Essential Facts
- Supported American colonists but sought to preserve the British Empire.
- Opposed the Tea Act and Intolerable Acts.
- Defined “Salutary Neglect” in a 1775 speech to Parliament.
- Argued for colonial representation and American legislature taxation.
- Criticized the French Revolution in Reflections on the Revolution in France.
- His views gained support as the French Revolution became more radical.
- Retired from Parliament in 1794 and died in 1797.
Significance
Edmund Burke is important to American History because of his support for the American Revolution and attempts to reconcile the differences between Great Britain and the American Colonies. He is also famous for giving Britain’s unwritten policy of lax enforcement of the Navigation Acts a name — Salutary Neglect.
Life and History
Edmund Burke was a British politician who, in the 1760s and 1770s, supported American colonists’ opposition to British imperial policies. Despite his support for America, he was a vocal critic of the French Revolution (1789–1799).
Early Career
- Burke was born in Ireland and attended Trinity College in Dublin.
- He trained as a lawyer but gave up his legal career in the 1750s to become a writer.
- In 1758, Burke founded a magazine called Annual Register.
- He remained involved with the Annual Register into the 1780s.
Early Political Career
In 1765, Burke became private secretary to Charles Watson-Wentworth, the Marquess of Rockingham. That same year, Watson-Wentworth succeeded George Grenville as Prime Minster.
- Burke was given a seat in Parliament as a supporter of Lord Rockingham.
- His district changed several times, but he remained a member of Parliament for most of his life.
- Burke was known for his public speaking skills and knowledge.
- These talents led him to be a spokesman for the “Rockingham Whigs.”
- Rockingham’s administration ended on July 30, 1766, due to poor administrative skills and his moderate views on regulating the American Colonies.
Rockingham Whigs — A faction within the British Whig Party led by Charles Watson-Wentworth, the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham. The group supported constitutional principles, parliamentary sovereignty, and moderate reforms, often opposing the policies of King George III and his ministers. The Rockingham Whigs opposed the Stamp Act of 1765, which they helped repeal in 1766.
Burke in the Political Minority
Burke’s alignment with the Rockingham Whigs placed him in the political minority as the Tories took control of the government and pushed policies that fueled the American Revolution.
Although the Rockingham Whigs pushed for the repeal of the Stamp Act, they also pushed for the passage of the Declaratory Act, which asserted Parliament’s authority over the American Colonies.
- On March 18, 1766, the Stamp Act was repealed, and the Declaratory Act was passed.
- With its authority over the Colonies established, the Townshend Acts were passed in 1767, levying new taxes on Americans and punishing New York for refusing to comply with the Quartering Act (1765).
Burke’s Opposition to Lord North
On January 28, 1770, Frederick North, the 2nd Earl of Guilford, became Prime Minister. North held the position for the next 12 years while tensions slowly increased between the American Colonies and Britain due to key events:
- Battle of Golden Hill (January 19–20, 1770) — Also known as the “Golden Hill Riot,” took place in New York City in January 1770. Citizens and workers of New York and members of the Sons of Liberty, led by Isaac Sears, John Lamb, and Alexander McDougall, fought with British Redcoats in the streets of the city — almost two months before the Boston Massacre.
- Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770) — British regulars fired into a group of Bostonians who were harassing them. It is generally considered the first bloodshed of the American Revolution.
- Gaspee Affair (1772–1773) — The Sons of Liberty attacked a British ship, the Gaspee, near Namquid Point, off the coast of Rhode Island. A British officer was wounded, and the ship was set on fire and exploded.
- Tea Act (1773) — A law passed by Parliament to help the struggling British East India Company. Americans protested because it gave the company a monopoly on the sale and distribution of tea in the Colonies.
- Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773) — The Sons of Liberty organized a public protest against the Tea Act, which resulted in more than 340 chests of East India being thrown into Boston Harbor.
Burke and his political allies opposed the Tea Act and sought a reasonable approach to dealing with the unrest in America.
- Burke believed Parliament was sovereign and had the right to tax the Colonies but thought it unwise to do so.
- He argued they were a valuable source of wealth for Britain through trade, even without taxation.
Opposition to the Intolerable Acts
Burke wanted the Tea Act repealed, but King George III, Lord North, and other British officials were outraged by the Boston Tea Party and the destruction of the tea.
- Parliament responded with the Intolerable Acts.
- Four of the new laws punished Boston and Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party.
- The fifth law, the Quebec Act, expanded the size of the Province of Quebec and restored the rights of French Canadian Catholics.
Burke’s Speech on Reconciliation
Burke continued to call for the repeal of the Tea Act (1773) and opposed the Intolerable Acts (1774). On March 22, 1775, less than a month before the Battles of Lexington and Concord, he gave a speech in Parliament called “On Conciliation with America,” which was his response to the Suffolk Resolves.
In the speech, he referred to “salutary neglect ” and named a long-standing unwritten policy in which Britain did not strictly enforce the Navigation Acts on the American Colonies. He said:
“When I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, but that, through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and die away within me.”
- Burke argued that Salutary Neglect had allowed American merchants to prosper.
- As a result, British merchants prospered.
- When Britain started to end Salutary Neglect with the Rule of 1756 and the enforcement of the Molasses Act in 1763, American merchants who abided by the Navigation Acts suffered.
- Instead of working to resolve the issues and listening to American protests against Taxation Without Representation, British officials worked to increase control over the Colonies.
Burke Advocates for Reconciliation with America
In the same speech, Burke proposed six resolutions for resolving the conflict with the Colonies:
- That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in North America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, and containing two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any knights and burgesses, or others, to represent them in the high court of Parliament.
- That the said colonies and plantations have been made liable to, and bounden by, several subsidies, payments, rates, and taxes, given and granted by Parliament, though the said colonies and plantations have not their knights and burgesses in the said high court of Parliament, of their own election, to represent the condition of their country; by lack whereof they have been oftentimes touched and grieved by subsidies, given, granted, and assented to, in the said court, in a manner prejudicial to the common wealth, quietness, rest, and peace of the subjects inhabiting within the same.
- That, from the distance of the said colonies, and from other circumstances, no method hath hitherto been devised for procuring a representation in Parliament for the said colonies.
- That each of the said colonies hath within itself a body, chosen in part or in the whole by the freemen, freeholders, or other free inhabitants thereof, commonly called the General Assembly or General Court, with powers legally to raise, levy, and assess, according to the several usages of such colonies, duties and taxes towards defraying all sorts of public services.
- That the said general assemblies, general courts, or other bodies legally qualified as aforesaid, have at sundry times freely granted several large subsidies and public aids for his Majesty’s service, according to their abilities, when required thereto by letter from one of his Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State; and that their right to grant the same, and their cheerfulness and sufficiency in the said grants, have been at sundry times acknowledged by Parliament.
- That it hath been found by experience, that the manner of granting the said supplies and aids by the said general assemblies hath been more agreeable to the inhabitants of the said colonies, and more beneficial and conducive to the public service, than the mode of giving and granting aids and subsidies in Parliament, to be raised and paid in the said colonies.
Although Parliament rejected Burke’s resolutions, American colonists saw him as a defender of their Revolutionary Ideals. In reality, he sought to preserve America as part of the British Empire. However, once the war started on April 19, 1775, at Lexington, he supported the Patriot Cause.
In 1780, Lord North offered his Conciliatory Propositions to the United States, which included many of Burke’s initial resolutions. However, Congress refused to step back from independence and rejected the proposal.
Rockingham Returns
Lord North resigned on March 20, 1782, due to mounting opposition in Parliament over the outcome of the American Revolutionary War. Rockingham replaced him, but died on July 1, 1782.
Burke, Abolition, and the “Sketch of the Negro Code”
In 1780, he wrote a draft of a bill to abolish slavery in the British Empire gradually. The draft is known as the “Sketch of the Negro Code.”
- Burke sought to end “all traffic in the persons of men” and the state of slavery.
- It proposed spreading “civilization and improvement” in Africa to replace the Slave Trade with other forms of commerce.
- Improved conditions for enslaved people in the West Indies were intended to promote population growth without importing new slaves.
- Religious instruction, family life, and property rights were part of preparing enslaved people to become a free labor force.
- Burke assumed Africa needed external help to progress and that enslaved people would not be ready for freedom for a long time.
- The Code was overshadowed by the growing Abolitionist Movement in England.
- On August 1, 1834, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act, outlawing slavery in its colonies worldwide.
An Impartial History of the War in America
Burke wrote his own history of the American Revolutionary War in 1780, An Impartial History of the War in America. The book includes an account of the Burning of Falmouth (1775). In it, Burke blames the attack for escalating the war:
“The destruction which fell upon Falmouth, probably accelerated in the Assembly of Massachusetts Bay, the daring measure (under the pretense of protecting their coasts) of passing an act — for grinding letters of marque and reprisal, and the establishment of courts of admiralty, for the trial and condemnation of British ships. In this law they declared the intention, of only defending the coasts and navigation of America, extending the power of capture only to such ships as should be employed in bringing supplies to the armies employed against them.”
Opposition to the French Revolution
Burke gained fame for opposing the French Revolution. In 1790, he published Reflections on the Revolution in France, which is considered a cornerstone of conservative thought.
- He argued that tradition and inherited institutions were essential for political and social stability.
- Burke viewed overthrowing the past as dangerous and inherently negative.
- He opposed the French Revolution for threatening to replace established systems with an uncertain future.
- Thomas Paine wrote The Rights of Man in response to Burke’s Reflections.
- As the French Revolution grew more violent and radical, many people in Britain aligned themselves with Burke’s views.
Macaulay Criticizes Burke
Despite his popularity, Catharine Macaulay, a contemporary British historian, criticized Burke in her tract, Observations on the Reflections of The Right Hon. Edmund Burke on the Revolution in France. Macaulay supported the French Revolution and praised the unicameral National Assembly, believing it was superior to the new bicameral legislature of the United States.
Connection to Adam Smith
Burke retired from Parliament in 1794 but was known for his support of economic policies proposed by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations, which was published in 1776. Smith called him “…the only man I ever knew who thinks on economic subjects exactly as I do, without any previous communications having passed between us.”
Death
Burke died on July 9, 1797, at Beaconsfield, a small town in Buckinghamshire, England.
Edmund Burke APUSH
Edmund Burke is part of the following units, topics, and chapters in the AP US History curriculum:
Unit 3: 1754–1800
- 3.5 — The American Revolution
American Pageant Notes
- Chapter 8 — America Secedes from the Empire (1775–1783)
