Part of: Select Works of Edmund Burke, 4 vols. Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 4

This volume contains some of Burke’s speeches on parliamentary reform, on colonial policy in India, and on economic matters.

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Citation

Select Works of Edmund Burke. A New Imprint of the Payne Edition. Foreword and Biographical Note by Francis Canavan (Indianapolis: :Liberty Fund, 1999). Vol. 4.

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David Hume (Author)

Hume was an acquaintance of Burke and their intellectual relationship has long been the source of lively debate. The two shared a broadly skeptical view of politics that has marked them both as proto-conservatives, but Hume’s more thoroughgoing skepticism on matters of religion and philosophy contrast with Burke’s relative orthodoxy.

Samuel Johnson (Author)

Though Burke was a Whig and Johnson a Tory, the two were on good terms personally, and both were original members of the famous “Club” at Turk’s Head Inn. Johnson was sometimes critical of Burke’s politics, but today they are both seen as pivotal figures in the development of a self-consciously conservative political sensibility.

Key Quotes

Economics

“Tyranny and cruelty may make men justly wish the downfall of abused powers, but I believe that no government ever yet perished from any other direct cause than it’s [sic] own weakness. My opinion is against an over-doing of any sort of administration, and more especially against this most…

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Revolution

To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of Government. It would be a vain presumption in statesmen to think they can do it. The people maintain them, and not they the people. It is in the power of Government to prevent much evil; it can do very little positive good in this, or…

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Podcast

Burke’s Moral Economy

Gregory Collins and Richard Reinsch

Collins’s recent book is the most thorough treatment of Burke’s political economy. Collins spoke with Richard Reinsch for this Liberty Law Talk episode about Burke’s case for a free economy.

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A Vindication of Natural Society

Edmund Burke

One of Burke’s earliest works, the Vindication is a satirical essay in the manner of Bolingbroke putting the latter’s religious opinions to work undermining the foundations of social order. Though it was meant primarily to undermine the arguments of natural religion, the satirical political…

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