The Conservative movement prevailed during the time period of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution in Europe. During this time, Conservatives and the conspiracy of equals prevailed as two major political entities. The Conservative movement became a “left wing” conspiracy of equals, lead by Prince Charles Louis. The White Terror Movement sought to restore an absolute monarchy by killing radical reformists and Jacobian supporters. Tory’s made up the Conservatives, including those who favored a stronger monarchy whereas Whigs favored a stronger parliament. The overall emphasis and goal of the Conservatives showed that the Jacobians and the idea of revolution needs to be stopped. However, Conservatives were not soulless creatures who only …show more content…
De Maistre lived by a conservative ideology, stating that the “essence of a fundamental law is that no one has the power to abolish it: but how is it beyond human power [to abolish] if it has been made by someone? The agreement of a people is impossible, and even if it were, an agreement is not a law and obliges no one unless there is a superior authority guaranteeing it…” (Jacobians and Conservatives, p.17) Therefore, one is left to question, who had the right to give commands to enforce cruel treatment of the workers. Under Conservatism, the king would rule, and his authority would only be subjected unto God. This means that the king was to make decrees and use authoritative power to rule over a kingdom, minimizing the amount of violence within his territory. Even though De Maistre believed that the working class and the poor lived in an awful lifestyle that they could fix, he sympathized for the workers. One should not have been able to hand out punishment merely because one possessed the power to do …show more content…
Carlyle later expressed how society had become isolated from the wants and basic needs of the poor and working class when he said,“We call it a Society; and go about professing openly the total separation, isolation. Our life is not a mutual helpfulness; but rather, cloaked under due laws-of-war, named ‘fair competition’ and so forth, it is a mutual hostility… Cash-payment is not the sole relation of human beings; we think, nothing doubting, that it involves liquidates all engagement of man.” (Consequences of Industrialism p. 10) The instinct of human nature attempted to achieve wealth, resulting in hostility. Conservatives argued that the ways of a capitalistic society lead to a lust and greed for money. Despite human nature wanting to become selfish and act out of any means necessary to accumulate wealth and status, Carlyle believed that men deserved to be treated with respect where money would not account for the relationships that people formed and
In this essay I shall try to find whether the Terror was inherent from the French revolutions outset or was it the product of exceptional circumstances. The French revolution is the dividing line between the Ancien Regime and the modern world. After France the hierarchy that societies of the time had been founded on began to change and they began to sweep away the intricate political structures of absolute monarchy, but however to achieve this was the Terror absolutely necessary? And was it planned/ or was it just the extraordinary circumstances, which the French had lead themselves into once they had deposed of Louis the sixteenth. Whatever way it is looked at, the political ideology of the rest of the world was going to change after the French revolution. The conflicting ideology's of the French revolution from socialism to nationalism would now be mainstream words and spearhead many political parties in years to come. The French revolution had been in high hopes that a peaceful transition could be made from absolutist to parliamentary monarchy, but what went wrong? Surely the terror could not have been in their minds at this time? Surely it was not inherent from the start.
Between 1815 and 1851, there was an increase in conservative demands and ideals across Europe. Three nations fit into this mold exceptionally well, one of them being Prussia. The other nation that best shows how conservative ideals achieved their goals is France and how it changed after the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. The third nation being, Austria and how the rulers handled the discontent of the different minority groups within it’s borders.
Prince Clemons von Metternich was the Chief Minister of the Habsburg monarchy who was a conservative and against enlightenment. After the fall of Napoleon, Metternich worked to restore the European balance of power and to overturn revolutionary movements. After the revolutions, he used conservative ideals too rebuild Europe. Metternich, a leading advocate for conservatism says “ …passions are let loose, and league together to overthrow everything which society respects as the basis of its existence; religion, public morality, laws, customs, rights, and duties, are all attacked , confounded, overthrown or called into question”(Metternich, qtd. In Swanson, 25). Metternich is describing the uselessness and the mindset of the people involved in the revolution. These kinds of attitudes expressed by Metternich would result in more restrictive policies.
In de Tocqueville’s book Democracy in America, he is quoted as saying, “…I know of no other country where love of money has such a grip on men’s hearts or where stronger scorn is expressed for the theory of permanent equality of property.” In my opinion, he is pointing out that man’s greed for money is what will possibly tear our society apart. This point has somewhat proven itself in the way that so many men, and now women, are willing to do almost anything to gain a dollar, even if it means using immoral and hurtful ways to do so.
“If we measure the radicalism of revolutions by the degree of social misery or economic deprivation suffered, or by the number of people killed or manor houses burned, then this conventional emphasis on the conservatism of the American Revolution becomes true enough. B...
Maximilien Robespierre became obsessed with this passion to create equality within France and to abolish the segregation that he began to be worshiped by others and seen as a beacon of hope. They both hoped that the Tribunal would bring peace to France. It would crush the Royalists and quiet mob by reassuring that the enemies of the revolution would be punished.” (DiConsiglio).
In the essay written by Gary Nash, he argues that the reason for the American Revolution was not caused by the defense of constitutional rights and liberties, but that of “material conditions of life in America” were not very favorable and that social and economic factors should be considered as the driving factor that pushed many colonists to revolt. The popular ideology which can be defined as resonating “most strongly within the middle and lower strata of society and went far beyond constitutional rights to a discussion of the proper distribution of wealth and power in the social system” had a dynamic role in the decisions of many people to revolt. The masses ideas were not of constitutional rights, but the equal distribution of wealth in the colonies that many felt that the wealth was concentrated in a small percentage of the population in the colonies. The Whig ideology that was long established in English society had a main appeal towards the upper class citizens and “had little to say about changing social and economic conditions in America or the need for change in the future.” The popular ideologies consisted of new ways of changing the distribution of wealth. Nash in his essay continued to give good evidence to prove his point that the American Revolution was not caused by the defense of constitutional rights and liberties, but by improper distribution of wealth. During the pre-American Revolutionary times, the “top five percent of Boston’s taxpayers controlled 49 ...
Absolute monarchy (Absolutism), it is a form of monarchy in which a single ruler has supreme authority and it is not restricted by any written laws or customs. An example of absolutism monarchy is French King Louis XIV, Russian Tsar Peter the Great, or English King Henry VIII. Democracy is a system of government by elected representatives or officials. Example of democracy is the United States. These type of government exist in the 17th and 18th century in Europe. So the question is, which type of government was considered the most effective in Europe? In my opinion, I believe that absolutism was the most effective in Europe.
Absolutism is a political theory giving rulers complete sovereignty. Louis XIV was one of the most popular successful absolute monarchs. He exercised absolute paternal rights of a father on France and his powers were unlimited by church, legislature, or elites. Calling himself the "Sun King" after the God Apollo, he worked to banish feudalism and create a unified state under his absolute power. To illustrate this power he built the Palace at Versailles and created an elaborate, theatrical royal lifestyle. His reign of 72 years, from 1638 to 1715, it is the longest documented reign of any European monarch. To establish absolutism in France Louis XIV used divers strategies including the centralization of the French state, diminishing the nobles' power and oppressing the third estate.
It's true that this desire for things is what drives our economy. The free market has given us great blessings, but it has in some ways also put us on the wrong path -- the path to a selfish, unhappy society. Michael Lerner, who worked as a psychotherapist to middle-income Americans notes that
Economics as a Dismal Science in Occasional Discourse of the Negro Question by Thomas Carlyle
Ball, Stuart and Ian Holliday. Mass Conservatism: The Conservatives and the Public since the 1880s. London: Frank Cass Publishers. Print.
A rather ominous name for the unaware; “The Reign of Terror”. An oblivious person could completely bypass the horrifying events related to the French Revolution, had it been named differently. The title for these events is appropriate from my perspective. Those four words could easily interest a curious, ordinary person, and so the history can survive, along with the information transferring to yet another carrier. Of course, everyone can benefit from knowing a few terms that can increase your understanding of the topic. An absolute monarch is a person that has absolute power among his or her people. The Estates General is a representative body drawn from the three ‘estates’ into which society had been theoretically divided. A fraternity is a group of people sharing a common profession or interests. A radical person is a person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform. The device used to execute most people was the guillotine: a machine with a heavy blade sliding vertically in grooves, used for beheading people. The Reign of Terror is generally defined as a period of remorseless repression or bloodshed, but in particular, it is the period of the Terror during the French Revolution. Conservatives are people that hold to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation. Now that we can speak of our topic with more knowledge of terms typically used for this subject, we can address the pending question. Was The Reign of Terror justified? An outstanding amount of people died for good and bad reasons. Every system was corrupt, there was practically no right and wrong; no order, just rebellion. Several conflicting arguments can be made, but there is a definite decision to make in this situatio...
One of the chief theorists of divine-right monarchy in the seventeenth century was the French theologian and court preacher Bishop Jacques Bossuet (1627-1704), who expressed his ideas in a book entitled Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture. Bossuet argued first that govemment was divinely ordained so that humans could live in an organized society. Of all forms of gov ernment, monarchy, he averred, was the most general, most ancient, most natural, and the best, since God established kings and through them reigned over all the peoples of the world. Since kings received their power from God, their authority was absolute. They were re sponsible to no one (including parliaments) except God. Nevertheless, Bossuet cautioned, although a king's au thority was absolute, his power was not since he was limited by the law of God. Bossuet believed there was a difference between absolute monarchy and arbitrary monarchy. The latter contradicted the rule of law and the sanctity of property and was simply lawless tyranny. Bossuet's distinction between absolute and arbitrary gov emment was not always easy to maintain. There was also a large gulf between the theory of absolutism as ex pressed by Bossuet and the practice of absolutism. As we shall ...
... middle of paper ... ... “France was a republic, but one now in the hands of an assembly dominated by conservatives, many of whom were monarchists”7.