What Is a Baby Berkshire?

Edmund Burke (January 12, 1729-July 9, 1797), an Irish politician, writer, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who served in the British House of Commons Member of the Whig Party for several years. His best known deeds include his opposition to King George III and the British government, his support for the American colony and the subsequent American Revolution, and his later criticism of the French Revolution. Reflections on the French Revolution made him the main conservative figure in the Whig Party (he also called himself "Old Whig"), and opposed the "New Whig" that advocated revolution in the party. Burke also published many books related to aesthetics and founded a political journal called Annual Register. He is often regarded as the founder of British and American conservatism.

Edmund Burke

Growth environment

Born in Dublin, Ireland, his ancestors were originally a Catholic family in the Munster area of Ireland. His father was a well-known professional lawyer who converted to the Anglican Church of Ireland. His mother, Mary (circa 1702-1770), was Catholic and came from a poor but educated family in South Cork. Burke grew up following his father's beliefs, and he believed in the Anglican Church throughout his life, although later his opponents would use this as a handle to attack him with a sympathy for Catholicism. His sister Juliana grew up in Catholicism.

Early childhood education

In his youth, Burke occasionally left Dublin, where the air was unhealthy, to go to his mother's home in the Blackwater Valley. He received his early education at a Quaker school 30 miles from Dublin, and in 1744 continued to Trinity College in Dublin. In 1747 he founded a debating society, called Edmund Burke's debating society. This debating society merged with the historical society in 1770 and became the later famous college historical society to this day. Burke's record in the debate was preserved by the historical society to this day. Burke graduated in 1748. His father wanted him to study law, so he sent him to London for law school in 1750, but shortly afterwards Burke gave up law studies and pursued a literary career.

First paper

Burke's first essay, "Defending Natural Society: Examining the Pain and Evil of Humanity" was published in 1756 and is often thought of as a letter to Lord Bolingbroke, originally written Treated as a serious anarchist dissertation, Burke declared that the dissertation was just a satirical essay a few years later for admission to government office. Many modern scholars also regard this article as satire, but others believe that it is indeed a serious article in defense of anarchism (this interpretation is especially supported by Murray Rothbard). Ironically or not, this article was indeed the first anarchist dissertation and was taken seriously by many later anarchists such as William Godwin. In 1757 Burke published an essay on aesthetics-"A Philosophical Exploration of the Origin of the Concept of Sublime and Beauty", which attracted prominent European thinkers such as Denis Diderot and Immanuel Kant Attention. Over the next year, with the assistance of British writer Robert Dodsley, Burke began publishing the influential Annual Register, a political journal written by many writers on the topic of international politics and current events each year. In London, Burke also approached many prominent intellectuals and artists of the time, including Samuel Jensen and others.

Family life

On March 12, 1757, Burke married Jane Mary Nugent (1734-1812) from a Catholic family, and the two met through Bath's father through her father who was a doctor in Bath. After the marriage, the two gave birth to a son Richard in February 1758, but the other son Christopher died as an infant.

Hold a post

Around this time, Burke met another politician, William Gerard Hamilton, who was referred to him-nicknamed "Hamilton who only gave a speech" when Hamilton was appointed chief of Ireland As secretary, Burke traveled to Dublin to serve as his personal secretary, a position he had held for three years. In 1756, Burke became a Whig politician and personal secretary of the Marquis Rockingham, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and they became close friends until Rockingham died early in 1782.

Old age

In 1794, the sudden death of his son Richard brought a serious blow to Burke. Richard, the only son, had always been loved by Burke, and Burke had high expectations for him. In the same year Warren Hastings' trial ended with innocence, and Burke ended in total failure. Burke felt that his work had come to an end and he had no energy to fight again, so he left Congress shortly after. At that time the King of England (beginning to admire him because of Burke's stance on the French Revolution) wanted to make him Earl of Beaconsfield, but due to the death of the only son Richard, even the elder had no honor or benefit. Already. Burke was only willing to accept a pension of about £ 2.500, which was also criticized by the Duke of Bedford and the Marquis of the Fort Lauderdale, and Burke wrote back to them in 1796. Burke's last book, On the Peace of the King (1796), called on Britain and France to renegotiate peace.

After years of illness, Burke died at Beaconsfield's house in Buckinghamshire in 1797 and was buried at the grave of Aiko Richard six days later, while his wife, Nagent, was at ten He died five years later.

Burke entered the British parliament in 1765 and became a member of the House of Commons representing the Wendover region. Wendall was just a nameless pocket constituency, then controlled by a political ally of Marquis Rockingham. In the House, Burke took the lead in debating the constitution's restrictions on the king's power. He strongly criticized the unrestricted king's power and emphasized the importance of political parties in maintaining opposition forces, so as not to have the opportunity for the king or a government faction to abuse political power. . His most well-known dissertation in this regard was the writing of the cause of current dissatisfaction, written in 1770. Burke expressed his sympathy for the outbreak of dissatisfaction in the American colony under George III and his acting government. He also actively countered the persecution of Catholicism in Ireland and condemned the corrupt and abused East India Company.

In 1769 Burke published a pamphlet entitled "The State of the Current State" in response to another Whig politician, George Grenville. In the same year he bought a piece of land in the outskirts of Beaconsfield and named it "Gregory". This 600-acre property was mostly bought with borrowed funds. Although Burke also obtained a number of artworks including Titian paintings, Gregory incurred a great financial burden on Burke in the following decades. Burke's speech and writing have made him quite well known by this time, and many people even speculate that he was the famous anonymous letter writer "Junius". In 1774 he ran for MPs in the Bristol constituency. Bristol was then known as the "Second City of England" and had a large population. Therefore, the parliamentary elections were actually competitive and quite fierce. Burke's Political opinion included the defense of the principle of alternative democracy, criticizing the concept that opinion representatives should only consider the interests of their own constituencies. These theories of Burke also constitute the theories of representative opinion and agents in representative politics. His support for free trade and Catholic lifting of the embargo caused him to clash with mainstream opinion in his constituency, which ultimately led him to lose his parliamentary seat in 1780. Burke then became a member of the House of Representatives for the Malton region, which was another pocket-named electoral district controlled by the Marquis of Rockingham.

Under the Tory Party's Lord North (1770-1782), Britain's war in the American Revolution was getting worse and worse. In the end, Burke played a very important role in ending the war, especially his post Lecture on "Reconciliation with the United States" (1775) and his "Letter to the Chief of Bristol" (1777). The fall of Lord North's government brought the Marquis of Rockingham to power, and Burke was appointed as the Comptroller of the Army and a member of the Privy Council, but just a few months later, the Marquis of Rockingham died suddenly in July 1782.

Burke went on to support the formation of a coalition government with Charles James Fox and Lord North of the same party, but he soon regretted it as the biggest political mistake he made. He continued to serve as the Comptroller in the short-lived coalition government, and stepped up in support of Fox's bill to reform the East India Companythough in the end the bill failed and became another major failure. The coalition government stepped down in 1783 and was replaced by Tory Jr. William Pete, who was in power until 1801. For the rest of his parliamentary career, Burke has always played the role of an opposition. In 1786, he began to supervise Warren Hastings, then the first British Indian governor, and finally charged him. Burke played the main role in the trial, and the lawsuit began in 1787 until Hastings was acquitted in 1794.

Response to the French Revolution

Because of Burke's previous strong support for American independence and his long record of confrontation against royal privileges, he shocked many people when he published "Reflections on the French Revolution" in 1790. Throughout the French Revolution, Burke became Britain's earliest and most prominent critic of the French Revolution. He believed that the Revolution had evolved into a violent rebellion that subverted tradition and legitimate authority, rather than a reform movement in pursuit of representative and constitutional democracy. He criticized the Great Revolution as an experiment in an attempt to sever complex human-social relations, and as a result it became a catastrophe. He also specifically condemned democracy: "The profession of a hairdresser or a candle maker cannot be a glory to anyone, let alone a bunch of other inferior professions. These people should not be persecuted by the state But if these people are allowed to ruleeither individually or collectively, the country is persecuted. Many people who have previously admired Burke such as Thomas Jefferson and politicians who are also Whigs Charles James Fox condemned Burke as a reactionary and an enemy of democracy, and Thomas Paine wrote a book on Human Rights in 1791 in response to Burke. However, many politicians who also support democracy, such as John Adams, believe that Burke's evaluation of the French Revolution is correct.

The controversy caused by these incidents led to conflict within the Whig Party, and finally ended the relationship and friendship between Burke and Fox. In 1791, Burke published an article called for a return to the old Whig from the new Whig, renewed his critique of the radical revolutionary ideas ignited during the French Revolution, and criticized those within the Whig party who supported these revolutions. In the end, the majority of the Whigs chose to stand by Burke and voted for the conservative William Pitt Jr., who then declared war on the French revolutionary government in 1793.

Burke's "Rethinking the French Revolution" was very controversial at the time of publication. The intense tone and many exaggerated descriptions used in the book also made many people think that Burke has lost his judgment. However, this book has gradually become Burke's most well-known and influential book. In the English-speaking world, Burke is often regarded as the founder of modern conservatism. His thoughts for Friedrich Hayek Classical liberals such as Karl Popper also had a profound influence. Burke's "liberal conservatism" insists on opposing government rule based on abstract ideas or "holistic" political changes, forming a strong relationship with continental philosophers such as Joseph de Maistre Compared.

Burke also had a great influence on the economic thinking of the time. He was a strong supporter of free trade and a free market system. He believed that if the government tried to manipulate the market by any means, it was a violation of the principles of the market economy. Ke insisted on the economic principle of "laissez-faire". Burke wrote many of his economic thoughts in his "Thinking and Studying the Shortage." Adam Smith also said: "Burke is to my knowledge the only person who had exactly the same economic thoughts as I did before I met." Lord Lord Acton, a liberal historian Acton) ranks Burke as one of the three greatest liberal thinkers, alongside William Yult Gladstone and Thomas Macaulay.

After Burke's death, his evaluation can be seen in the extreme contrast between Karl Marx and Winston Churchill.

Karl Marx, a severe critic of Burke's thought, wrote in his book Capital:

This bullshit was bribed by the British kings and made him criticize the French Revolution, just as he was bought by North American colonists to praise them at the beginning of the American problem. This guy who pretended to be a liberal against the British kings was just a completely insult class.

And Winston Churchill wrote in Political Consistency:

Burke was, on the one hand, a pioneer of freedom, and on the other, a defender of authority. But the allegations of inconsistent political stances in his life now appear to be nothing more than trivial, and history has directly proved that he has always maintained his motives and ideas, as well as a series of problems he has faced in his life. A deep and sincere spirit, his authority is resistance to autocracy, whether it is against a treacherous monarch or a corrupt court and parliamentary system, or any government that proves that there is no free existence. A brutal tyranny and evil group that must be confronted. No one can read Burke's defense of freedom and authority without realizing that he always came from the same goal, pursued the same social and government ideals, and defended them from any attackwhether from this Extreme, or that extreme.

Burke's name also became the name of many well-known British organizations and things behind him.

Burke has made several well-known speeches in the British House of Commons:

On the United States tax system (1774): "You set up those colonies with the goal of establishing a commercial monopoly instead of profit, whether right or wrong, this has become a problem today. You cannot organize these two with the same power organization The goal is to unify internal and external monopolies with unified internal and external taxation, which is an unnatural combination and a completely unprofitable slave system. "

On Reconciliation with the United States (1775): "This proposal is peace. No peace will be achieved through war as a medium, no peace will be reached through complicated and endless negotiations, and no peace will be in everyone's argument Achieved, in principle, in all the territories of our empire, there is no peace that would rely on the complex judgments of the legal system or the vague position of a complex government. Peace is peace, from its natural essence, The most plain side is that the pursuit of peace with a spirit of peace is based purely on the foundation of loving peace ... "

Equally well-known is his speech when running for Bristol constituency in 1774:

Bristol's campaign speech (1774): "... Popular representatives should consider themselves living in a constituency with the most solidarity, the broadest reach of the grassroots, and the least obstacles that hinder communication with voters. He should keep the voters' expectations in mind, respect the opinions of the voters, and continue to care about the development of the people. The public opinion representative should consider sacrificing his sleep time, his happiness, and his satisfaction to serve the voters as a responsibility. , And the interests of the voters should exceed his own interests. However, the unbiased ideas, mature judgment, and conscience that the public opinion representatives hold should not be sacrificed to you or to anyone else. These insistences he keeps will not deprive you of happiness or violate the law and the constitution. They are a trust-based trust, and he must take full responsibility for this trust. Your opinion representative owns you, not It's just his inheritance and his ability to judge. If he gives up these insistences to you, he will not serve you but betray you. "

1775. Conciliation with the ColoniesThis reconciliation with the United States. This 74-page speech was issued by Burke in the House of Commons on March 22, 1775. One of the words of the speech was: "The use of force can only be Temporary. If reconciliation fails, force can continue; but if force also fails, there is no hope of reconciliation. "

1756. A Vindication of Natural Society: A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to MankindThis very radical political paper was originally published anonymously when Burke was published anonymously. When pointed out as the author behind it, he presumed it was just a satire. The academic community usually thinks that the truth is indeed what Burke said, but Murray Rothbard thinks that this article is a political article carefully written by Burke, and he has to change his name in order to protect himself.

1757. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful-Burke wrote this book when he was only 19 years old, but until 27 years old The book was published.

1790. Reflections on the Revolution in France-Burke's critique of the French Revolution and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's political thoughts connected to it. This book was published before the White Revolution, and correctly predicted. The revolution will end in terror, tyranny, and misfortune. Burke, who supported the American Revolutionary War, wrote this book in response to those who mistakenly thought that he would also support the French Revolution.

The year he was born has been controversial, and was proposed by 1728, 1729, and 1730. His birthday was also controversial because it involved the conversion of the Julian-Western calendar in 1752.