"I flatter myself that I love a manly, moral, regulated liberty as well as any gentleman... It is one of the gifts of Providence."
Born, raised, and educated in Ireland, Edmund Burke was one
of the most well-known British statesmen and political philosophers of the eighteenth
century. After gaining early recognition for his literary skills, Burke entered
Parliament in 1766 and remained there for the next two decades.
Burke is often remembered for his vehement opposition to the
French Revolution, presented in his Reflections on the Revolution in France.
He saw in the French Revolution a fatal danger: A zealous but misguided state
can destroy the delicate attachments on which a free society is built.
Because of his defense of tradition, Burke is sometimes thought
of as a reactionary. Yet he loved liberty and favored many classical liberal
positions in politics, religion, and economics. Burke never separated religion
and liberty; he maintained that liberty is only possible because it is part
of the eternal and transcendent moral order. His great concern was that freedom
should never be confused with license; that true liberty must always be understood
as ordered liberty.
In economics, Burke believed that private property is the
foundation of a just social order and the spur to personal industry and national
prosperity. He argued passionately against intrusive government monopolies and
in favor of widespread access to acquiring property, which he thought serves
as a powerful check on encroachments by the state. In his view, moral education
by intermediary social institutions-the family, the church, the local community-can
only flourish if the property that supports those institutions is secure. His
support of economic liberty earned him the respect of Adam
Smith, and his powerful defense of morally informed liberty earned Burke
the admiration of Lord Acton, who regarded him as a
timeless model of humane learning, religious virtue, and enlightened political
action.
