The Age of Revolutions, Part I

The English Revolution and the Dawn of the Western Enlightenment

I. The English Civil War and Revolutions, 1640 - 1689

Medieval concepts of individual rights (Magna Carta, 1215) advance in English law

Origins of “Liberalism”

1.) rights that government is bound

to respect; must be spelled out in a “contract”

2.) such a condition is “natural;” self-evident

Ideas born in England take root and grow elsewhere (America, France)

1789-95, France

1775-1783, America

A. James I (Stuart Kings) 1603-1625

1. “Divine Right of Kings”

- absolutism

- hostility to religious dissent

2. Colonization, economic expansion challenged

power of the monarch

- economic and political stresses

B. The Ghost of John Calvin1. The Puritans

- reject “Catholic/Anglican” hierarchy

- “democratic” Protestantism

2. Calvinism spurred mercantile development

- “bourgeois” class

3. Growing power of Parliament

- new money v. aristocracy/king

C. The English Civil War, 1640s

1. Charles I tries to maintain power v.

Parliament

Oliver Cromwell

2. Parliament under Cromwell

establishes New Model Army

- would defeat King

- would crush Irish Rebellion

New Model Army scout

3. Charles I losing grip on power

a. captured and tried for treason

b. 1649, Charles I is

executed

4. “liberties” of Englishmen at risk

- denied life, liberty, and property due to religious

and class affiliations

D. The Commonwealth, 1649-60

1. Cromwell rules with dictatorial powers

a. Ruthless suppression of some

b. Made deals with non-Puritan groups (Quakers, Methodists, Anglicans)

- angered his “political base”

c. 1658, Cromwell dies, his son takes over

- old and new foes conspire to oust Cromwell Jr.

E. The Restoration, 1660 - 89

1. Charles II agrees to limits to monarchical power

“Restoration Colonies”

F. The Glorious Revolution

1. 1685, James II begins to challenge Parliament’s power

2. Parliament begins to conspire against James II

3. William and Mary “invited” to take the throne,

1689 - the Glorious (or Bloodless) Revolution

G. the upshot of English politics

1. As representatives of the people, Parliament had the right to choose rulers

2. English Declaration of Rights, 1689

- written rules limiting power of Monarchy

3. Toleration Act, 1688

- Religious freedom

H. the Conservative response

1. Absolutism

2. Conservatism Thomas HobbesLeviathan (1660)

“life is nasty, brutish and short”

E. Justifying the Glorious Revolution and the “beginning” of the Enlightenment

John Locke

1. Two Treatises on Government, 1690

- natural rights

2. Essay on Human Understanding, 1692

- tabula rasa

II. The Enlightenment

A. What is Enlightenment?

1. Immanuel Kant 1724-1804

a. Critique of Pure Reason, 1781

can the personal become

universal?

All people bound by same ethics

2. Friedrich Hegel, 1770-1831

a. Historical Dialectic

Thesis Anti-thesis

Synthesis

progress in history/society

3. The Philosophes (1700s)

a. progress depends on:

- understanding “natural laws” (rationalism)

- overcoming “ignorance” bred of religion

- humanity can be improved through social

change and government structure

* natural rights (Locke) + Enlightenment rationalism (Philosophes) =

modern Liberalism

B. Enlightenment as a challenge to authority

1. Voltaire - Philosophical Letters Concerning Philosophical Letters Concerning the English Nationthe English Nation, 1734;

Candide

- sarcastic treatment of Church,

gender norms, colonization,

Western Civilization

2. David Hume - neither matter or mind can be proven to exist

a. Nothing exists to be sure

b. too skeptical even to be an atheist

argued for an ethical code based on secular values

something can be “good” w/o relying on religion

influenced Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham

“utilitarian” ethics

3. Attack on religion

Thomas Paine, Baron d’Holbach

religion as social control

Thomas Paine Baron d’Holbach

Paine, Age of Reason

- religious hierarchy inherently corrupt

d’Holbach

- “castles in the air”

C. Enlightenment and Rational Education

1. Locke - tabula rasa

2. Jean-Jacques Rousseau - EmileEmile (1762)

- human beings are not inherently evil

- societies can be “engineered” with

education

D. Enlightenment and Rational Government

1. Locke - Two Treatises on Government

2. Montesquieu - The Spirit of the LawsThe Spirit of the Laws, 1748

a. each type of government has a spirit

b. govt.’s need checks/balances

c. justice must be blind

4. Jefferson - Declaration of Independence

3. Rousseau, The Social Contract

justice achieved when needs of people balanced

with legitimate powers of government

So where does this bring us…?

The Age of Revolutions?• English develop concepts of Natural Rights

• Philosophes critical of authority for tradition’s sake

• society can be built on secular/rational values

• the quality of a government should reflect the quality of its people

III. Empire of Reason: the American Revolution

A. Extensive Revolution1. Began as defense of “property rights”

a. Seven Years War , 1756-63

b. end of “benign neglect”

2. “conservative” leadership

a. North: merchants, lawyers

b. South: planters

B. Intensive Revolution

1. “Rights of Englishmen” threatened

a. Proclamation of 1763

b. decline in eligible voters

2. Leaders turn anger against British

Sam Adams Patrick Henry

3. Liberty

Declaration of Independence,

- Jefferson

“Give me Liberty, or give me death”

- Henry

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

C. Unintended consequences

1. “The spirit of Liberty has spread where it was not intended to go…”

2. Decline in deference

3. Rise of the “new men”

The Spirit of ‘76

4. Articles of Confederation, 1775-1789

dominated by states, new men

5. Pennsylvania State Constitution

“stay laws”

6. Shays’ Rebellion, 1786-87

D. the Counter-revolution

1. Competing definitions of “liberty”

2. The U.S. Constitutional Convention, 1787

3. Balancing property rights v. economic opportunity

- slavery approved

- the Bill of Rights

James Madison

E. The Great Experiment

1. Republic of Enlightenment virtues

2. Republic of enlightened self-interest

liberty = the right of free (white) men to

control their own economic, political

destiny

Liberty not made universal