580 Ch. 15 • Liberal Challenges To Restoration Europe
Liberals and Politics
“Liberty” became the watchword for the increasingly liberal middle classes,
who protested their exclusion from political life in most European states.
Liberals believed that all individuals should be equal before the law
because—reflecting Enlightenment influence—they held that individuals
are born good, free, and capable of improvement. Economic liberals for the
most part believed in “laissez-faire,” that the economy should be allowed to
operate freely without state interference. (In contrast, liberals in more
recent times want states to protect and assist ordinary people, particularly
the poor.) Nineteenth-century liberals wanted government by constitution
and by elected legislative bodies (such as the British Parliament and the
French Chamber of Deputies) that would reflect some degree of sovereignty,
with authority resting to some extent in the popular will rather than from
monarchical legitimacy. Moreover, liberals demanded such civil liberties as
freedom of the press and of assembly, and education for the lower classes, so
that individuals could develop to their full capacities.
Liberals gradually replaced the discourse emphasizing the rights of man—
which had emerged from the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and
the French Revolution—with that of the legally defined rights of the citizen
or subject. They put their faith in political and social rights embodied in
constitutions, defined by law, and guaranteed by the state. Middle-class vot
ers trusted elected legislative bodies to ensure that their rights as property
owners could not be trampled by monarchs and aristocrats. They opposed
electoral systems that were so narrowly constructed that only the wealthiest
men were allowed to vote, as in Britain, France, and Prussia. Their goal was
the expansion of the electoral franchise. But most liberals during the first
two-thirds of the nineteenth century did not believe that all people should
vote, but rather that eligibility to vote should stem from the amount of prop
erty owned, and that only such men—and not women—of property should
hold the electoral franchise.
Laissez-FaireAdopting the maxim that “that government is best which governs least,” lib
erals sought to place limits on state authority. In particular, they rejected
government interference in the operations of the economy. Many liberals
therefore opposed protectionism—state-imposed duties on imports. They
followed the theories of Adam Smith (1723—1790), author of The Wealth of
Nations (1776). Their motto was “laissez-faire” (“let do as one pleases”),
which meant that government should allow the “invisible hand” of supply
and demand to bring change. Smith had argued that the unrestricted func
tioning of the free economy would ensure the pursuit of private interests.
This would, in turn, serve the public interest by creating more wealth. Smith
contended that a new social hierarchy would emerge if the economy were