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19th Century Political Parties

Oklahoma's Green Country

The following passage is taken from Readings in European History, by James Harvey Robinson, 1906. Robinson uses an excerpt taken from Political History of Europe since 1814, by Seignobos. (See below for copyright information.)

III. Political and Social Democracy The chief political question of the nineteenth century in all the states of western Europe has been the same - namely, whether the king should continue to rule in the more or less absolute manner in which he had controlled the government in the previous century, or whether the people should be regarded as the sovereign and rule through their deputies. Everywhere, consequently, though with certain local differences, we find the following four great parties representing four different views of this fundamental question.

1. The absolutist conservative party, formed by the high officials and landed aristocracy, desired to maintain absolute government, the authority of the Church, and the censorship of the press; it controlled all the central, eastern, and southern states of Europe. It no longer existed in England, for the former absolutist party, the Jacobites, had not survived the century of political liberty.	502. The chief party issues in western Europe during the nineteenth century. (From Seignobos.)
2. The liberal conservative, or constitutional party, sometimes called the Tory, or right center, composed of the upper middle class and the liberal officeholders, demanded that the assembly should control the administration of the government, particularly in financial matters. Its ideal was personal government by the sovereign, with a parliament of two houses, one aristocratic, the other elective. It believed that the electoral body should be limited by a considerable property qualification, and that the parliament should vote the annual budget and leave the prince free in the choice of his ministers and in the direction of general policy. There should be no censorship of the press, but liberty should be restricted to the wealthy classes; the nation's rights should be guaranteed by a constitution. This party was in power in the states which had constitutions; in the absolute monarchies it demanded a constitution, a representative assembly, and the abolition of censorship.	The constitu- tional party, or right center.
3. The parliamentary liberal party, sometimes called the Whig, or left center, recruited from the middle class, demanded not only control by the elective assembly but its supremacy over the sovereign, his ministers, and the aristocratic chamber. Its ideal was the parliamentary system, a ministry chosen from the party in majority in the lower house, governing in the prince's name, but according to the will of the elected representatives of the nation. It demanded a constitution which recognized the superior rights or sovereignty of the people, political liberties (such as liberty of the press, holding public meetings, and forming associations), and absolute religious liberty. . . . It would admit only property owners to vote, but tended to lower the qualifications for the franchise in order to include in the voting body the lower middle class.	The parlia- mentary party, or left center.
4. The democratic, or radical party, formed by students, workingmen, writers, and lawyers, demanded, according to the motto of the French Revolution, the sovereignty and political equality of the people. It added to the demands of the parliamentary party universal suffrage, remuneration of representatives, abolition of all political privileges of the wealthy classes, and separation of church and state. Its ideal was a purely representative, democratic, and preferably republican government like that of the French Convention, or even a direct government by the people, in which they should themselves make the constitution. In 1815 this party, so far from being in power in any country, had not even the right to formulate its programme publicly, except in England, Sweden, and Norway.	The radical democratic party.

The two extreme parties, absolutist and democratic, held diametrically opposite conceptions of government and society. The absolutists wanted a society based on hereditary inequality. . . . They also demanded an established religion. The democrats admitted neither political, hereditary, nor ecclesiastical authority. A country might, however, pass from one of these extremes to the other gradually, for the four parties formed a continuous gradation. The absolutist system became constitutional when the prince consented to grant a constitution, as in the south German states from 1816 to 1819. The constitution system was insensibly transformed into the parliamentary system as the sovereign took more account of the wishes of the elective chamber, as in England after 1830. The parliamentary system became democratic with the extension of the suffrage and the assembly's acquisition of supremacy over all the other powers, as in Switzerland.

Copyright Information. The book Readings in European History was copyrighted in 1906 by James Harvey Robinson. The copyright has expired, and the work has passed into the public domain.

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