Glossary of Terms
Bentham, Jeremy. [1748-1832] - British theorist and philosopher who proposed utilitarianism, the principle that governments should operate on the basis of utility, or the greatest good for the greatest number.
Burschenschaften - Politically active students around 1815 in the German states proposing unification and democratic principles.
Carbonari - Italian secret societies calling for a unified Italy and republicanism after 1815.
Carlsbad Decrees {1819] - Repressive laws in the German states limiting freedom of speech and dissemination of liberal ideas in the universities.
Catholic Emancipation Bill (1829) - Enabled Catholics to hold public office for the first time.
Classical liberalism: Middle-class [bourgeois] doctrine indebted to the writings of the philosophes, the French Revolution and the popularization of the Scientific Revolution. Its political goals were self-government [concept of the general will]; a written constitution; natural rights [speech, religion, press, property, mobility]; limited suffrage; its economic goals were laissez-faire [free trade, Adam Smith] - - i.e. no government interference in the workings of the economy.
Corn Laws - Repealed in 1846. They had imposed a tariff on imported grain and were a symbolic protection of aristocratic landholdings.
Decembrists - Russian revolutionaries calling for constitutional reform in the early 19th century.
Dialectical materialism: The idea, according to Karl Marx, that change and development in history results from the conflict between social classes. Economic forces impel human beings to behave in socially determined ways.
Domestic system: The manufacture of goods in the household setting, a production system that gave way to the factory system.
Factory Act - Limited children's and adolescents' workweek in textile factories, 1833.
Fourier, Charles [1772-1837] - A leading utopian socialist who envisaged small communal societies in which men and women cooperated in agriculture and industry, abolishing private property and monogamous marriage as well.
Friedrich Engels [1820-1895] - Collaborator with Karl Marx. Engels was a textile factory owner and supplied Marx with the hard data for his economic writings, most notable Das Kapital [1867].
Frederick William VI [1840-1861] - King of Prussia who promised and later reneged on his promises for constitutional reforms in 1848.
Hegelian dialectic: The idea, according to G. W. F. Hegel [1770-1831], a German philosopher, that social change results from conflict of opposite ideas. The thesis is confronted by the antithesis, resulting in a synthesis, which then becomes a new thesis. The process is evolutionary. Marx turned Hegel "upside down" and made class conflict, not ideas, the force driving history forward.
Holy Alliance - An alliance envisioned by Alexander I of Russia by which those in power were asked to rule in accord with Christian principles.
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte [1808-1873] - Nephew of Napoleon I; he came to pwoer as president of the Second French Republic in 1848.
Prince Klemens von Metternich [1773-1859] - Austrian member of the nobility and chief architect of conservative policy at the Congress of Vienna.
John Stuart Mill [1806-1873] - British philosopher who published On Liberty (1859), advocating individual rights against government intrusion, and The Subjection of Women (1869), on the cause of women's rights.
Poor Law of 1834 - Legislation that restricted the number of poverty-stricken eligible for aid.
Quadruple Alliance - Organization, made up of Austria, Britain, Prussia, and Russia to preserve the peace settlement of 1815; France joined in 1818 and it became known as the Quintuple Alliance.
REFORM BILL of 1832 - Gave vote to all men who paid ten pounds in rent a yar; eliminated the rotten boroughs.
Rotten boroughs - Depopulated areas of England that nevertheless sent representatives to Parliament.
Slavery - abolished in the British Empire, 1833.
Test Act, REPEAL - 1828 - Allowed Protestants who were not members of the Church of England to hold public office.
Zollverein - Economic customs union of German states established in 1818 by Prussia and including almost all German-speaking states except Austria by 1844.