The Congress System consisted of a set of conferences of the four great powers along with many smaller ones to work out issues of foreign policies. It was a forerunner of the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE) that currently functions. One example of the use of the congress system to suppress particular movements was the Spanish Revolution of 1820. Ferdinand VII (1814-1833) ascended the throne after the overthrow of Napoleon promising a constitutional monarchy. Once Napoleon was safely put away, he ignored his earlier promise. Latin America rebelled. A group of officers who were about to be sent to Latin America to suppress the rebellion instead conducted an uprising against King Ferdinand VII in 1820. In 1823, a French army crossed the Pyrenees and suppressed the Spanish revolution.
One consequence of this series of events was that the British, seizing the opportunities to gain access to Latin American markets, supported the declaration by U.S. President Monroe in 1823 that European powers should not intervene militarily in the New World (i.e. the Monroe Doctrine). Of course, the US did not have a Navy to enforce its doctrine. So, the British commercial interests dominated Latin American trade for the next 90 years.
Nationalism is the relatively modern idea that people are bound together by common language, customs, culture and history. It concludes that, therefore, they should be part of the same government. This, of course, is largely a myth because there often is great variation between sections of a country and because neighboring regions on the border between two countries can have more in common than each does with its heartland. Nevertheless, nationalism became the central force of Europe ever since then and has been spreading around the world rapidly since World War II.
Often, nationalists actually created nations by the creation and imposition of standardized languages, the universal use of standard textbooks creating a national point of view on history and the establishment of a national literature. Still there was very real geographical variation in culture, language, literature and customs across regions within nations throughout the Nineteenth Century.
Nationalists claimed that nations were distinct creations of God and had a place in the divine order of things. In practice, only large ethnic groups became nations and they often controlled smaller ethnic groups. These smaller ethnic groups often claimed the right of self-determination and this led to civil wars and regional conflicts.
The four most spectacular areas of national conflict in Europe during this period was Great Britain and Ireland, Germany and Austrian contention for the domination of greater Germany, the three power division of Poland and the ferocious conflict of Austria, Russia and the Ottoman Turks for control over the Balkans. The German and Polish issues do appear to be settled after a bloody history in the twentieth century. The Irish issue may turn out to be settle after a 100 years of war (or, then, maybe not yet). The conflict in the Balkans rages on and on and will surely be on the agenda of nations during the first decade of the twenty-first century if not longer.
Nineteenth Century liberalism in Europe has nothing in common with Twentieth Century liberalism in the United States. Basically, nineteenth century liberals derived their ideas from the enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century and from the Declaration of the Rights of Man. In particular, they were in favor of legal equality before the law, religious toleration and freedom of the press. They sought to limit the power of government against the persons and property of individual citizens. They insisted that government derived its just powers from the consent of the governed and that ministers of state be held accountable to the people rather than to the monarch.
In 1815, no government in Europe resembled these ideals (the only one in the world that did was the United States and it was flawed by a limited franchise and by slavery). Liberals were not necessarily democrats. They believed in a system of privilege based on wealth and property instead of birth. This separated them from the vast majority of people who were in the working class. Manufacturers during the industrial revolution wanted removal of internal barriers to trade and to international commerce. They opposed the old paternalistic legislation that established minimum wages and limited labor practices. Labor was simply one more commodity to be bought and sold on a free market. Economic liberty was to provide the basis for material progress.
Nationalism and liberalism were not necessarily tied together although such was often the case. In general, it was thought that larger political units (achieved by reducing internal barriers to trade) would result in greater economic efficiencies.
Many Russian army officers had enough contact with the west during the wars against Napoleon to realize just how backward Russia was when compared with Western Europe. When Tzar Alexander I unexpectedly died in 1825 without a direct heir, these officers preferred that Constantine (Alexander's brother) ascend to the throne because Constantine was a liberal. However, Alexander's younger brother, Nicholas, became Tzar instead because Constantine renounced the throne. Nicholas I was a profound reactionary who accepted nothing from the enlightenment of the previous century. The Moscow regiments refused to sign allegiance to the throne, there was a brief civil war within the army and Nicholas emerged success. He became even more reactionary (if that was possible) than before. Liberalism was crushed in Russia during the entire reign of Nicholas I (1825-1855).
Louis XVIII was restored to the throne of France following Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815. An old man, he died in 1824 having done not much more than survive for nine years as King. Succeeded by Charles X (1825-1830), the new King was convinced that he ruled by divine right. This made him responsible only to God. In 1824, Charles X had Parliament indemnify the old French nobility for their losses during the revolution (or, at least, those who survived). Middle class bondholders lost by this measure and resented it very much. Charles also supported the Roman Catholic Church with a law punishing sacrilege with imprisonment or death. Liberals really disapproved of these acts. After a great deal of strive, Charles X called for new elections in 1830. These resulted in a great electoral victory for the liberals. Charles X issued something called the Four Ordinances that essentially restored an absolute monarchy. The working classes of Paris took to the barricades and paralyzed Paris. The King called out the troops and 1800 people died in the streets. In August, the King left Paris and abdicated the throne.
The liberals in Parliament named Louis Phillipe King of the French. He was the Duke of Orleans, a liberal branch of the royal family. The revolutionary tricolor became the permanent flag of the nation. Catholicism was recognized only as the religion of the majority of the people and not a state religion. Censorship was abolished and so forth and so on. It was a truly constitutional monarchy designed along liberal lines.
In Britain, the conservative and liberal forces compromised with each other. After the Act of Union in 1800 (the one that created the United Kingdom), only Protestant Irishmen could represent overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland in the English Parliament because the English Parliament had decreed centuries before that Catholics could not hold office. In 1828, Daniel O'Connor was elected to Parliament but could not be seated due to the fact that Daniel O'Connor was Catholic. The Duke of Wellington realized that Daniel would be only the first among many and that a refusal to seat them would cause the Irish to revolt. Consequently, he and Robert Peel steered a Catholic Emancipation Act through Parliament in 1828.
This liberal measure meant to preserve British rule in Ireland, however, whetted the appetites of liberals for more changes. The Wellington Ministry soon fell due to divisions within the Tories and King William IV (1830-1837) asked the head of the Whig party (mostly liberal) Earl Grey to form a government. The Whig presented Parliament with two reform acts both of which passed. In summary, these acts: replaced 'rotten' boroughs with few voters with representatives of manufacturing districts and cities; increased the number of voters from 50,000 to 200,000 and greatly expanded the basis of democratic life in the United Kingdom. Still, the electorate was drawn from the wealthiest people in the UK. True democracy was not to arrive until the twentieth century.
Basically, this refers to the process by which artisans were turned into factory workers doing standardized, de-skilled work. They were forced to pace their work according to the uniform speeds of the primitive machinery of the day. Their wages were low and hours were long. Factory owners maintained harsh work conditions (factory gates were locked a few minutes after the starting hour and so being late entailed losing a day's pay or being fired). Many women and children were pressed into work and disease rates were high. On the other hand, the pay was better than farming or, increasingly, the crafts that declined in competition with efficient factory organizations.
Master craftsmen who did not keep up with changing technology or who simply did not have the capital needed to increase the scale of production were forced out of business and ended up in the factories. Skilled workers who built the factories or the machines themselves led relatively privileged lives. In general there was a downward pressure both on prices and on wages. The 'lumpen proletariat' were the great mass of the least skilled workers who were treated as interchangeable parts and who eventually formed the backbone of industrial unions.
Born in 1818 (a few years after Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena) in the Rhineland to middle-class Jewish parents, Karl Marx attended the University of Berlin where he became deeply involved in radical politics. He edited a radical magazine called the Rhineland Gazette. German authorities drove him out of German and he eventually ended up in London. In 1844, Marx met Engels who was to become his lifelong friend and financial backer. The two of them published the Communist Manifesto that was to become the most famous document of 19th century Europe. The Manifesto that human history must be understood rationally and as a whole. They developed a stage theory of history that basically went from barbarism to feudalism to capitalism to socialism. They contended that the basis of social relationships were economic and that all other relationships were derivative. Economic relationships in turn pivoted on who owned the means of production and who worked for them. Marx and Engels felt that there was a necessary conflict between the two and that this conflict would end in a victory for the workers and a communist state. Marx believed that the triumph of capitalism was inevitable; a belief that seems droll from the perspective of the end of the twentieth century and the collapse of communism in Europe. But, at the time, it was really powerful stuff.
Throughout Europe Liberals in the nineteenth century sense were pushing for more representative government. There were poor harvests in Europe in 1846 and 1847 and hunger grew. Since Europe was still heavily dependent on agriculture, the commercial and industrial economies also suffered and, in 1848, there was a general economic recession.
Liberal opponents of Louis Phillipe organized a series of banquets at which the King was roundly criticized. Incensed, the King forbade further banquets. Once more, crowds erected a series of barricades in the streets of Paris and fighting began between the mob and municipal guards. On February 24, 1848, Louis Phillipe abdicated the throne and fled to England. A liberal government was established but immediately it was confronted by workers who demanded economic relief. The ensuing election of April 23 produced a National Assembly dominated by moderates and conservatives who had little use for the relief efforts of the day. Warfare followed and in July the Parliament ordered troops onto the streets of Paris to suppress the mob. More than 3,000 people died in the fighting but the army won the battle. Thereafter, conservative property owners dominated the government. They decided to elect Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (nephew of the Bonaparte) to the throne. Louis Napoleon acted in a fashion common thereafter in Europe as a populist dictator. On December 2, 1851, he seized power in a military coup and submitted his actions to a plebiscite of the people. They overwhelmingly approved his actions. Louis Napoleon became Emperor Napoleon III (the original Napoleon II, son of the original, had long been dead).
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