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Political Ideas: Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

Burke's critique of the revolutionaries' method

  • 3 things to know
  • A2 Unit 2

Overview

Burke's central objection to the method of the French revolutionaries, burke's objection to the confiscation of church lands and burke's prediction about the French army.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

State Burke's prediction about the French army.

Key term

State Burke's central objection to the method of the French revolutionaries.

Key term

Why does Burke think that men without property make dangerous legislators?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    State Burke's central objection to the method of the French revolutionaries.

    Model answer

    Burke objects that the revolutionaries began by demolishing an entire inherited order and then attempted to build a new one from theory. Burke argues that no group of legislators possesses the knowledge such an undertaking would require.

  2. 2

    Give Burke's criticism of the composition of the National Assembly.

    Model answer

    Burke argues that the Assembly was dominated by obscure provincial lawyers and men of no great property, experience or standing. Such men, in his view, had no habit of governing and every incentive to overturn what they had no stake in.

  3. 3

    Why does Burke think that men without property make dangerous legislators?

    Model answer

    Burke argues that those who possess nothing enduring have no reason to care whether the settlement they create lasts. Property in his account supplies the caution and the long horizon that governing requires.

  4. 4

    State Burke's objection to the confiscation of church lands.

    Model answer

    Burke argues that seizing the property of the church was straightforward plunder dressed up as public necessity, and that it destroyed the security of all property. Burke also regarded it as an attack on the moral foundation of French society.

  5. 5

    What did Burke predict about the French paper currency issued against confiscated land?

    Model answer

    Burke argued that a currency resting on seized property and on the government's own credit would depreciate and ruin those forced to accept it. Burke treated the scheme as evidence that the new regime was financing itself by confiscation.

  6. 6

    What is Burke's objection to the redivision of France into new administrative districts?

    Model answer

    Burke mocks the replacement of the historic provinces by a geometrical arrangement of departments based on area, population and tax. Burke argues that abolishing the old loyalties of place leaves citizens attached to nothing and makes them easier to govern by force.

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