Missouri Law Review Volume 72 Issue 2 Spring 2007 Article 1 Spring 2007 Rescuing Burke Carl T. Bogus Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Carl T. Bogus, Rescuing Burke, 72 MO. L. REV. (2007) Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol72/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Missouri Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Missouri School of Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Bogus: Bogus: Rescuing Burke MISSOURI LAW REVIEW VOLUME 72 SPRING 2007 NUMBER 2 Rescuing Burke Carl T. Bogus* I. INTRODUCTION Edmund Burke needs to be rescued. His legacy is held hostage by the modem conservative movement, which proclaims Burke to be its intellectual progenitor. Conservatives consider Burke the fountainhead of their political philosophy - the great thinker and eloquent eighteenth-century British statesman who provides conservatism with a distinguished heritage and a coherent body of thought. Burke has achieved iconic status; Reaganites wore his silhouette on their neckties.' Legal scholars applaud court decisions and jurisprudential philosophies as Burkean, or denounce them as not being genu- inely Burkean. But Burke's memory has been wrongfully appropriated. Ed- mund Burke was a liberal - at least by today's standards - and it is time to restore him to his proper home. This Article has three objectives. The first is to demonstrate Burke's lib- eralism.