Man Was Not Made for the Government

Good government is not about enforcing uniform order, but about maximising liberty among a particular people.

1777

Introduction

Edmund Burke, MP for Bristol, would have had little truck with European ‘harmonisation’. He argued that the job of any government is to judge sensitively, for a particular people, the smallest degree of restraint needed to keep their freedom fresh — in that country, and at that time — and then stop.

by Edmund Burke 1729-1797

LIBERTY, too, must be limited in order to be possessed. The degree of restraint it is impossible in any case to settle precisely.

But it ought to be the constant aim of every wise public council to find out by cautious experiments, and rational, cool endeavours, with how little, not how much, of this restraint the community can subsist. For liberty is a good to be improved, and not an evil to be lessened.

For as the sabbath (though of Divine institution) was made for man, not man for the sabbath, government, which can claim no higher origin or authority, in its exercise at least, ought to conform to the exigencies of the time, and the temper and character of the people with whom it is concerned; and not always to attempt violently to bend the people to their theories of subjection.

by Edmund Burke 1729-1797

From ‘A Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol’ by Edmund Burke MP (1729-1797).

Précis

English statesman Edmund Burke told the sheriffs of his constituency, Bristol, that liberty requires light and very careful regulation for it to survive. If the restrictions are too heavy or driven by some inflexible ideology unsuited to a specific people, they will strangle liberty and harm the nation.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

How much liberty can any given society bear, in Burke’s opinion?

Suggestion

The amount should never be fixed precisely.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Liberty is a good to be improved. It is not an evil to be lessened.