ABSTRACT

Conservatism did not become a part of political speech until about 1830 in England. But its philosophical substance was brought into being in 1790 by Edmund Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. In remarkable degree, the central themes of conservatism over the last two centuries are but widenings of themes enunciated by Burke with specific reference to revolutionary France. He himself was clearly aware that the French Revolution was at bottom a European revolution, but that truth had to await the writings of such ardent traditionalists as Bonald, de Maistre, and Tocqueville for its detailed statement. Burke paid a heavy price at home for his call to traditionalists throughout Europe to rally themselves against the French Revolution. In Burke's eyes the work of the Jacobins across the Channel was the very opposite of the work done by the American colonists: the work of freedom from 'arbitrary power'.