Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke (/bɜːrk/; 12 January [NS] 1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.

Burke was a proponent of underpinning virtues with manners in society and of the importance of religious institutions for the moral stability and good of the state. These views were expressed in his satirical work, A Vindication of Natural Society (1756). He also criticised the actions of the British government towards the American colonies, including its taxation policies. Burke supported the rights of the colonists to resist metropolitan authority, although he opposed the attempt to achieve independence. He is further remembered for his long-term support for Catholic emancipation, the impeachment of Warren Hastings from the East India Company, and his opposition to the French Revolution. In 1774, Burke was elected a member of Parliament for Bristol.

In his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Burke asserted that the revolution was destroying the fabric of good society and traditional institutions of state and society, and he condemned the persecution of the Catholic Church that resulted from it. This led to him becoming a popular leading figure within the conservative faction of the Whig Party which he dubbed the Old Whigs as opposed to the pro-French Revolution New Whigs led by Charles James Fox. Burke had a close relation with some of the public intellectuals of his time, including Samuel Johnson, David Garrick, Oliver Goldsmith and Joshua Reynolds. In his debates, he often argued against unrestricted ruling power and the importance of political parties having the ability to maintain a principled opposition that was capable of preventing abuse of power.

In the 19th century, Burke was praised by both conservatives and liberals. Subsequently, in the 20th century, he became widely regarded, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom, as the philosophical founder of conservatism, along with his ultra-royalist and ultramontane counterpart Joseph de Maistre. His writings and literary publications influenced British conservative thought to a great extent, and helped establish the earliest foundations for modern conservatism and liberal democracy.