A Philosopher & Statesman for Our Day

By Teresa Carr

Edmund Burke was an Irish Philosopher and statesman who is quoted in saying, “The only necessary thing for the triumphant of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Burke was born in Dublin, Ireland on January 12, 1729 of Anglican and Roman Catholic parentage. He attended the Quaker school in Ballitore and in 1744 he continued onto Trinity College in Dublin. He set a Debate Club and was later merged with the Historical Club forming the College Historical Society. It was his contributions of his published work A Vindication of Natural Society: A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind, appeared in 1756 and was falsely attributed to Lord Bolingbroke. It was originally taken as a serious treatise on anarchism. The other was for his support of the American colonies in the struggle against King

George III that led to the American Revolution and for his strong opposition to the French Revolution. The latter made Burke one of the leading figures within the conservative faction of the “Old Whig” party in opposition to the pro-revolutionary "New Whigs", led by Charles James Fox.

In the American colonies, the Whigs were those who opposed and resented British control, and favored independence from Great Britain. The Whigs supported the American Revolutionary War. The British loyalists, called Tories, opposed the Whigs in the struggle. After the colonist won their independence the Whigs and Tories lost their political prowess. From the inspiration of Burke, Americans have adopted his philosophy on Anglo-American conservatism. The Whig Party in America took shape again in 1832. Political groups opposed Andrew Jackson and his theories and started to combine and unify into a political party. These included the National Republicans, conservative factions of the Democratic-Republican party and former members of the Anti-Masonic party. Southern cotton planters and factory owners joined in protest against the democratic, leveling doctrines of the Jacksonians because it supported protective tariff. About this time, America needed the help in Burke’s politico-philosophical view of American Taxation (1774): "Whether you were right or wrong in establishing the Colonies on the principles of commercial monopoly, rather than on that of revenue, is at this day a problem of mere speculation. You cannot have both by the same authority. To join together the restraints of an universal internal and external monopoly, with an universal internal and external taxation, is an unnatural union; perfect uncompensated slavery."

Henry Clay’s opposition against Andrew Jackson theories encouraged the growth in American industry. The Whigs followed Henry Clay’s “American System.”

Biography of Edmund Burke. Wikipedia.

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