Biography of Edmund Burke

The thought and democracy

12 January 1729
9 July 1797
The Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke was born in Dublin on 12 January 1729 Anglican Catholic mother and father: with his brother Richard is educated according to Anglican education so that it may undertake in the future the public career.
Her sister instead receive a Catholic education. But it is in the Catholic environment which Burke lives and grows; cultivated studies as well as the same ethnicity, creating in him what he later called "mold of Catholic thought." From 1743 to 1748 he studied liberal arts at Trinity College, Dublin forming out of Greek and Latin classical authors: Cicero and Aristotle influence it profoundly. In London in 1750 he studied law at Middle Temple "; It is here not long after that, tired of the materialistic and mechanistic methodology pragmatism which permeate the teaching, reversing the father abandoned his studies to begin a literary career. The future statesman with time will acquire anyway an important knowledge of the continental European law and the British one.
Another important source of his training before, and his thought then, is the chain of the great British jurists, by sir Edward Coke up to sir William Blackstone. In May of 1756 Burke publish as anonymous its first written: "A Vindication of Natural Society", a pamphlet that mocks the libertine and Deist philosophy then in vogue. In 1957 he published "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful", a work dedicated to aesthetics in which investigates the psychological foundations of art. On 12 March 1757 bride Jane Nugent. On 9 February the following year his wife gives birth to son Richard. During the same period and until 1765 Edmumd Burke directs the "Annual Register", a series which deals with history, politics and literature, first British, then only continental European too. Between 1758 and 1759 writes "Essay towards an Abridgment of the English History", a work published posthumously in 1811.
During these years, Burke began attending the eminent man of letters Samuel Johnson: despite the diversity of their political views, between the two established highest consideration and friendship. Burke became private Secretary and political Assistant to William Gerard Hamilton, his own age already active in Parliament.
The editors of "Tracts Relative to the Laws against Popery in Ireland"-fragmentary writings published posthumously in 1797-dates back to the fall of 1761, during a stay in Ireland. Separated then from Hamilton to attach to Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, becoming Secretary. The latter is appointed Prime Minister by King George III of Hanover, on 10 July 1765. In the same year, Burke was elected to the House of Commons: in short he became the intellectual Guide and spokesman for the Whigparty's current "Rockingham". Burke sits so in the pews of the opposition for most of his political career and it is during this second phase of its existence that the statesman-thinker publishes best known works, including "Thoughts on the Causes of the Present Discontents (1770)," Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies "(1775)," Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), "Thoughts on the French Affairs" and "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791) , and the "Letters on a Regicide Peace", completed in 1796.
Given the support of American independence Burke and his partner against the prerogative Director, many people would be surprised by the publication of "Reflections on the Revolution in France". With this publication, the anglo Irish politician became one of the first critics of the French Revolution, which he considered not a movement directed at creating a constitutional and representative democracy, but rather a violent revolt against tradition and legitimate authority, a rambling experiment with the complex reality of human society, which would end in disaster. Great admirers of Burke, as Thomas Jefferson and Charles James Fox, were accused of being reactionary and become enemy of democracy. Thomas Paine wrote "The Rights of Man in 1791 as a response to Burke.
Later other advocates of democracy as John Adams, agreed with Burke on the French situation. Also many forecasts by Burke on the development of the revolution would have been confirmed, with the execution of Louis XVI and the emergence of autocratic regime of Napoleon. These facts and the disagreement over their interpretation lead to the breakup of the friendship between Burke and Fox and, from another point of view, the Division of the Whigparty. When in 1791 Burke published "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs" in which renews its criticism of radical programmes inspired by the French Revolution and attacked the Whigs who support them, most of the party follows him by voting in favour of the Conservative Government of William Pitt the younger, who declared war on revolutionary France in 1793. In 1794 suffers a blow: his son Richard, that is very close, dies. In the same year ends the case against Hastings. Burke feels that he has accomplished his mission policy so, tired, decided to leave the Parliament. The King, who had enjoyed his views on the French Revolution, wants to appoint him Lord Beaconsfield, but the death of his son had deprived Burke of each attraction for this title, so that only accepts the offer of a pension of £ 2500. Edmund Burke died on 9 July 1797 in his country house in Beaconsfield, England.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.