Burke & Paine on legitimate gov't & French revolution

29 Pages·2014·15.92 MB·English

Burke & Paine on legitimate
gov’t & French revolution
Or: Who is more “manly”?
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Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine

Burke, 1729-1797 Paine, 1737-1809
Wikimedia Commons, public domain Wikimedia Commons, public domain
What can make governmental
authority legitimate?

Why should we obey political authorities such as
those who make and enforce the laws?

A common answer over the last few centuries:
-- what legitimizes governmental authority is the
consent of the people
-- and that the government upholds the natural
rights of humans

Hobbes and Locke: start with state of nature w/natural
rights, then consent to set up commonwealth
Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

State of nature consent commonwealth

•  Natural equality among humans (at least in terms of
vulnerability to attack (Chpt. XIII.1-2)
•  Right of nature: “the liberty each man hath to use his
own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his
own nature, that is to say, of his own life, and
consequently of doing anything which, in his own
judgment and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest
means thereunto” (Chpt. XIV.1)
Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

State of nature consent commonwealth

Commonwealth created by “a covenant of every man with
every man, in such manner, as if every man should say to
every man, I authorize and give up my right of governing myself,
to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition, that thou
give up thy right to him, and authorize all his actions in like
manner” (XVII.13)
People obliged to obey the sovereign b/c voluntarily
transferred some of their rights to it: “there [is] no
obligation on any man which ariseth not from some act of
his own; for all men equally are by nature free” (XXI.10).
Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

State of nature consent commonwealth

•  Sovereign authority can be in one person, a small group,
or the people (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy) (XIX)
•  Once established, can’t overthrow or change it
-- unless it fails to protect the people (XXI.21)
•  So though a people’s consent is the ground of authority,
can’t (usually) change rule by popular choice once chosen
The Glorious Revolution, England 1688

An example of Hobbesian
process of establishing
sovereign?

King James II: pro-Catholic
policies, dispensing with
laws passed by parliament,
dismissing parliament
entirely…led to anger

Then birth of Catholic son
and heir led to fear

James II of England,
Wikimedia commons, public domain
The Glorious Revolution,
England, 1688

Daughter of James II, Mary
married to William of Orange;
William invited to invade
England by aristocrats; James
does not fight back & tries to
flee for France

Interim parliament declares
William & Mary monarchs; Bill
of Rights (1689) submits the
people to their rule & that of
their heirs “forever”
King William, Wikimedia, public domain
Queen Mary, Wikimedia, public domain
Dr. Richard Price,
Glorious Revolution rested on
Sermon on Glorious
several principles & rights,
Revolution (1789)
including:

•  Right to resist power when
abused
•  Right to choose own
governors
•  Right to frame a gov’t for
ourselves (see Paine p. 8)
Monarch was chosen by the
people, so is a servant of the
people more than a sovereign
Richard Price, by Benjamin West,
Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Burke on Glorious Revolution
From Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

Glorious Revolution
provided for a
hereditary monarchy,
“forever” (Paine p. 8)

The people thereby
rejected the idea of
choosing their own
governors

The people chose the
gov’t, but after that are
Burke looking over the shoulder of Price (1790),
not the seat of authority

Wikimedia Commons, public domain