Revolution Controversy

The Revolution Controversy, a British debate over the French Revolution, lasted from 1789 through 1795. [Butler, "Introduction", 1.] A pamphlet war began in earnest after the publication of Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" (1790), which surprisingly supported the French aristocracy. Because he had supported the American colonists in their rebellion against England, his views sent a shockwave through the country. Many writers responded, defending the French revolution, among them Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. [Butler, "Introduction", 1.] Alfred Cobban calls the debate that erupted "perhaps the last real discussion of the fundamentals of politics in [Britain] ". [Qtd. in Butler, "Introduction", 1.] The themes articulated by those responding to Burke would become a central feature of the radical working-class movement in Britain in the nineteenth century and of Romanticism. [Butler, "Introduction", 1.] Most Britons celebrated the storming of the Bastille in 1789, believing that France's monarchy should be curtailed by a more democratic form of government. However, by December 1795, after the Reign of Terror and war with France, there were few who still supported the French cause.

Burke's "Reflections"

Responding in part to a sermon defending the French revolution given by the Dissenting clergyman Richard Price entitled "A Discourse on the Love of our Country" (1789), Edmund Burke published his "Reflections on the Revolution in France" in an effort to advance arguments for the current aristocratic government. Because Burke had previously been part of the liberal Whig party, a critic of monarchical power, a supporter of the American revolutionaries, and a critic of government graft in India, most in Britain expected him to support the French revolutionaries. When he failed to do so, it shocked the populace and angered his friends and supporters. [Butler, 33; Kelly, 85.] Burke's book, despite being priced at an expensive three shillings sold an amazing 30,000 copies in two years. [Butler, 35.]

The "Reflections" defended "the aristocratic concepts of paternalism, loyalty, chivalry, the hereditary principle" and property. [Butler, 35.] Liberals such as William Godwin, Paine, and Mary Wollstonecraft, argued instead for republicanism, agrarian socialism, and anarchism. [Butler, 1.] Most of those who came to be called radicals emphasized the same themes: "a sense of personal liberty and autonomy"; "a belief in civic virtue"; "a hatred of corruption"; an opposition to war because it only profited the "landed interest"; a critique of the monarchy and the aristocracy and its perceived desire to draw power away from the House of Commons. [Butler, 3-4.]

Burke criticized the view of many British thinkers and writers who had welcomed the early stages of the French Revolution. [Butler, 33-34.] While the radicals saw the revolution as analogous to Britain's own Glorious Revolution in 1688, which had restricted the powers of the monarchy, Burke argued that the appropriate historical analogy was the English civil war (1642-1651) in which Charles I had been executed in 1649. He viewed the French Revolution as the violent overthrow of a legitimate government, contending that citizens do not have the right to overthrow their government. Civilizations and governments, he maintained, are the result of social and political consensus; their traditions cannot be challenged—the result would be anarchy.

Notes

Bibliography

*Butler, Marilyn, ed. "Burke, Paine, Godwin, and the Revolution Controversy". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. ISBN 0521286565.