Edmund Burke\'s Speech on Conciliation

Edmund Burke's Speech On Conciliation With America

When Edmund Burke took a stand in favor of the American Colonies' liberty, he was going against the grain in England, bucking the political tides. But he was also showing his intelligence as a leader, philosopher, and truly honorable diplomat. That is the underlying tone and theme to his speech, and in particular the portions of the speech that are being reviewed and evaluated in this paper.

When Burke states that the British Empire as "an empire so great" he quickly qualifies that by saying the Empire is also "so distracted," a pivotal key to the thrust of his remarks. He knew the British Empire could not possibly sustain all their global holdings, properties, and resources at the level that they once controlled them as a colonial power.

He admits that even a "genius" would have a hard time keeping the empire together; and he admits to "struggling a good while" until his thoughts began to jell, and he expresses the belief that he has come to a profound grasp of the moment, albeit he is just one man. He uses his customary skillfully crafted rhetoric to cajole the Parliament, saying that if what he is proposing would be "futile or dangerous" or poorly constructed, he wouldn't bother. But bother he does, and will, when it comes to his simple proposition - "peace."

If anyone in Parliament misunderstood what Burke was saying - even though he was among the most august, philosophical speakers and thinkers, intellectually perhaps above many elected officials - they were not paying attention. He was in favor of letting the Colonies become a new nation. He was against going to war to try to keep the colonies in the lap of the British power structure. He supported bringing a sense of professional decorum between the two countries, "...by removing the ground of indifference and by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of the Colonies in the Mother Country..."

He claims that his idea is not complicated or difficult to pursue; and ruling by "a scheme of discord" - which surely would have been the case if England had continued punishing and intimidating the colonies by taxing them over and over in order to support the British army's presence - would be a big mistake. He also believed that "refined policy" (which a reader can take to mean too vague or too confusing) is ultimately the "parent of confusion" (a nice way of putting it, when he really was probably saying something like, let's stop haggling over what we know is going to lead to bloodshed and years of hard feelings and unrest).

Boiling it all down to "Genuine simplicity of the heart" seemed in a way that he was patting himself on the back for his plan; especially that seems the case when he added, that using one's heart instead of one's head or willful sense of power leads to "healing and cementing principle." Another way of looking at his statement about "genuine simplicity of the heart" would be that Burke was saying, "I've got heart, how about the rest of my colleagues showing a little heart?" It might be construed as being a bit puffed up, a bit conceited, but whether he intended it that way or not, he was clearly out in front of the crowd when it came to cutting a deal with the colonies instead of cutting their throats. Actually, it turned out that Burke was right all along, and by rejecting his ideas for peace - and the others who were in his camp - England cut it's own throat. The colonies were not to be denied in this matter, and no amount of taxation or bullying on the part of the Mother Country would succeed.

At this point Burke points out that after all, the Colonies are populated with people with British names. This is Burke bringing it all down to linkage with the family unit. Basically he is saying, the Colonies are a new nation made up of family, relatives, friends of the Mother Country. "My hold of the Colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood..." And Burke is saying that these people that the leadership wants to go to war with are cousins, aunts, grandparents, nephews and nieces. At that point in his eloquent presentation for peace, Burke invokes Shakespearean drama; what could be more impressively British than embracing Othello (III, iii, 322-324), which he does by saying, "These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron another..."

The passage from Othello: "Trifles light as air / Are to the jealous confirmations strong / as proofs of holy writ." And Burke goes on, alluding to Hamlet this time: And if the two ties (England and the Colonies) can exist "without any mutual relation, the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened - and everything hasten to." The Hamlet passage: "The Friends thou hast and their adoption tried / Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel." (Hamlet I, iii, 62,63).

In his speech Burke discusses the "unity of the empire" and launches some pretty severe criticism at those who would go to war with the Colonies as having "...so weak an imagination" that they think just using "affidavits and sufferances" and the other legal terminologies will keep the link strong with the colonies. Moreover, he goes on, if England truly expects to remain the "sanctuary of liberty," the - "sacred temple consecrated to our common faith" - then no matter where the sons (and daughters) of England happen to be who indeed "worship freedom," they will be loyal ("turn their faces towards you") to the Mother Country. And the bigger the colonies grow, assuming that England is fair towards them and honors their dignity, he implies, "the more perfect will be their obedience."