Some modern quasi‐​libertarians with a conservative slant, such as F.A. Hayek, have taken a similar approach in their criticisms of socialism and other utopian schemes, so it is vital to understand at the outset that Burke’s target was not (or at least not solely) the brutal and bloodthirsty Jacobins, such as Robespierre, who did not attain political dominance until well after Burke published Reflections in 1790. Indeed, the French Constitution of 1791 established a constitutional monarchy, not a democratic republic, and most members of the National Assembly hoped to work with Louis XVI. It was only after it became clear that the king hoped to gain the assistance of foreign powers to destroy the Revolution that he was convicted of treason and executed in January 1793 – a sentence that passed by only a handful of votes in the National Assembly.

The notion of abstract rights that Burke attacked with such vehemence was the same idea that many libertarians defend today, so many libertarian intellectuals qualify as the type of intellectual that Burke despised. This is what gives Reflections an immediate relevance to the modern libertarian movement. An effective reply to Burke would simultaneously serve to rebut the many conservatives (and neoconservatives) who, in their attacks on libertarianism, have done little more than echo Edmund Burke.

Now for a little background on the early stage of the French Revolution.

On 26 August 1789, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was adopted by the National Assembly of France. Also called the Constituent Assembly, owing to its self‐​appointed task of framing a constitution for the French nation, this body began as one of three estates, or orders (traditional, legally established classes), within the Estates‐​General, which had been convened earlier that year (May 5) by Louis XVI. These three orders were the nobility, the clergy, and all other French citizens, known collectively as the Third Estate.

This remarkable gathering – the first Estates‐​General since 1614 – was precipitated by the bankruptcy of the French government, a financial crisis that had been greatly aggravated by the aid provided by the French government to Americans during their war with Britain. The need to raise revenue generated a power struggle between the crown and the nobility (especially the reform‐​minded Parlement of Paris), and both sides decided they had something to gain by convening an Estates‐​General. But events soon took on a life of their own as both the king and the aristocracy found themselves unable to control the course of events.

The Third Estate became a revolutionary body on June 17, when, by a majority of 491 to 89, it christened itself the National Assembly. Although many deputies from the other two orders voluntarily joined the National Assembly, the assumption of political sovereignty by the Third Estate signaled that ancient legal privileges would not be permitted to stand. Indeed, many members of the nobility and clergy supported the abolition of feudal privileges and other radical reforms that were soon to follow.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man was intended to serve as a preamble to the French Constitution of 1791, which (as I said) established a constitutional monarchy. Historians continue to debate the extent to which the French Declaration was influenced by American precedents, such as George Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) and various state constitutions adopted during the 1780s. The Marquis de Lafayette, who emphasized the need for a Declaration of Rights and played a prominent role in its drafting, was among the 8000 Frenchmen who had participated in the American Revolution and returned to France brimming with enthusiasm for American ideals. Moreover, key American documents, such as Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and various state constitutions, had been translated into French and were widely read.

Some historians maintain that this is a case of correlation rather than causation. As the historian George Rudé observed, “both Americans and Frenchmen acknowledged a common debt to the ‘natural law’ school of philosophy, in particular to Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau.” At the very least, however, the American experience provided an inspiration and example, if not an exact model, for the French Declaration of Rights. According to John‐​Joseph Mounier, a member of the National Assembly who contributed to the Declaration, the American Revolution had instilled in the French “a general restlessness and desire for change.” Americans had shown that it was possible to begin anew and construct a government on rational principles.

Consider these two planks (out of seventeen) in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man: