Edmund Burke

SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1 Burke 's Speech on Reconciliation with the American Colonies

From Volume I of The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (Henry G . Bohn , 1854 , VI Volumes , pps 464-471

Burke 's 1775 speech on the American colonies is a natural outgrowth of the famously conservative point of view of the great Irish statesman This is a systematic work in that Burke lays out a series of concepts concepts connected to a certain cultural type , that has led to the American demand of freedom from the British crown (and

parliament ) as well as why that freedom is legitimate : in sum , Burke is arguing that the Americans are freedom loving because they are ultimately Englishmen . What remains important about this speech is that the concepts that Burke provides that justify the American demand for independence are not concepts that float in mid air , in other words , they are not the cogitations of philosophers . These concepts such as education and ethic background are ideas that develop in context : specifically , the Anglo-Saxon context of religious dissent . He says , concerning the American colonists

They are therefore not only devoted to liberty , but to liberty according to English ideas , and on English principles . Abstract liberty , like other mere abstractions , is not to be found . Liberty inheres in some sensible object and every nation has formed to itself some favourite point , which by way of eminence becomes the criterion of their happiness

The concept of freedom ' is not an abstraction , it is...