David Brooks claims in his New York Times column today that Edmund Burke "supported the American Revolution." As I noted in my review of Thomas Sowell's book, which makes the same error:
In fact, while Burke was more sympathetic to the complaints of the colonists than many other members of Parliament, it is overstating it to characterize him as a supporter of the Revolution. As I write in my biography of Samuel Adams, Burke spoke out in Parliament in favor of targeting the Revolutionary ringleaders. "The persons guilty were Mr. Hancock and Mr. Samuel Adams," Burke said on March 25, 1774 during the debate on the Boston Port Bill. "Punish Hancock, Adams, and others you know, but not all." A supporter of the Revolution would not have been calling for the punishment of its leaders.
Take Burke's own word for it: In his 1777 "Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol," he wrote, "I am charged with being an American. If warm affection towards those over whom I claim any share of authority be a crime, I am guilty of this charge. But I do assure you (and those who know me publicly and privately will bear witness to me,) that if ever one man lived more zealous than another for the supremacy of parliament, and the rights of this imperial crown, it was myself."
