CHAPTER 22

NATION STATES AND PATTERNS OF CULTURE

IN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA, 1750–1871

The Five “Great Revolutions”

• American 1776-1783• French 1789-1799 (1815?)• Mexican 1910-1920 (1940?)• Chinese 1911, 1946-1952• Russian February 1917, October 1917

“Constitutional Nation-States”

• Early European “nation-states” (“fiscal-military states”)– Monarchies controlling populations that generally had a

sense of nationhood and unity– England/Britain, France, Germany, Russia

• The Seven Years War (1754 – 1763)– The evolution of the “fiscal-military state”– The fiscal-military-commercial-imperial state

• Commerce and international trade added to traditional national rivalries.

• Seven Years’ War– Britain and Prussia vs. France, Austria, Russia, and Spain

• Britain and France – Borrowed from wealthy subjects.– Passed burden to all subjects through higher taxes.– Britain acquired France’s lands in

• India • Canada• Ohio-Mississippi Valley

• Britain’s “continental strategy” replaced by a maritime or imperial strategy

• To pay for the war Britain needed: • New taxes • More effective (tighter) colonial management

policies

• By 1763, North American colonies grown to c. 2,000,000 people– New land required troops to protect settlers from

Indians,– And enforce new Indian policies.– Proclamation Act of 1763 limited expansion into

“Indian Territory.”

American Revolution• Stamp Act of 1765 placed a tax on all paper.

– Urban shopkeepers, merchants, and printers all opposed Act.– Colonial boycott of British goods.– Parliament dissolved Massachusetts’s assembly.– Samuel Adams and John Hancock organized opposition to taxes.

• Parliament lifted taxes except for Tea Tax, to establish sovereign right to tax.– Adams called for “No Taxation Without Representation.”– Tea Tax opposed because it was a subsidy for the East India Company.

• Boston Tea Party in 1773 was a protest that led to British closing of Boston harbor.

• American Revolution is actually a civil war.

• Middle classes with property and lower class masses formed a coalition.

• Open warfare began when British troops tried to seize arms belonging to Massachusetts

• Tom Paine’s Common Sense tips the balance toward actual independence.

• Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence expressed the basic ideas of the colonists.– An emphasis on property ownership for broader right to “life,

liberty, and pursuit of happiness.”

• War of Independence led to a republic with less representation than Parliament (according to your book).

• Control did remain in the hands of the same class of men who had controlled the colonies before the war.– The “bourgeoisie” and the landed gentry– The “Middle Class”– Voters had to be property holders– Property relatively easy to acquire however

• 1787 Constitutional Convention created a federal system with three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial.– Amendments in the Bill of Rights allowed for the system to evolve.

French Revolution• Prior to 1780s France had strong economy and

population growth.– However, the French monarchy loaned money to

the American revolutionaries . . . now deeply in debt.

– Poor harvests in 1786–1787 limited food production.• Latter stages of the “Little Ice Age”• Icelandic vocanic eruptions

– Famine worsened by corruption and mismanagement of food supplies.

The French Estates General

• A general assembly of the three “estates” of the French population elected locally:1. Clergy2. Nobility3. Common people

• Last called in 1614.

• Louis XIV called the Estates General to get support for tax reform.

• In terms of delegates the Third Estate – was equal to the 1st and 2nd together– and much more diverse than the 1st and 2nd.

• Does the Estates General vote by Estate or as a whole?

• Abbe Sieyès wrote “What is the Third Estate?”– Argued that it represented the true “national will.”

• June 1789 Third Estate breaks off and creates a National Assembly.

• Louis XVI mobilized troops around Paris and declared himself the people’s representative.

• Parisians mobbed the Bastille and other sources of arms.

1789–1792: Stage I of revolution . . .

• Began with the Great Fear – Peasants rioted throughout France.

• Parisians marched on Versailles– Forced Louis XIV to return to Paris and deal with them.

• National Assembly declared the “Rights of Man and of the Citizen.– Catholic Church forced to be under state control.– Constitutional monarchy created and old taxes

repudiated.

1792–1795 Stage II of revolution . . .• Overturned the monarchy and created a radical

republic.• Austria and Prussia invaded.• National Assembly declares war on them instead.• Republic declared

– King and Queen try to escape– Executed

• Committee of Public Safety created.– Reign of Terror.– Robespierre and “sans-culottes” want to remove opposition

to revolution.– Approximately 30,000 French citizens executed.

• Enforced Enlightenment ideas, such as deism in the Cult of the Supreme Being.– Calendar changed: ten-day week and new names for

months.– Metric system implemented and old titles abolished.– Alienated many supporters of the revolution.

• Robespierre executed in 1794 Thermidorean Reaction.

• Created a new Directory, which was dependent on the army.

Revolutionary Calendar(30-day months beginning with the Fall equinox)

• Autumn: – Vendémiaire ("grape harvest"), starting 22, 23 or 24 September– Brumaire ("fog"), starting 22, 23 or 24 October– Frimaire ("frost"), starting 21, 22 or 23 November

• Winter: – Nivôse ("snowy"), starting 21, 22 or 23 December– Pluviôse ("rainy"), starting 20, 21 or 22 January– Ventôse ("windy"), starting 19, 20 or 21 February

• Spring: – Germinal ("germination"), starting 20 or 21 March– Floréal ("flower"), starting 20 or 21 April– Prairial ("pasture"), starting 20 or 21 May

• Summer: – Messidor ("harvest"), starting 19 or 20 June– Thermidor ("summer heat"), starting 19 or 20 July– Fructidor ("fruit"), starting 18 or 19 August

1795–1799: Third stage . . .

• Napoleon Bonaparte becomes the dominant figure in the Directory

• In 1799 Napoleon deposed the Directory in favor of himself.– Instituted new Civil Code in 1804, reformed French law.– Crowned Emperor in 1804 and tried to conquer Europe.

• Effectively dominated Europe from 1806–1812.

• Major continuous opponent: Great Britain

• Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia formed an alliance that led to Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815.

1801 1810

• Estates General (1789)– Third Estate breaks away – Declares itself the “National Assembly”– Tennis Court Oath

• National Constituent Assembly (1789–1791)

• Legislative Assembly (1791–1792)• National Convention (1792–1795) The “First Republic”

• The Directory (1795–1799)• The Consulate (1799-1804)

• The “First Empire”

The “Ancien Régime”

Enlightenment Culture: Radicalism and Moderation

• “Age of Enlightenment” - c. 1650 - 1780• Early Enlightenment shaped by the ideas of

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.– Represent the radical and the moderate branches of the

Enlightenment.

Thomas Hobbes1588 – 1679

John Locke1632 – 1704

• Hobbes thought passions were more powerful than reason.

“Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation.”

“The condition of man... is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.”

• Locke believed reason could control passions.“Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself.”

“The discipline of desire is the background of character.”

• Outside of England, Enlightenment writers included Spinoza, Leibniz, and Montesquieu.– Prior to 1750 these writers shared ideas and

writings with one another.– Post 1750 Enlightenment ideas were popularized

in writing.

Voltaire(François-Marie Arouet)

• . . . exemplified the philosophe, a “thinker,” in eighteenth-century France.

• Imprisoned in the Bastille for insulting a nobleman.

• He was exiled to England, where he observed constitutional monarchy.

• Also studied the “New Science” associated with Isaac Newton.

• He returned to France, assembled a large library and produced many of his 2,000 writings.

• Voltaire went to Prussia, to the court of Frederick the Great, an “Enlightened Despot.”

• Voltaire as a vocal critic of the French monarchy and the Catholic Church.

• Most famous text was the novel Candide, a satire of corruption in government and religion.

Frederick II (1712 – 1786)

King in Prussia 1740–1786

“Frederick the Great“(Friedrich der Große)

and “Der Alte Fritz“

Denis Diderot . . .

• . . . editor of the Encyclopédie (1751–1772) exemplified the secular, scholarly, and artistic knowledge popularized by the Enlightenment.

• Diderot was an independent writer, a new Enlightenment occupation.

• Received a stipend from Catherine the Great of Russia.

• Diderot was an atheist and wanted to change how the common man thought.

Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-

Dornburg Peter III

• Unlike Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant believed in external moral forces.– In the Social Contract, Jean Jacques Rousseau argued that man

began in a natural state but civilization had imposed an external authority.

– This led to a decline for humanity, who could only return to the natural state through direct democracy of the “natural will.”

• Immanuel Kant, in East Prussia, argued for a categorical imperative understanding of morality.– The principle of one’s actions should be the principle of

anyone’s actions.– Influenced the idea of basic human rights, and universal

freedoms.

“No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau

“Duty is the necessity to act out of reverence for the moral law set by the categorical imperative.”

Immanuel Kant

Economics was a new scholarly discipline of the Enlightenment.

• Best represented by Adam Smith, a Scot, who believed in markets free of regulations and restrictions.

• Repudiated the mercantilism of previous centuries.

• Adopted French theories about a laissez-faire approach to markets.

Writers and composers incorporated Enlightenment ideas into their art.

• Goethe’s Faust was read as a metaphor for modernity dominant over nature.– Can knowledge give us ultimate joy?

• Schiller’s Ode to Joy celebrated the Enlightenment ideal of unity of humanity.

Ode to Joy

Joy, bright spark of divinity,Daughter of Elysium,Fire-inspired we treadThy sanctuary.

Thy magic power re-unites

All that custom has divided,All men become brothersUnder the sway of thy gentle wings.

Music

• The “Classical Period” in music (1730 – 1820)

• Joseph Haydn– “Father” of the symphony and the string quartet

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart– Pushed the boundaries of “classical” music – The Magic Flute– The Marriage of Figaro

From “Classical” to “Romantic”

• Ludwig van Beethoven introduced revolutionary compositions.

• Dedicated his 3rd (“Eroica”) Symphony to Napoleon– Felt betrayed by Napoleon’s crowning himself

Emperor and removed his name from the dedication of the Eroica symphony.

Mozart, 1756-1791

Beethoven, 1770-1827

After Napoleon

• Ethnic nationalism drew on Enlightenment ideas, which recognized a national identity and the right for that nation to exist.

• Constitutional nationalists advocated for a uniform language and ethnicity.

• Many European nations were linguistically and ethnically diverse.

• Herder, a German philosopher, focused on language as the core of nationalism.– Envisioned an ethnolinguistic nationalism that did

not exclude low culture or repudiate other ethnolinguistic cultures.

– Following Napoleon, Herder’s followers hoped for a unified German nation.

The Growth of the Nation-State, 1815–1871

• Congress of Vienna met in 1815, after defeat of Napoleon, to restore monarchies.– Metternich of Austria was determined to stop republicanism.– Congress had two principles:

• legitimacy of monarchical rule• balance of power between European states.

• Members agreed to meet as the Concert of Europe at regular intervals.

• Difficulty of what to do about German-speaking states.– Confederation of German States created.– Prussia and Austria competed for dominance in the Confederation.

• French Bourbon monarchy restored with Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVI.– He and successor Charles X tried to restore

absolutism and aristocracy.– Provoked a republican reaction that replaced

Charles with Louis-Philippe.

• Paris Revolution in 1848 forced Louis-Philippe into exile.

• Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte elected ruler.

Louis XVIII

Charles X

Louis-Philippe

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte

Revolutions of 1848• Uprisings swept across German

Confederation, Ireland, and Italian states.• Constitutional assembly in Germany elected a

government.– Restricted by Austrian emperor, and only involved

German Federation and Prussia.– Offered hereditary crown to Prussian king, who

refused to be “elected.”– Assembly disbanded by Prussian troops and

restores regional monarchs.

Ireland

• Ethnolinguistic nationalists in Ireland debate the role of Catholicism.

• 1854 potato blight killed about a fifth of the population from famine.– Mass emigration to the United States.– Young Irelanders pushed for home rule but were

stopped by police.

Italy

• Many Italian states were under Austrian control, others were weak states.

• Unification of Italy by Cavour, under the King Victor Emanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia.

• Aided by Garibaldi, a republican but wanted to unify Italy at all costs.

Italian Unification

Victor Emanuel II Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Verdi (1813 – 1901)

Prussia . . . GermanyWilhelm I Otto von Bismarck

• Second Schleswig War 1864

• Austro-Prussian War 1866(“Seven Weeks War”)

• Franco-Prussian War 1870-71

Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883)

Great Britain

• . . . faced two struggles in the nineteenth century.– Scotland, Wales, and Ireland wanted home rule,

granted after World War I.– Parliamentary reforms extended franchise to

middle and lower classes.• Great Reform Bill of 1832 granted more seats to

industrial north.• Corn Laws repealed in 1846 and made grain cheaper.• Second Reform in 1847 opened up voting to working-

class voters.

Queen Victoria

Born 1819Reigned 1837-1901

Romanticism and Realism: Philosophical and Artistic Expression to 1850

• Romantics reacted against the materialist thought of the Enlightenment.– Hegel argued that all thought moved to matter in a dialectic.– Led to ego-centered poetry of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Shelley.– In America, Romantic poetry was transcendentalist: Emerson, Dickinson.– Romantic composers such as Beethoven and Berlioz were encouraged by middle

class interest in music.

• Romanic painters and writers explored nature and questioned social hierarchy.

• Realism shifted focus from the self to the prosaic world of the middle class.

• Comte’s Positivism privileged the age of science.

• Realist writers moved away from sentiment to middle class aesthetic.

Wanderer Above the Sea of FogCaspar David Friedrich, 1818

The Gleaners Jean-François Millet, 1857