How Did Edmund Burke Respond To The French Revolution

The French Revolution was a pivotal moment in French history and in the history of Europe. Before the Revolution, France was one of the largest and most influential European nations and its political and social structure, as well as its unifying religion, played a major role in its power. In 1789 this traditional structure was turned on its head when the people did away with the absolute power of the monarchy. This must have shocked many people in Europe who had taken the consistency of France for granted. People were also disturbed by the reports of violence that took place in Paris and the countryside. Edmund Burke, a conservative English writer and political theorist, responded to the events of 1789 in his Reflections on the Revolution in France which was published in 1790. He criticized

Burke wrote that people don’t have rights given by nature, but rather they derive their proper rights from the law and lawful governmental procedure, a concept Paine later calls "right of assumption"7 Burke placed a great deal of importance on tradition and on relying on the accepted way of doing things. He believed that the way things were done in a country had built up over time and with a kind of trial-and-error. To throw out all of that prior experience and wisdom would result in chaos. He thought that people would not know what their proper place in society or what rights had been allotted to them without tradition. Burke did not make any distinction between natural rights and civil rights but Paine wrote a significant explanation of it. Paine believed that rights originate from God and nature and that people were born with these natural rights since all men are equal.8 Furthermore, the civil rights proceeded out of the natural rights. For Paine, engagement in society should better secure a man’s rights,9 not rob him of them as he believed the monarchical system