Читать книгу A Concise History of the Common Law - Theodore F. T. Plucknett - Страница 75

Into the causes and character of the French Revolution we cannot enter; but some of its results upon English political thought may well be mentioned. The greatest political thinker at this time in England was Edmund Burke, and anyone who wishes to have a summary of English political wisdom by an experienced statesman who could adopt a philosophical attitude without losing touch with practical events must read the writings and speeches of Burke. They are likely to remain for a long time an authoritative statement of the results which had been achieved by parliamentary government in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At the present day his words are constantly upon the lips of the best English statesmen. His thought is characterised by its intimate contact with practical politics; rarely does he allow a theory to divert his attention from the practical problems of everyday government. A noteworthy portion of his work is in answer to Rousseau and to the theories of the rights of man. With a natural tendency to admire aristocracy, he felt that an extreme democracy as suggested by some theorists contained great dangers, and insisted that it was hazardous to abandon those sentiments for aristocracy which in his day seemed natural to mankind. He observes that a democracy is not affected by the fear which besets a monarch; when shameless acts are done the moral responsibility vanishes when spread among numerous persons, while the alleged liberty of a democracy is more often a delusion. The horrors with which the Revolution began made an increasing impression upon Burke as upon his countrymen, and had the practical effect of delaying reform for over a generation. Typical measures of this period were the Treasonable Practices Act¹ and the Seditious Meetings Act² of 1795, the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act on several occasions, and the imposition of heavy stamp duties with the object of checking the circulation of cheap newspapers. Numerous State trials took place.³ Even purely private law fell under the influence of the extreme conservative reaction of which Lord Ellenborough was the personification in the King’s Bench (1802-1818) and Lord Eldon in Chancery (1801-1806, 1807-1827). To this result Burke largely contributed, nor must he be blamed overmuch for his caution at a moment when the wildest theories were being proclaimed in all seriousness. His speeches on America⁴ are the best expression of his philosophy, for they were made before the French Revolution came to strike terror throughout the rest of Europe. There in particular the political realism of Burke is apparent; he almost alone of British statesmen at the moment was prepared to face the facts, and having done so, to advocate a frank acknowledgment of the situation as it actually existed. He poured ridicule upon the government for their weak attempts to compel recognition of a principle which had no relation to the existing state of affairs; he was the embodiment of the spirit of compromise, and appreciated fully the fact that situations slowly change, and that the change must be recognised frankly. He was prepared to state that the American colonies had entered upon the stage of adult political life, and to counsel the government to treat them accordingly. Perhaps the most interesting passages in his speeches on America are those where he shows that the demands of the colonists were the very same which Englishmen at home had made in a more heroic age, and where he stresses the deep respect for legality which characterised English political development, urging that this very spirit lay at the root of the American case.