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ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA

BY

EDMUND BURKE

EDMUND BURKE

1729-1797

Burke was born in Dublin in 1729, and died in 1797 at Beaconsfield in England. He took his degree at Dublin University in 1748, entered Parliament in 1766, spoke on American_taxation in 1774; received in 1782-3 the appointments of Paymaster-General and Privy Councillor, and managed the impeachment of Warren Hastings from 1786 to 1794. He wrote his essays on "Natural Society and on the " Sublime and Beautiful" in 1756, and one on the "Revolution in France" in 1790. During this lifetime of sixty-eight years he made a mark in the world which will make him remembered and loved as long as the language in which he wrote and spoke exists.

For consistent sublimity and magnanimity of character there was no man in England during Burke's time that could rival him. He had naturally a mind of the finest quality; and the education by which it was developed was perfectly suited to bring out its best powers. In childhood he began his studies with the Bible, much of which, from repeated readings, he knew by heart; and the splendid language of the Hebrew prophets lived in his memory, and imparted grandeur and color to his own speeches afterwards. From the Bible he turned to Shakespeare and Milton; and he tempered the imaginative splendor of these writers with the intellectual light and substantial wisdom of Bacon. He studied these writers, not with a view to furnishing himself with material for future triumphs; but simply from the predisposition of his nature, which spontaneously inclined him to whatever was best and highest in human thought and literature. He passed his life on the mountain-tops; in a mental region far above all common and selfish concerns; breathing habitually an atmosphere which few can inhale even temporarily without exhaustion. Nevertheless, recognizing that he was a citizen of the world, he did not fail to qualify himself for usefulness to society by acquainting himself with worldly matters, and with the cast of thought of men of practical affairs. But thanks to the elevation of his standpoint, and the transcendent faculties with which he was endowed, he did easily, and as it were by condescension, what others labored to accomplish less masterfully; and the consummate power which he constantly evinced in treating of matters of current politics and every-day philosophy awakened the wonder and reverence of the most eminent of his contemporaries. He could not, however, express himself upon any given subject without so illuminating it, and relating it to all subjects of its class, that his comments and expositions are to-day as valuable as they were a century ago; and men of our time who wish to qualify themselves for the handling of public affairs cannot do so more effectively than by giving diligent study to the orations and essays of Burke. In spite of his heroic stature and sublime look he was personally the most modest and unassuming of men; he could not help being loftier than others, but he assumed no arrogance on that account; and though, as Johnson remarked of him, no man could stand for half an hour under a gateway

beside him, listening to his chance talk while waiting for a shower to pass by, without feeling convinced that whoever he might be, he was the first man in England-yet no one would ever be able to assert that Burke himself rated himself above the level of his fellow-creatures.

Burke was the unfailing champion of the American colonies from first to last; and he spoke from the outset with authority; for before he was thirty, and ten years previous to his appearance in Parliament, he had written a book on the history of the colonies, the preparation of which required accurate knowledge of the conditions prevailing there, and of the future possibilities of the nation which was mewing its mighty youth across the Atlantic. For four years, moreover, from 1771, he had acted as the agent of the New York colony in England; and the consequence of the intimate knowledge thus acquired was that, when he made his first speech on American taxation, Chatham, who next to him had made a study of America, declared that Burke had left him little or nothing to say.

As was inevitable, Burke, by dint of the eminence of his own genius, was almost from the first brought in contact with all the first minds in England, in every walk of life; and he did not fail to derive from them the best that each had to offer him. Doubtless he gave more than he took; yet he thus received substantial accessions to his culture, which had the effect of making him better able to deal practically with practical affairs. Imaginative and poetical genius is not often allied with talent for political affairs; but this union existed in Burke, and was largely due to his determination to round out his abilities, instead of giving them the one-sided development which we commonly find in men. He kept his feet on the firm earth while his head reached towards the stars.

It is not possible to point to any one speech of Burke's and affirm that it was his best. But the address on "Conciliation with America" is probably the most significant and edifying for Americans. It was spoken March 22, 1775. In it will be found the best and most characteristic elements of his oratory: breadth of thought, fertility and aptness of illustration, the faculty of exhibiting all sides of a topic, so that it may be comprehended in the round instead of merely in outline; command of the entirety of his theme, so that he is able to treat its various parts in their just proportions; and that remarkable ease and spontaneity of diction which gets out of words the best that is in them, and puts meaning into the lightest phrase. Over all there is a glamour and a grace which lifts the speech into the higher regions of creative imagination, while never abandoning the loyalty to truth and fact which gives imagination its soundest warrant.

M

ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA

R. SPEAKER: I hope, sir, that, notwithstanding the austerity of the chair, your good nature will incline you to some degree of indulgence towards human frailty. You will not think it unnatural that those who have an object depending, which strongly engages their hopes and fears, should be somewhat inclined to superstition. As I came into the House full of anxiety about the event of my emotion, I found, to my infinite surprise, that the grand penal bill, by which we had passed sentence on the trade and sustenance of America, is to be returned to us from the other House. I do confess, I could not help looking on this event as a fortunate omen. I look upon it as a sort of providential favor, by which we are put once more in possession of our deliberative capacity, upon a business so very questionable in its nature, so very uncertain in its issue. By the return of this bill, which seemed to have taken its flight forever, we are, at this very instant, nearly as free to choose a plan for our American government, as we were on the first day of the session. If, sir, we incline to the side of conciliation, we are not at all embarrassed (unless we please to make ourselves so) by any incongruous mixture of coercion and restraint. We are therefore called upon, as it were by a superior warning voice, again to attend to America; to attend to the whole of it together; and to review the subject with an unusual degree of care and calmness.

Surely it is an awful subject, or there is none so on this side of the grave. When I first had the honor of a seat in this House the affairs of that continent pressed themselves upon us as the most important and most delicate object of parliamentary attention. My little share in this great deliberation oppressed me. I found myself a partaker in a very high trust; and having no sort of reason to rely on the strength of my natural abilities for the proper execution of that trust, I was obliged to take more

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