“He went on refining,
And thought of convincing when they thought of dining.”
Erskine, during the delivery of the speech on “Conciliation with America,” crept out of the House behind the benches on his hands and knees, and yet afterward wrote that he thought the speech the most remarkable one of ancient or modern times.
But this vast superabundance, this superfluity of riches, so oppressive to the ear of the hearer, must ever be a source of pleasure and profit to the thoughtful reader. It is safe to say that there is no other oratory of any language or time that yields so rich a return to the thoughtful efforts of the genuine student. What Fox said to members of Parliament in regard to the speech on the “Nabob of Arcot’s debts,” may be appropriately said with perhaps even greater emphasis to American students in regard to either of the speeches on American affairs: “Let gentlemen read this speech by day and meditate on it by night: let them peruse it again and again, study it, imprint it on their minds, impress it on their hearts.” After all that has been written, the student can nowhere find a more correct and comprehensive account of the causes of the American Revolution than in the speeches on Taxation and Conciliation.
Burke’s education had given him peculiar qualifications for discussing American affairs. These qualifications were both general and special. At the age of fourteen he entered Trinity College in his native city of Dublin, where he remained six years, performing not only his regular college duties, but carrying on a very elaborate course of study of his own devising. He not only read a greater part of the poets and orators of antiquity, but he also devoted himself to philosophy in such a way that his mind took that peculiar bent which made him ultimately what has been called “the philosophical orator” of the language. In 1750, when he was twenty, he began the study of law at the Middle Temple, in London. But his law studies were not congenial to him; and his great energies, therefore, were chiefly devoted to the study of what would now be called Political Science. It was at this period that he acquired that habit which never deserted him of following out trains of thought to their end, and framing his views on every subject he investigated into an organized system. He was a very careful student of Bolingbroke’s works; and such an impression had this writer’s methods of reasoning made upon him, that when his first pamphlet, “The Vindication of Natural Society” appeared in 1756, it was thought by many to be a posthumous work of Bolingbroke himself. In the same year he astonished the reading world by publishing at the age of twenty-six, his celebrated philosophical treatise on the “Sublime and Beautiful.” But the best of his thoughts were given to a contemplation of the forms and principles of civil society. In 1757 he prepared and published two volumes on the “European Settlements in America,” in the course of which, he showed that he had already traced the character of the Colonial institutions to the spirit of their ancestors, and to an indomitable love of liberty. While preparing these volumes his prophetic intelligence came to see the boundless resources and the irresistible strength that the colonies were soon destined to attain. Thus more than ten years before the troubles with America began, Burke had filled his mind with stores of knowledge in regard to American affairs, and had qualified himself for those marvellous trains of reasoning with which he came forward when the Stamp Act was proposed. The very next year after the publication of his treatise on the American Colonies, he projected the Annual Register; a work which even down to the present day has continued to give a yearly account of the most important occurrences in all parts of the globe. The undertaking could hardly have been successful except in the hands of a man of extraordinary powers. The first volumes were written almost exclusively by Burke, and the topics discussed as well as the events described, offered the best of opportunities for the exercise of his peculiar gifts. So great was the demand for the work that the early volumes rapidly passed through several editions. The first article in the first volume is devoted to the relations of the American Colonies to the mother country; and the preëminence, thus indicated of the American question in Burke’s mind, continued to be evident till the outbreak of the Revolution.
Burke entered Parliament in 1765, and in January, 1766, he delivered his maiden speech in opposition to the Stamp Act. The effort was not simply successful,—it showed so much compass and power that Pitt publicly complimented him as “a very able advocate.” In 1771, he received the appointment of agent for the Colony of New York, a position which he continued to hold till the outbreak of the war. Thus, not only by his general attainments and abilities, but also as the result of his special application to the subject, he brought to the discussion of the question qualifications that were unequalled even by those of Chatham himself.
Of the speeches delivered by Burke, in all several hundred in number, only six of the more important ones have been preserved. These were written out for publication by the orator himself. In point of compass and variety of thought as well as in lofty declamation and withering invective it is probable that the most remarkable of all his efforts was that on the “Nabob of Arcot’s debts.” But it is marked by the author’s greatest faults as well as by his greatest merits. For five hours he poured out the pitiless and deluging torrents of his denunciations; and the reader who now sits down to the task of mastering the speech is as certain to be wearied by it as were the members of the House of Commons when it was delivered. The speech on “Conciliation with America” is marred by fewer blemishes, and its positive merits are of transcendant importance. That this great utterance exerted a vast influence on both sides of the Atlantic admits of no doubt. It is worthy of note, however, that during the greater part of Burke’s political life he was in the opposition, and that by those in power, he was regarded as simply what Lord Lauderdale once called him, “a splendid madman.” To this characterization Fox replied: “It is difficult to say whether he is mad or inspired, but whether the one or the other, every one must agree that he is a prophet.” And at a much later period Lord Brougham observed that “All his predictions, except one momentary expression, have been more than fulfilled.”
MR. BURKE.
ON MOVING RESOLUTIONS FOR CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.
HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 22, 1775.
The repeal of the Grenville Stamp Act had not brought a return of friendly feeling, for the reason that the Commons had preferred to adopt the policy of George III. instead of the policy of Pitt. The right to tax America was affirmed in the very act withdrawing the tax. When Lord North came into power he adopted a weak and fatal mixture of concession and coercion. After the destruction of the tea in Boston harbor the policy of coercion became dominant. In 1774, the Charter of Massachusetts was taken away, and the port of Boston was closed to all commerce. The British Government labored under the singular delusion that the inconvenience thus inflicted would bring the colonies at once to terms. It was boldly said that the question was merely one of shillings and pence, and that the colonists would give way as soon as they came to see that their policy entailed a loss. There were a few who held the opposite ground. On the night of April 19, 1774, Mr. Fuller moved to go “into Committee of the whole House to take into consideration the duty of threepence a pound on tea, payable in all his Majesty’s dominions in America.” It was understood that the aim of the motion was the repealing of the Act; and it was in seconding the motion that Mr. Burke made his famous speech on American taxation.
But the policy advocated in the speech was voted down by 182 to 49. Thus the ministry determined to drift on in the old way. It soon became evident, however, that some change was imperatively necessary. The method determined upon by Lord North was an insidious scheme for sowing dissensions among the colonies, and thus breaking that strength which comes from united action. His plan was to offer that whenever a colony, in addition to providing for its own government, should raise a fair proportion for the general defence, and should place this sum at the disposal of Parliament, that colony should be exempted from all further taxation, except such duties as might be necessary for the regulation of commerce. He thus designed to array the colonies against one another, and so open the way for treating with them individually. This was put forward by North as a plan for conciliation. While Burke saw clearly the mischief that lurked in the scheme of the ministry, he was anxious to avail himself of the idea of conciliation; and with this end in view he brought forward a series of resolutions “to admit the Americans to an equal interest in the British Constitution, and to place them at once on the footing of other Englishmen.” It was in moving these resolutions that the following speech was made.
The method of treatment by the orator is so elaborate, that a brief analysis of the argument may be of service. The speech is divided into two parts: first, Ought we to make concessions? and if so, secondly, What ought we to concede? Under the first head the orator enters with surprising minuteness of detail into an examination of the condition of the colonies. He surveys (1) their population; (2) their commerce; (3) their agriculture, and (4) their fisheries. Having thus determined their material condition, he shows that force cannot hold a people possessing such advantages in subjection to the mother country, if they are inspired with a spirit of liberty. He shows that such a spirit prevails, and examining it, he traces it to six sources: (1) the descent of the people; (2) their forms of government; (3) the religious principles of the North; (4) the social institutions of the South; (5) the peculiarities of their education, and (6) their remoteness from Great Britain. He then sums up the first part, by showing that it is vain to think either (1) of removing these causes, or (2) of regarding them as criminal. Reaching the conclusion then, that conciliation is the true policy, he proceeds to inquire what this concession should be. Obviously it should relate to taxation, since taxation is the cause of the contest. Referring to the earlier history of Ireland, Durham, Chester, and Wales, he shows that in every case, either an independent parliament existed, or the territory was admitted to representation in the English Parliament. He then points out that direct representation of the colonies is impracticable, and he shows the evils that would result from the adoption of Lord North’s scheme. Finally, he reaches the conclusion that Americans ought to be admitted to the privileges of Englishmen—the privilege of contributing whatever they grant to the Crown through their own legislature. To this end he presents six resolutions, with a brief consideration of which he closes the speech.
This brief outline is perhaps enough to show that the speech is remarkable for its logical order, and for its happy grouping of historical facts. But so far from being a collection of mere matters of fact, it is enriched from beginning to end with thoughts and reflections from a brain teeming with ideas on the science of government. It abounds with passages that have always been greatly admired, and the train of argument is not interrupted by the introduction of matter only remotely relevant to the subject in hand. It may be said therefore to have more of the author’s characteristic merits, and fewer of his characteristic defects, than any other of his speeches. Every careful student will probably agree with Sir James Mackintosh in pronouncing it “the most faultless of Mr. Burke’s productions.”
Mr. Speaker: