Russell Kirk contrasts the French and American revolutions through Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, setting the abstract Declaration of the Rights of Man against the American Bill of Rights rooted in English precedent. He criticizes Rousseau's idyllic imagination and then traces Lord Acton's shifting judgments on revolution, from early condemnation to later praise of American and abstract principles of liberty.
Russell Kirk — 2 recordings in the archive.
Related reading: The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk.
I'm going to talk about rights and two revolutions and we'll be going to be concerned both with a great book the reflections of the revolution in france and with edenburg in general and with our own reflections on the revolution in france and other revolutions two centuries ago edmund burke found his fortune to stay or a little more precisely two centuries and one year ago 201 years ago he was deprived of office with the younger pit entrenched as prime minister burke then seemed ineffectual to many his whig party the first genuine political party of the english-speaking world had suffered defeat and eclipse his private affairs were troubled he was immersed in the prosecution of warren hastings which trial would drag on in to the spring of 1795. this was no cheerful prospect burke had feared from the first that the house of lords would not find hastings guilty as charged he'd written to philip francis on december 10 1785 we know that we bring before a bribe tribunal a prejudiced case thus burke was at the nade of his fortunes 201 years ago well in the year 1790 nevertheless burke almost alone with the leader of his fortunes commenced the undoing of the french revolution he published the most brilliant piece of political writing in the english language began to alter the whole drift of british foreign policy won back the clergy to the national cause and achieved in political isolation a reputation and an influence succeeding that which he had enjoyed as a manager of party it is especially this later burke who attracts the interest of effective people in the year 1991 in the year of the bicentenary of the publication of reflections on the revolution in france which year was is also the bicentenary of increasing ferocity in the french revolution naturally enough we turn to burke as a social philosopher if some hope however to extract from an ideology they will not they'll be disappointed because burke detested what we now call ideology labeling it an armed doctrine as merks thought relevant to our present discontents some part of the institutions and the social order that burke knew has passed away quite as the america of our time is markedly different from the seaboard republic of adams and jefferson because we cannot restore even if we would either george and england or…