A Wilberforce, Not a Wellington

Cogently stated case from former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson that conservatives should look to the "Burkean" record of Wilberforce rather than a narrow "Burkeanism" of the Duke of Wellington.  Essentially, the difference is between a fairly anti-people Wellington and a more evangelical, morality of a Wilberforce.
 
Of course, Wilberforce, beyone helping end the Slave Trade (as the film Amazing Grace shows, though I have yet to personally see it) was still not enamoured with the Rousseau inspired radicalism of the French Revolution (which of course heralded the authoritarianism of Napoleon, which is debateable as to whether good or bad).  This does make him a Burkean.  However, unlike the snobbish elitism of a Wellington , Wilberforce still believed that the "people" could change, even if it was at an evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary pace.

 

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