Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Masterpieces of Modern Oratory
Some one has said that a passion for order and a passion for justice were the master motives of Burke's life and thought. It is interesting to see how these master passions expressed themselves in dealing with the three great problems in government which arose dur ing his career, the problems of America, of India, and of France.
In dealing with America Burke was unquestionably at his best. His highly developed sense of justice led him to protest against the paternal policy and high-handed methodsiof George the Third and his Tory supporters. Burke felt that these methods threatened liberty not only in the colonies, but also in England; hence his plea for justice to the colonists comported with his passion for order. His plan would not violate the principles of the English constitution, while it would insure order and tranquillity in the colonies. Burke was not, however, a thoroughgoing reformer in the modern sense. He has been called the Great Conservative. The basis of his plea for conciliation with the American colonies fell far short of the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. When the Stamp Act was repealed the radical wing of the Whig party, led by Pitt and Fox, would have gone farther and acknowledged the absolute injustice of taxation with out representation. Not so with Burke; the declaration of this principle would have been to him a too violent breaking with the traditions of the English constitution, as he conceived them. He therefore warmly supported the Declaratory Act coupled with the repeal of the Stamp Act, which asserted the supreme authority of Parliament over the colonies, in all cases whatsoever. In both of his Speeches on America Burke refuses to discuss the question of taxation without representation. That, he said, was not the main issue. And yet that was the issue which the colonists raised, and the issue which divided the English Whigs. Burke based his arguments solely on expediency, so that, as Goldwin Smith has pointed out, you cannot extract from him any definite theory of the colonial relation. His conservative attitude, springing from his passion for order, as we have seen, was a strong in?uence in the disruption of the Whig party, thus preventing a solid front in the opposition to the policy of George the Third.
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