
Whatever breeds discontent at this time will produce that greater
master-mischief most infallibly.40
In the 1760s Burke employed appeals to natural rights when
advocating on behalf of Ireland’s Catholics, but by the mid-1790s
he was basing his arguments on the need to combat Jacobinism.
This made good political sense, since by that time events in France
had provided a lesson to the British on the dangers of Jacobinism.
If sympathy for Ireland’s Catholics was lacking in Parliament, and
appeals to concepts of rights were falling on deaf ears, fears of
revolution might provide a more effective impetus for change.
Circumstances in Ireland had also changed somewhat over
the course of Burke’s career, making Jacobinism a greater concern.
Since the French Revolution, the Society of United Irishmen,
a radical Protestant dissenter group with strong anti-monarchical
and Jacobin leanings, had been established in Ireland; since,
among other things, this group promised enfranchisement to
Catholics, it had the potential to become a major force. Elements
with Jacobin tendencies also seemed to be emerging among
existing Catholic and Protestant organizations, and the potential
for revolt, or civil war, seemed to be growing. Moreover, a danger
existed that the French themselves, who were now at war with
Britain, would lend a hand in such an uprising, making the loss of
Ireland a plausible scenario. Although concerns about Irish
Jacobinism, and about French influences in Ireland, had existed
since at least the early 1760s, the situation was becoming more
alarming. Under the promptings of such fears a number of
reforms, some short-lived, were enacted in 1792 and 1793. These
included the right of Catholics to establish schools, to practice
law, to hold minor offices, and to vote in elections for the
nominally independent Irish Parliament, although, to a significant
degree, meaningful implementation of this last reform was
locally thwarted. Burke was dissatisfied with these measures and
continued to push for additional reforms in 1795. In Russell
Kirk’s interpretation, Burke’s chief complaint was the fact that,
although Catholics might be permitted to vote for Parliament,
they were not permitted to stand for election to it. Burke had
worked hard for Catholic enfranchisement, but suffrage was not,
in itself, a major concern of his. In his view, merely allowing the
mass of people to vote did little to bring about good government
or effective representation. True reform, in his view, required
that Catholics be able to hold meaningful positions in government.
41 This interpretation differs from the one offered by many
scholars such as James Conniff, which characterizes Burke’s Irish
reform efforts as focused on the establishment of broad-based
suffrage.42
While Burke supported extension of the franchise in Ireland,
his support for voting rights, and for the need for Catholics to sit
in the Irish Parliament, was not based on a Jacobite faith in the
merits of equal representation. It was, rather, drawn from his
moral-imaginative perspective on how society, and how moral
and political behavior, are shaped. As Kirk puts it, Burke’s
concern was that the continued exclusion of Catholics from
Parliament amounted to the denial of “”aristocratic leadership”” to
the Catholic community.43 Burke was not an elitist in the usual
sense; he had denounced as oligarchical earlier efforts to provide
a more limited Catholic franchise based on stringent property
qualifications. He believed, however, in the need for a well-bred,
educated, stable leadership class among the Irish Catholics. The
political power exercised by members of the Irish Parliament was,
in practice, greatly constrained, but they were public figures and
in that respect could play an important role in shaping Irish
politics and society. Conniff again has a directly opposing view,
maintaining that Burke had no interest in an Irish aristocracy. In
support for this position Conniff offers this quotation from a
private letter of Burke:
The Strength of the Catholicks is not in their dozen or Score of
old Gentlemen. Weak indeed they would be if this were the
Case. Their force consists in two things: their numbers and their
growing property, which grows with the growth of the country
itself . . . .44
This quote, however, is simply a observation that, at the moment,
the Catholics’ political strength lay primarily in their numbers; it
hardly indicates that Burke is uninterested in promoting Irish-
Catholic aristocratic leadership.
Burke was in fact interested in promoting aristocratic leadership,
but not for the benefit of an aristocracy. This was one
component of a broader concern he possessed for the social and
moral, and not just political, state of the Irish Catholics. In part,
this was manifested by a concern for the Irish moral imagination.
Conniff misses this moral-imaginative dimension of Burke’s
thought, and therefore states, “”It is widely agreed that the French
Revolution led Burke to become the leading English spokesman
for social stability and political order in his day. Interestingly,
there was no similar movement in his views on Irish issues.””45
Conniff seems to believe that since Burke was a “”reformist”” he
could not be interested in social stability. But, a desire for “”social
stability”” is not the same as a desire to maintain the status quo. In
fact, if the status quo is potentially unstable, a desire for “”social
stability”” would be manifested as a desire for changes in policy.
To have social stability and political order, Burke wanted to
promote in Ireland those elements which help constitute the
“”wardrobe of a moral imagination.””
Burke’s interest in the state of Irish society—as opposed to
simply Irish politics—was perhaps heightened by the French
Revolution and the growth of Jacobinism, but certainly did not
begin with it. Similar concerns are found in his unpublished Tract
relative to the Laws against Popery in Ireland, written in the early
1760s.46 This work is best remembered for its strong call for
justice for Ireland’s Catholics, including its brief appeal to
natural rights, but its major theme is how public policies have
shaped—for the worse—the social and moral fabric of Ireland.
For example, the very first issue addressed by Burke is the
replacement of the ancient common-law practice of primogeniture
with a statutory requirement for the equal division of
property among sons. Combined with the land confiscations
which had occurred over the years, the effect was nearly to wipe
out Ireland’s Catholic landed gentry.
There may have been a personal dimension to Burke’s indignation
here, since, at least on his mother’s side (and possibly on
both sides), Burke was descended from such gentry, with family
lines tracing back to the Normans.47 The level of contempt Burke
displays for Ireland’s “”Protestant Ascendency”” (or “”Anglo-Irish
Ascendency””) throughout his writings on Ireland, both public and
private, may be partly attributable to the fact that the “”Catholic
gentry . . . looked down on landlords of Cromwellian and
Williamite origin as social upstarts.””48 Burke’s interest is much
more than personal, however. In destroying Ireland’s Catholic
gentry, the Protestants were depriving Ireland of that key societal
element which Burke would, in Reflections, call the “”ballast in the
vessel.””49 Through systematic leveling, the Catholic population
was being reduced to a mob; there was no educated, firmlyestablished
leadership class available to set the tone of discourse
and look out for the common good. The Ascendency certainly
could not take the place of such an aristocracy; it was not just
Protestant, but was, in large part, narrowly self-interested, relatively
unrefined, preoccupied with personal gain, and middleclass
in character. In 1792 Burke would refer to it as a “”plebian
oligarchy.””50 Burke draws a sharp Platonic-Aristotelian distinction between aristocracy and oligarchy throughout his writings on
Ireland.
In the 1790’s Burke would refer to the Irish Penal Laws as “”a
machine . . . as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and
degradation of a people, and the debasement, in them, of human
nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of
man.””51 It is not just through the elimination of primogeniture
that public policy is undermining Ireland’s social fabric and the
moral resources of its Catholics. Back in the 1760’s Burke
describes how families and property are undermined by laws
which give any child who renounced Catholicism the right to take
over family lands. Also, prohibitions on the permanent acquisition
of land severely discouraged improvement, as did prohibitions
on entry into professions. Education for Catholics was
virtually impossible. Catholic grammar schools were, as a general
rule, illegal. Young Catholic men could not attend college in
Ireland or England; nor, Burke points out, could they be sent
elsewhere for an education without, once again, breaking the law.
Both the barriers to education and the inducements to lawbreaking
would certainly contribute to the “”debasement . . . of human
nature”” about which he is so concerned.
The general attack on Catholicism in Ireland, Burke argues in
the 1760s, is misguided. It may serve the short-term interest of
the Ascendency by keeping Catholics down, but it serves the longterm
interest of no one. He grants that, although “”the idea of
religious persecution, under any circumstances, has been almost
universally exploded by all good and thinking men,”” there may be
specific cases in which it is understandable if some may oppose a
strange new sect. In such a case the established religion has at
least the prejudice of antiquity on its side. The persecution of
Catholicism, however, turns the usual order on its head, since
“”this religion, which is so persecuted in its members, is the old
religion of the country, and the once established religion of the
state.””52 The disruption of this religion, so firmly integrated into
the culture and society, could only have negative consequences.
In response to those who claim that Catholicism cannot possibly
be socially beneficial, Burke asks, “”And was there no civil society
at all in these kingdoms before the Reformation?””53 The question
should not be whether or not there are errors in Catholicism,
since its practitioners
received it on as good a footing as they can receive your laws and
your legislative authority, because it was handed down to them
from their ancestors. The opinion may be erroneous, but the
principle is undoubtedly right; and you punish them for acting
upon a principle which of all others is perhaps the most necessary
for preserving society, an implicit admiration and adherence to
the establishments of their forefathers.54
In opposing the traditional religion in favor of a newer one,
says Burke, the government also undermines its own authority,
since it undermines respect for the order which has been handed
down. Without such respect, a sense of arbitrariness sets in.
Burke’s emphasis here on the necessity of respect for the legacy
of “”ancestors”” and “”forefathers,”” very early in his career and
decades before similar language would appear in Reflections,
should serve to dispel any suspicion that the later prominence of
this theme was the product of a knee-jerk reaction to the French
Revolution.
In his early writings on Ireland Burke hints that attempts at
suppression of Catholicism are destructive to religion in general,
but this theme emerges more prominently in his later writings. He
explains that, over the broad sweep of history, the purpose of
religious persecution has usually been to bring people into conformity
with the established church. Although such persecution is
undesirable, it has, at least, the positive intent of saving the souls
of the persecuted. That is not the aim in Ireland, however. The
laws there essentially amount to the establishment of a “”negative
religion.””55 This is because, in many cases, the laws in Ireland do
not follow the usual pattern of discriminating between those who
are members of the established church and those who are not.
Instead, they discriminate between those who are Catholic and
those who are Protestant, with the term “”Protestant”” employed
broadly to cover members of the Anglican Church and virtually
all dissenters. Essentially, the laws are structured simply to
punish people for being Catholic, not to bring people into another
church. The authorities generally do not care what religion one
professes, or whether one actually follows any recognized denomination
at all; one generally qualifies as “”Protestant”” as long
as one is not Catholic.
Burke cannot resist the quip that “”a man is certainly the most
perfect Protestant who protests against the whole Christian
religion.””56 The effect of the penal laws is to undermine religion.
In one open letter he tells the supporters of such laws that “”you
are partly leading, partly driving into Jacobinism that description
of your people whose religious principles, church polity, and
habitual discipline might make them an invincible dike against
that inundation.””57 In another late letter he explains that “”the
seduction of that part of mankind from the principles of religion,
morality, subordination, and social order is the great object of the
Jacobins. Let them grow lax, skeptical, careless, and indifferent
with regard to religion and . . . Jacobinism . . . will enter into that
breach.”” Therefore, “”the Roman Catholic religion should be
upheld in high respect and veneration”” and cherished as a good,
not tolerated as an evil.58 Although Burke failed to achieve much
that he desired in the area of Irish policy, in his final years he
personally assisted in the successful establishment of a national
Catholic seminary for Ireland. This effort, like Burke’s others,
incorporated an anti-Jacobin objective, both by ensuring an
adequate supply of priests and by ensuring that they were welleducated.
It is in his late writings on Ireland that Burke offers his famous
definition of Jacobinism. “”What is Jacobinism?”” he asks. He
answers,
It is an attempt . . . to eradicate prejudice out of the minds of men,
for the purpose of putting all power and authority into the hands
of the persons capable of occasionally enlightening the minds of
the people. For this purpose the Jacobins have resolved to
destroy the whole frame and fabric of the old societies of the
world, and to regenerate them after their fashion.59
In a letter to his son he makes reference to “”the new fanatical
religion . . . of the Rights of Man, which rejects all establishments,
all discipline, all ecclesiastical, and in truth all civil order. . . .””60
In the final analysis, Jacobinism emerges as a kind of nihilism,
since it undermines “”all discipline”” and “”all civil order”” by
undermining those elements which equip a healthy moral imagination.
What most stands against Jacobinism, and for civil order,
is “”prejudice,”” that is, those acquired predispositions which
provide moral stability and serve as a counterweight to seductive
revolutionary rhetoric. Millenarian ideas, in fact, arose in Ireland
in 1795–96.61 Such ideas, and the irrational hubris which accompanies
them, reflect the loss of the anchor in reality provided by
the sense of a moral order. In another letter Burke enumerates
the three main subjects of Jacobin attack: religion, property, and
“”old traditionary constitutions.””62 Since public policies toward
Ireland have also attacked all of these, government has served to
aid the Jacobins in their work. It seems as if the objective of
British policy is to transform Ireland’s Catholics into an irreligious,
propertyless, uneducated, atomized mass, alienated from
lawful government and lacking a sound leadership class; such a
mob would be ripe for radicalism and rebellion.
As a Member of Parliament, Burke cut his teeth on American
policy; his maiden speech was an unrecorded address supporting
repeal of the Stamp Act, a position around which the Rockingham
Whigs were coalescing.63 In 1770 Burke was named New York’s
agent in Parliament, and in 1774 and 1775 he would make his
major speeches on American policy, urging British conciliation
on taxation and other issues which were contributing to the
Americans’ unrest. After hearing of the Declaration of Independence,
he was at a loss as to where his sympathies should lie,
writing in a private letter, “”I do not know how to wish success to
those whose Victory is to separate from us a large and noble part
of our Empire. Still less do I wish success to injustice, oppression,
and absurdity.””64 In the early to mid-1770s, American policy was
following the confrontational line of the Tories and George III,
and in arguing for conciliation Burke found himself fighting a
losing battle, as he would so often in his career. The American
problem centered primarily on taxation by Parliament and the
colonists’ resistance to that taxation. Parliament believed it had a
right to tax the colonies in any manner it chose, since the colonial
charters made those colonies subject to the Crown. The Americans,
as a general rule, recognized Parliament’s legitimacy in
governing them, but believed that the imposition of taxes without
their consent or participation violated basic rights of Englishmen.
As a problem of conflicting rights claims, the American crisis
may have helped convince Burke of the limitations of rights-based
frameworks and of the drawbacks of abstract conceptual arguments
which disregard real-world circumstances. In his 1775
Speech on Conciliation he suggests that it is not entirely clear
whose claim of right—that of Parliament or of the Americans—
should predominate. The general issue as to whether “”a right of
taxation is necessarily involved in the general principle of legislation,
and inseparable from the ordinary supreme power”” or
whether, as a taking of property, it falls into a special category and
requires special consent, involves “”deep questions”” which are
difficult to resolve, a “”Serbonian bog”” in which Burke does “”not
intend to be overwhelmed.”” The solution Burke offers is to
abandon the rights debate altogether and to focus simply on
creating good public policy:
The question with me is, not whether you have a right to render
your people miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make
them happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what
humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
#page#
Indeed, Burke argues that even if he were certain that “”the
colonists had, at their leaving this country, sealed a regular
compact of servitude, that they had solemnly abjured all the rights
of citizens,”” he would still argue for conciliation, since the real
issue is not one of legal technicalities or past agreements, but of
governing a particular population with particular viewpoints in
the here-and-now.65
In both the Speech on Conciliation and the Speech on Taxation
a year earlier, Burke endeavored to convince the Tories of the
need for any American policy to take into account what we would
call the culture, or worldview, or imaginative framework of the
colonists. Britain and America had, to a degree, grown apart, and
the Americans’ perception of the circumstances at hand was very
different from that of the king and of most members of Parliament.
Effective governance required a sensitivity to those differences.
Burke explains that there is a consideration which should
guide policy regarding America “”even more than its population
and its commerce: I mean its temper and character.“”66 According
to Gerald Chapman, Burke
painted his famous “”view”” of the American character and its
driving force, . . . to waken a sense of American practice as
conditioned by in-grown values and principles, fixed, and lively,
though more or less unconscious, and suspended in the dearest
web of moral feelings.67
The dominant element of this character is a “”love of freedom””
and “”fierce spirit of liberty,”” a quality which derives in large part
from the colonists’ British roots: “”England, Sir, is a nation which
still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The
colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was
most predominant.”” The colonists’ fixation on the taxation issue,
which Parliament regarded as unreasonable, was in fact very
British, since taxation only by consent amounted to a key traditional
British test of liberty. Burke explains:
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
Liberty inheres in some sensible object; and every nation has
formed to itself some favorite point, which by way of eminence
becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened, you
know, Sir, that the great contests for freedom in this country were
from the earliest times chiefly upon the question of taxing.””68
There is no such thing as liberty in the abstract; it exists in
concrete circumstances. We understand the idea of liberty because
it is imaginatively linked to various particular things.
According to Burke, the Tories fail to understand how closely the
older British cultural framework, still strong in the colonies,
associates liberty with consent to taxation. They see the American
response as simple defiance, a challenge to the legitimacy of their
rule. Consequently they believe they must insist on their taxes in
order to maintain their authority; if they give in on this matter,
more defiance will follow. Burke’s point is that taxation is, in the
colonists’ minds, a special case, and a rejection of taxes is not a
part of a blanket rejection of the Crown. Not that the colonists do
not have a particularly strong “”love of freedom;”” they do, and
Parliament must take this into account. Burke traces this love
culturally. Many of the emigrants to America, he
