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- Title
"A business somewhat delicate": Edmund Burke e la questione americana dall'abrogazione dello Stamp Act all'indipendenza.
- Authors
BRUSCHI, UGO
- Abstract
Far from being the knight in shining armour of American liberty, sometimes portrayed in trivializations of Whig history, Edmund Burke's position underwent a radical transformation over time. The brief experience of Rockingham's government saw in 1766 both the repeal of the Stamp Act and the passing of a Declaratory Act which stated Parliament's legislative power over the colonies, 'in all cases whatsoever': it is open to question which measure, if any, was dearer to the Rockingham Whigs, but it is undeniable that, while out of office, they stuck to the Declaratory Act at the cost of a serious breach in the Opposition. Although chosen in 1771 by New York's General Assembly as its representative in Britain, Burke was no exception. Even his Speech on American Taxation (1774), when colonies and homeland were at loggerheads, was an appeal to go back to Rockingham's policy. A year later, however, in his Speech on Conciliation with America, Burke had shifted ground. He wasn't any longer a party man striving to defend his party's former choices, but a worried statesman with an appeal to conciliation, in order to rebuild a relation of trust between Britain and America and prevent disaster. It was too late: blood had been shed, and the Declaration of Independence was soon to sound the death knell for any hope of reconciliation. Burke's last stance on the American revolution, his Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777), was rather a warning on the necessity of Parliament selflimiting its own unlimited sovereignty; else, not only the colonies, but also the future of English liberties in Britain would be at stake.
- Subjects
AMERICA; BURKE, Edmund, 1729-1797; DECLARATORY acts; GREAT Britain. Stamp Act (1765); BRITISH colonies; GREAT Britain-United States relations; EIGHTEENTH century; HISTORY; POLITICAL attitudes; ADMINISTRATION of British colonies
- Publication
Journal of Constitutional History / Giornale di Storia Costituzionale, 2015, Issue 29, p89
- ISSN
1593-0793
- Publication type
Article