“A Discourse on the Love of Our Country” – the debate over the 1789 French Revolution between Richard Price and Edmund Burke (by David McCulloch)
A Discourse on the Love of Our Country was a sermon and later a pamphlet delivered by Richard Price, the best known minister in the history of the Newington Green congregation, on 4th November 1789. The great event of that year was the French Revolution which overthrew the Bourbon monarchy and established republican government. Price closely compared the events in France with the Glorious Revolution and the overthrow of King James II in England 100 years earlier. The publication of Price’s pamphlet set off the “Revolution Controversy”, a pamphlet debate between those supporting and opposing the ideals of the French Revolution. This has been called one of the greatest political debates in history (Ian Crowe, 2005). Price’s main adversary in this debate was Edmund Burke, whose reply to Price, Reflections on the Revolution in France, was published nearly a year later. Burke’s “Reflections” is a key text of the philosophy of political conservatism and still widely discussed in the teaching of political theory today. Burke argued that Price had misunderstood the French Revolution and ignored the negative impact it would have on British society if something similar ever occurred in the UK. Although this article may seem like an academic discussion about an obscure historical debate, it appears highly relevant to me in the context of our own time. The fundamental points raised by both Price and Burke have great relevance today in the new style of politics that governments are embracing.
The French Revolution had an enormous impact on intellectuals in the late 18th century, and political radicals like Price were convinced that the Revolution was a sign of radical change in European politics and society. Price was excited by the French Revolution for two reasons. Firstly, the new French government’s recognition of universal human rights, such as liberty, equality and fraternity, following the principles of philosophers such as Rousseau and Voltaire. The concept of human rights was also a consistent theme in Price’s sermons and was widely promoted by English radical figures in the late 18th century. Secondly, Price concluded that the Revolution would be the beginning of a religious and social transformation that would fulfil his beliefs in millenarianism, i.e. the Revolution would be a catalyst effectively bringing about the Kingdom of God on earth. Millenarianism is a common theological element within the dissenting tradition of Christianity and was a significant influence on Price’s theology. Dissenters since the mid-16th century had consistently believed that they were living in the “end times” described in the New Testament, and that the direction of political human affairs since then had suggested that the final judgement of God was imminent.
Price’s “Discourse” was delivered to the Revolution Society in London (a society not formed to honour the French Revolution, but one designed to commemorate the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688-9). Price compared the French Revolution to the Glorious Revolution, justifying the upheavals in Paris as a triumph of liberty and progress. Price argued that the French people were now embracing the freedoms which had been won 100 years earlier in England, when the English political class overthrew the Stuart and Catholic monarchy of James II.
In the Discourse, Price states that his basic conviction and justification for the Glorious and French Revolutions is that of patriotism, defined as the love of one's own country. He believed that you can love one’s country without necessarily loving its rulers, or their laws and policies. As the French Revolution was overthrowing that nation’s monarchy and aristocracy (seen as a dangerous precedent by conservative figures close to King George III in England, and causing widespread anxiety in the English ruling class) this was an important distinction to make if Price was to persuade many upper class readers of his arguments. He insisted that patriotism is the love of the principles and people that are identified with one’s country. For Price, love of your country is a love for one's community and its ideals.
Price notes that love of one’s country is not an obligation to believe in an unrealistic idea of a nation's superiority or righteousness. He also states that his form of patriotism is not the same as a desire to dominate or conquer other countries, which are commonly described in pejorative terms to justify hostility towards other nations. Love of one’s country, said Price … does not imply any conviction of the superior value of it to other countries, or any particular preference of its laws and constitution of government. Instead, Price asserted that Englishmen should see themselves more as citizens of the world than as members of any particular community. His fundamental conviction is that it is not “Englishness” or the political and social system of the UK in the late 18th century that English people should celebrate, but that English people should celebrate the recognition of their fundamental human rights guaranteed by the Glorious Revolution. These same rights were now being recognised across Europe and established through the French Revolution.
Price goes on to support the right to overthrow a repressive state or regime. He argues that it is one's patriotic duty to enlighten one's countrymen, who otherwise seem willing to suffer under repressive rule, and encourage their opposition and promote the overthrow of oppressive rule. Price, like many of his generation, took pride in the hard won liberty that the middle class had gained in late 17th and 18th century England. Liberty here for Price and fellow radicals is chiefly understood as liberty of religious conscience, the right to vote and the right to own property. Liberty is a great blessing, he states, to be defended both from external aggression and internal oppression. He said If you love your country, you cannot be zealous enough in promoting the cause of liberty in it.
Price also establishes the basic tenor of the entire Revolution Controversy, identifying natural human rights as fundamental to his justification of patriotism, and listing the three rights he considers most essential:
First; The right to liberty of conscience in religious matters:
Secondly; the right to resist the abuse of power, by violence if necessary:
Thirdly; The right to choose who governs our society through democratic elections, to hold the government to account for any misconduct through the rule of law, and to frame a means of government for one’s own country through a written constitution.
The Glorious Revolution, Price says, was founded on these three principles. It was enshrined in the Bill of Rights which was passed by the House of Commons in 1689 following the Revolution in England. Price argues that without the natural rights which underpinned the Revolution, it would not have been legitimate, being merely a rebellion (implicitly assumed to be morally evil by Price), instead of a justifiable revolution.
Price consistently sprinkles millennial religious terminology and characteristic vocabulary within his argument, saying of this time in 1789: What an eventful period is this!...I have lived to see a diffusion of knowledge, which has undermined superstition and error—I have lived to see the rights of men better understood than ever; and nations panting for liberty, which seemed to have lost the idea of it.— I have lived to see thirty millions of people, indignant and resolute, spurning at slavery, and demanding liberty with an irresistible voice… And now, I see the ardour for liberty catching and spreading; a general amendment beginning in human affairs; the dominion of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience.
230 years later, have we really continued to make progress as Price would have understood it? Doesn’t our political culture currently appear to be in a state of regression? Is it not the case that we appear to have a government and Prime Minister which uses the concept of Englishness as an exclusive rather than an inclusive term? Are we not being asked by our government to prefer Rwanda rather than our own country as a refuge for those seeking asylum? In our world today, is “Englishness” synonymous with democracy and the rule of law, or with disregard for the will of the people and disregard for national and international law? Hasn’t our current government consistently in the last few years deceived many of its people in a crucial vote that decided our nation’s future, used communication media to disguise rather than reveal the truth, destroyed bonds and ties made with some of our closest neighbours, and attacked rather than promoted the rights so hard won by previous generations, all in the name of an shameful conjured “Englishness” that has never truly existed? I will allow you to mull over these questions, as we now reflect on Burke’s response to Price.
Price’s speech was quickly picked up by radically minded printers and published across London and in Boston, USA. It rapidly spurred responses both by supporters and critics in a flurry of debate between 1790 and 1792 known as the Revolution Controversy. The most significant response proved to be Reflections on the Revolution in France, written by the Irish politician Edmund Burke and published in November 1790. Burke fundamentally draws a contrast between the consequences of the French Revolution and its dependence on universal human rights with the unwritten constitution of the United Kingdom and its dependence on tradition. To a significant degree, he argues against Price’s view of the events in France as a sign of hope for the future of humanity. If anything, Burke’s conviction was that the French Revolution was proof of what happens when “newly discovered” rights such as Liberty, Equality and Fraternity are elevated as fundamental principles of human relations, rather than tradition and the rule of law. Burke perceives a constant flow of tradition as being central to the political development of the UK, rather than radical changes.
Burke had a history of political service as an Irish MP, representing the Whig party. In his earlier political career, Burke had vigorously defended constitutional limitation of the Crown's authority, denounced the religious persecution of Catholics in his native Ireland, voiced the grievances of Britain's American colonies, and supported American independence. Burke was widely respected by liberals in Great Britain, the United States and in Europe for these views. Thus, opponents and allies alike were surprised at the strength of his vocabulary that the French Revolution was a disaster and the revolutionaries a swinish multitude.
Fundamental to Burke’s argument was his view opposing the existence of abstract, metaphysical human rights, and his advocacy of national tradition as the ultimate defender of law and justice in a nation state. He rejected Price’s understanding of the Glorious Revolution. The (Glorious) Revolution was made to preserve our ancient indisputable laws and liberties, and that ancient constitution of government which is our only security for law and liberty…. The very idea of the fabrication of a new government is enough to fill us with disgust and horror…. Our oldest reformation is that of Magna Carta, and this ancient charter was nothing more than a reaffirmation of the still more ancient standing law of the kingdom. Burke’s argument was that Magna Carta and the Glorious Revolution were affirmations of legal and constitutional tradition against monarchical attempts to impose autocracy.
Burke insisted against Price that freedom and equality were different; genuine equality must be judged by God, and that liberty was a construct of the law and no excuse to do whatever one would like. He was not comfortable with radical political change and believed that the revolutionaries in France would find themselves further in trouble as their actions would cause an ever increasing tide of demands from the people, whose wishes had yet to be met by the new government. In Burke’s opinion, the revolutionaries did not understand that there are no rights without corresponding duties, or without some strict qualifications. Burke had a very low and traditional Christian conviction of the inadequacy of human nature. Human beings are easily corrupted by power, and it is likely that Burke would have wholeheartedly agreed with the dictum “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. When men play God, Burke wrote, presently they behave like devils.
Burke defended the idea of deference to an individual’s social superiors. He defended such “prejudice” on the grounds that it is the general bank and capital of nations, something citizens draw upon without realising it, and superior to individual reason. Prejudice, Burke claimed, engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave a man hesitating in the moment of decision sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit. One might almost say that Burke firmly believed that if you allow a person to think for themselves rather than follow tradition, they will make bad decisions and break away from the wisdom of the ages. Reductively, one might say Burke’s view is that if you let people think for themselves, they will make bad choices.
Burke argued that the French Revolution would end disastrously because its abstract foundations, purportedly rational, ignored the complexities of human nature and society. He focused on practical solutions to conflicts of liberty between social classes instead of Price’s metaphysical solutions based on human rights. What is the use of discussing a man's abstract right to food or to medicine? Burke argued. The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In this deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor of metaphysics.
Reflections on the Revolution in France was read widely when it was published in 1790, although not every conservative thinker approved of Burke's kind treatment of their historic enemy France, or its Bourbon monarchy. Burke had largely ignored the failings of the French government towards its people in the times preceding the French Revolution (which had led to widespread social unrest and starvation in some areas of France) and concentrated on the French government’s value as a historical tradition. The publication of Burke’s essay drew a swift response, first by Mary Wollstonecraft in her book “Vindication of the Rights of Men” and then by Thomas Paine’s “Rights of Men” both published in 1791. A few years later, however, Burke’s views were largely seen as justified when some of his predictions of corruption and violence occurred. The new French Republic began its Reign of Terror and executed thousands from 1793 to 1794 to purge so-called counter-revolutionary elements of society. In turn, ostensibly as a restoration of order, the rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte took place, first as one of a small group of consuls, then as First Consul, and eventually with Napoleon completing his rise to autocratic power, crowning himself as Emperor in 1804. The French Revolution had come full circle and France had returned to autocracy, although one which clothed itself in the values of the 1789 Revolution.
Since Burke’s Reflections, conservative analysts have seen it as a model for the view that tradition rather than revolution better follows the human temperament. Christopher Hitchens wrote that the Reflections are powerful because it was the first serious argument that revolutions devour themselves and turn into their own opposite, becoming autocratic. However, historians have regarded Burke's arguments as inconsistent with the actual events of 1789. This is a serious problem for accepting Burke’s logic because he claims to be accurately recounting and assessing the events in Paris to justify his arguments. Despite being the most respected conservative historian of French Revolution, Alfred Cobban concludes: As literature, as political theory, as anything but history, Burke’s Reflections is magnificent. Since Burke justifies his arguments by giving what he claims to be a historical account, this significantly weakens his position.
One last point about Burke’s Reflections. It is usually taken as one of the key texts of political conservatism. So one might think that it would still be relevant to our current Conservative government. But an examination of the current debate in the Conservative party would suggest not. Under Boris Johnson, respect for tradition and the rule of law has seemed a very low priority for the current government. While holding up the monarchy and flag as symbols of English nationhood, Johnson’s government openly attacks other more recent but powerful symbols, such as our health, education and justice systems. This Conservative government is conservative in name only, and a far cry from the traditions of conservatism that Burke would have recognised. Perhaps even more recent events can be understood as an attempt by the Conservative party to reaffirm its roots as a low tax, low intervention government, and it’s even deeper Burkean roots as a party of tradition and continuity, with its roots in England’s shires rather than in the red wall of northern England.
But ultimately, which side of the Revolution Controversy should we come down, Price’s or Burke’s? While we may all deplore the violence (and Price was horrified by it) which accompanied even the French Revolution, sometimes necessary change to improve the lot of ordinary people may require violence or unlawful actions to succeed. Burke’s fundamental conviction, that most people are happier to embrace tradition and the way things are, even when they are bad, rather than face a new reality and embrace radical change when it might improve their lives, is a depressing thought. What I believe is unarguable is that we are facing a crossroads in the UK’s future direction. We can either except that people are easily manipulated by their government and media and accept we are living in a post-truth society, or we can resist this and argue that we have a common heritage and a common future and we do not only possess an individual truth, but also a common truth as a society. This truth includes that we all possess fundamental human rights, as Price believed, and it is necessary more than ever to defend these rights against the forces of our own age that would take them away.
This blog is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. It was made by New Unity and David McCulloch. Find out more: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.