Liberalism, Conservatism,
Romanticism
Definitions
• Liberalism- Originated in the 19th Century, based on the idea that political
change can make a society better than before. It supported democracy,
laissez-faire and the removal of the Corn Laws. This movement led to
utilitarianism and the reform movement.
• Nationalism- is the idea that everyone with the same language, traditions,
ideas, ideals, culture, heritage, etc. should have their own nation, and love
that nation
• Romanticism- was an artistic movement in the mid to late 1800s. Depicted
the beauty of nature and opposed the Scientific Revolution. "Sturm und
Drang"= Storm and Stress which was a German movement to counter the
Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.
• Communism- is the economic system that puts ALL power in the hands of
the government so they can manage it "for the good of the people". It
originates from Marx's ideas, but it was changed by Russia, with Lenin and
his successors who made "communism" that was very similar to Marxism.
Conservatism: Preservation
of the Established Order
•
Conservatism was a reaction to the excesses of the
Enlightenment and the French Revolution. It meant to
contain the liberal and nationalist forces that were
unleashed by the French Revolution and Napoleon
• Beliefs
– Favored obedience to political authority
– Organized religion was crucial to social order
– Hated revolutionary upheavals
– Unwilling to accept liberal demands for civil liberties
or nationalistic aspirations
– Community took precedence over individual rights
– Society must be organized and orderly
– Tradition remained the best guide for order
Edmund Burke
• Its leading theorist was Edmund Burke who:
– Viewed the social order as a partnership
between past, present, and future.
– Rejected the notion of equality or natural
rights.
– Argued that rights were inherited from the
past.- aka where you were born and your
family
– Believed monarchy was the form of
government most capable of protecting
peoples' rights.
– Accepted gradual change (unlike
reactionaries).
Conservative Domination:
Concert of Europe
•
Concert of Europe was seen as a means to maintain the
new status quo – Quadruple Alliance of GB, Prussia,
Austria & Russia
•
Held several conferences from 1818-1822
– Aix-la-Chapelle (1818); France is added forming
Quintuple Alliance
– Troppau (1820)
• Called to discuss the outbreak of revolution in
Spain and Italy
• Metternich calls for intervention to restore the
legitimate monarchs to their thrones
Intervention by the Great Powers
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Protocol of Troppau authorizes the intervention of
the Alliance, though the British are hesitant
Other members ignore Britain’s reservations and
Britain withdraws
Austria, Prussia, and Russia meet at Laibach in
1821 and authorize intervention in Italy
Verona, 1822 – three powers authorize French
intervention in Spain to restore Bourbons
The success of the policy of intervention has its
cost as the Concert of Europe is broken
The Conservative Domination:
Britain
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Landed aristocracy still dominated both houses of
Parliament and thus government
Suffrage was still very limited and unequal
The new industrial cities of Birmingham and Manchester
had no representatives while the gentry dominated
through their control of pocket and rotten boroughs
The Tories and the Corn Law (1815)
Discontent among the working class and the Peterloo
Massacre (1819)
Minor reforms hold off any major electoral reforms until
the 1830’s
The Conservative Domination:
Bourbon Restoration in France
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Restoration of Louis XVIII in 1814
Recognized that some of the reforms of the
Revolution and Napoleon had to be accepted - the
Civil Code and property rights were preserved
He also established a bi-cameral legislature
whose lower house, the Chamber of Deputies,
was chosen by an electorate no more than
100,000 wealthy people
Problems with the Ultra Royalists
Origins of 19c Liberalism
• The word was first used when the term was adopted
by the Spanish political party, the Liberales, in 1812.
• The roots of liberalism came from two very different
traditions of English & French political thought.
– England
• John Locke
• Adam Smith
– France
• Jean Jacques Rousseau
• Francois Guizot
John Locke
• Contract theory of
government.
– Regarded the state as a human construction,
established by an original
contract.
• Limited, constitutional
government.
– Civil society of free men,
equal under the rule of
law, bound together by
no common purpose but
sharing respect for
each other’s rights.
– Doctrine of natural
rights.
– Links private property with individual liberty.
Adam Smith
• His Wealth of Nations adds an
economic dimension.
• He merged Locke’s ideas of
civil society with economic
theory.
– Free trade economics.
– Saw the “invisible hand”
where a benevolent God
administered a universe in
which human happiness was
maximized.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
• Wrote works on logic
and metaphysics, history
and literature, economics
and political theory.
• A utilitarian:
– The greatest happiness for the greatest number.
• Wrote On Liberty in 1859.
On Liberty (1859)
• Government might be antagonistic to the causes of individual
freedom.
• The sole purpose of government is “self-protection.”
• Government may only coerce others in self-defense.
• We should maximize human development for a more equal society:
– Mill favored a more open administration.
– Organized interest groups.
– Workers cooperatives
• Workers would own the factories and elect the managers.
– Tax wealth.
– Redistribution system of wealth:
• Confiscation of excess profits
• Abolish the wage system.
– Emancipation of women.
Classical Liberalism in England
• Important legislation:
– Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829.
– Reform Act of 1832.
– Factory Act of 1833.
– Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846.
Religious Toleration: Catholic
Emancipation Act
• The Test and Corporations Act was repealed in 1828
– this piece of law dated back to Charles II and
banned anyone who did not take communion in the
Church of England from holding office in either
central or local government
• The following year came the Catholic Relief Act
granting similar rights to Roman Catholics
Catholic Relief Act
• This was brought to a head by Daniel O’Donnell, who won
a by election in County Clare in 1828, but as a catholic was
not allowed to attend Parliament.
• This triggered a tremendous wave of support for catholic
emancipation throughout Ireland.
• Wellington (Tory PM) feared that to refuse O’Connell his
seat would cause an open revolt in Ireland and therefore
introduced Catholic Emancipation mainly to avoid this. This
was to prove especially difficult as in losing most of the
liberal Tories earlier from his government he was left with a
party that stood strongly against rights for Catholics.
4
The Demand For Change – The Industrial
Revolution
• Before 1750 most people in Britain worked on the
land.
• New machinery was developed to produce goods
These machines were housed in huge buildings called
‘factories’.
• Towns/cities grew rapidly as people from the
countryside moved to find work.
• The owners of these factories and industries became
rich and were known as the ‘middle classes’.
• The middle classes did not have the right to vote at
election.
• Major towns and cities did not have any MPs in
Parliament to represent them.
Reform Begins
• The British government was worried that if they
didn’t introduce reforms, revolution would
happen – ordinary people would try to overthrow
the government by force.
• This had happened in countries like France,
Germany and Italy.
• Reform means ‘a change for the better’.
The Great Reform Bill
• The Great Reform Bill was first introduced to the
House of Commons in March 1831 and passed its
second reading by one vote.
• At committee stage (when clauses of bill are
scrutinized) the bill was defeated.
• Grey resigned and asked the King to dissolve
Parliament – at the subsequent election the Whigs
were returned to government with a large majority
of 136.
• A slightly amended reform bill was introduced,
passed through all its stages in the Commons, was
presented to the House of Lords in October 1831
who promptly threw it out.
Agitation for the Bill
• Widespread demonstrations now occurred throughout
the country – there were pro-Reform Bill riots in
Bristol, London and the Midlands.
• A third Bill was introduced by the Whigs in December
1831 – again it passed through its three readings in the
Commons and this time got as far as third reading in
the Lords (committee stage). At this point the Lords
tried delaying tactics.
• Grey asked the King to create 50 new Lords to push the
Bill through, the King refused and the government
resigned again!
Return of Wellington
• Running short of options the King then asked Wellington to try and
form a government in the hope that the ‘iron duke’ would be able to
get some sort of watered down version of the reform bill through
Parliament.
• At this prospect there was a a mass of agitation in the country against
Wellington and the Tories and for the ‘whole bill’
• Radicals organised both an income tax strike and a run on the banks
by encouraging everyone to withdraw their savings deposits.
• With Revolution staring him in the face Wellington and the King
retreated and within a week the Whigs and Grey were back in power
on their own terms. Wellington instructed Tory Lords not to resist the
bill any further and the King promised to create enough new Whig
lords to get it through anyway.
• The Great reform Act finally became law in May 1832 after over a
year of bitter struggle
So What Changed?
• Not much!
• The franchise (who could vote) was made more uniform and the
electorate extended by about 250,000 voters most of whom were
middle class – only about 1:7 adult males had the vote after the
Reform Act
• 56 rotten and pocket boroughs were abolished
• 30 slightly less rotten boroughs lost one MP
• Industrial towns such as Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield
got MPs for the first time but the constituencies were still very far
from equal
• Open boroughs were abolished so some working men lost the vote
• Open voting remained and therefore so did electoral bribery and
bullying
• There was still a high property qualification to be an MP
• Despite a few more radical M.P’s the landed aristocracy still held
sway in Parliament
So Why is it called the GREAT Reform Act?
• It was the first of its kind – it was a beginning – a first step
towards democracy
• The old Tory argument that the British Constitution was an
organic living thing which could be killed if pruned had
been proven false.
• The GRA gave the new middle class a share of power and
paved the way for a series of social reforms by the Whigs.
• The GRA changed the Tory Party for good – by 1835 they
were relaunched as the ‘Conservatives’ no longer resistant
to all change or reform as a matter of principle
Classical Liberalism in France
• Dilemmas faced by French liberals:
– How to ‘end’ the French Revolution?
– How to reconcile order and liberty in a nation torn apart by civil
war?
• These problems called for a rethinking of Liberalism.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
• His Social Contract and
theory of the “general will”
demonstrates an
alternative origin of
Liberalism.
– Men must resolve problems
through our capacity to
choose how we ought to live.
• Man was born free, and he
is everywhere in chains.
• Humans are essentially free, but the ‘progress’ of civilization has
substituted subservience to others for that freedom.
Rousseau & Totalitarianism
• The “General Will”  a strong and direct form of
democracy.
– Only possible in a relatively small state?
– Is Rousseau promoting collective tyranny?
• Rousseau rejected representative democracy.
Francois Guizot
• He ‘deconstructed’ the
French Revolution,
and distinguished
between “Moderate
Liberalism” and
extremist Jacobinism.
“Moderate” Liberalism
1. Favored the idea of the sovereignty of the people, but…
– Government should rest on the organized consent of at least
the most important sections of the community.
– An extension of the franchise to include all men of property.
• Exclude the working class!
2. A good constitutional monarchy was the best form of government.
3. Valued liberty more than equality.
– Confidence in man’s powers of self-government and selfcontrol.
– Freedom of the press.
– Free right of assembly.
4. Written constitutions.
“Moderate” Liberalism
5. Economic policies:
– Laissez-faire economy.
– Free trade.
– Lower tariffs.
– Against the right of the working class to organize into unions.
6. The general progress of humanity would emerge from the growth
of wealth and from science and inventions.
7. Established churches & the landed aristocracy were obstacles to
the advancement of civilization.
8. Orderly change by legislative process.
9. A dislike of wars, conquests, a standing army, and military
expenditures.
10. Hated the idea of revolution!
Challenges to Liberalism
• From above  the conservative
upper class.
• From below  socialism/Marxism.
• From organized religions.
• From militarism and imperialism.
• From economic upheavals:
– Irish Potato Famine [1845-1852].
– Great Depressions [1873-1896].
The Spirit of the Age (1790-1850)
 A sense of a shared vision among the Romantics.
 Early support of the French Revolution.
 Rise of the individual  alienation.
 Dehumanization of industrialization.
 Radical poetics / politics  an obsession
with violent change.
A Growing Distrust of Reason
Enlightenment
Society is good, curbing
violent impulses!
Early
19c
Romanticism
Civilization corrupts!
e The essence of human experience is subjective and
emotional.
e Human knowledge is a puny thing compared to other
great historical forces.
e “Individual rights” are dangerous efforts at selfishness
 the community is more important.
The Romantic Movement
Began in the 1790s and peaked in the 1820s.
Mostly in Northern Europe, especially in Britain and Germany.
A reaction against classicism.
The “Romantic Hero:”
 Greatest example was Lord
Byron
 Tremendously popular among
the European reading public.
 Youth imitated his haughtiness
and rebelliousness.
Characteristics of Romanticism
The Engaged & Enraged Artist:
 The artist apart from society.
 The artist as social critic/revolutionary.
 The artist as genius.
Characteristics of Romanticism
The Individual/ The Dreamer:
 Individuals have unique, endless potential.
 Self-realization comes through art
Artists are the true philosophers.
Glorification of Nature:
 Peaceful, restorative qualities [an escape from industrialization
and the dehumanization it creates].
 Awesome, powerful, horrifying aspects of nature.
 Indifferent to the fate of humans.
 Overwhelming power of nature.
Characteristics of Romanticism
The Supernatural:
 Ghosts, fairies, witches, demons.
 The shadows of the mind—dreams & madness.
 The romantics rejected materialism in pursuit of spiritual
self-awareness.
 They yearned for the unknown and the unknowable.
Exoticism:
 The sexy “other.”
 A sense of escape from reality.
 A psychological/moral justification of imperialism?
Other Characteristics
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Science can be Dangerous
New Technology is Dehumanizing
Romanticizing Country Life
Nationalism
Romanticizing the Middle Ages
 Gothic & Romanesque revival.
 “Neo-Gothic” architectural style.
 Medieval ruins were a favorite theme for art and
poetry.
The Great Age of the Novel
 Gothic Novel:
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (1847)
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (1847)
 Historical Novel:
Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott (1819)
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (1862)
The Three Musketeers – Alexander Dumas (1844) Science
Science Fiction Novel:
Frankenstein - Mary Shelley (1817)
Dracula – Bramm Stoker (1897)
Novel of Purpose:
Hugh Trevar - Thomas Holcroft (1794)
The Romantic Poets
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Percy Byssche Shelley
Lord Byron (George Gordon)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
William Wordsworth
John Keats
William Blake
The Political Implications
Romanticism could reinforce the greatest themes of
political liberalism or political conservatism.
Contributed to growing nationalist movements.
 The concepts of the Volk and the Volkgeist.
 The uniqueness of cultures was emphasized.