Debate and practice in a revolutionary moment William Blake, Glad Day (c1794) George Cruikshank, A...
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Transcript of Debate and practice in a revolutionary moment William Blake, Glad Day (c1794) George Cruikshank, A...
debate and practice in a revolutionary
moment
William Blake, Glad Day (c1794)George Cruikshank, A Radical Reformer (1819)
Celebration of Glorious Revolution
• 1788-89: Centennial of 1688• Celebration of the mixed
constitution
One of many pieces of celebratory literature in 1788
Initial Impact of the French Revolution
• British: FR adopting a Constitutional Monarchy
• Support from politicians (Fox) and writers
• William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake
Coleridge in 1795
The Reaction in Great Britain
• Abolition of feudalism, privilege, monarchy; disestablishment of Church
• Defects in British system?• Popular democratic societies
A French revolutionary print: “The End of Privileges” (1789)
The Pamphlet War
• Edmund Burke (1729-97) • Irish politician and political
writer.• Reflections on the
Revolution in France (1790)• Themes
– First principles vs history– Theory vs. practice– Mechanical vs organic
structures
James Gillray, Smelling out a Rat;– or – The Atheistical-Revolutionist disturbed in his Midnight “Calculations.” (1790).
Burke was notorious for his glasses.
The Pamphlet War
• Thomas Paine (1737-1809)– Rights of Man, 1791.– Deficiencies of society
of privilege– Human reason applied
to gov’t.• Mary Wollstonecraft,
Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
Gillray cartoon: Paine taking the measure of the crown. Paine had
been a stay-maker.
Feminist Mary Wollstonecraft
The Pamphlet War
• John Thelwall– From political rights to social
welfare• Thomas Spence
– Communitarian economies– Form and media
John Thelwall
Examples of Spence’s tokens
Radicalism
• Association Movement (1780s)• Society for Constitutional
Information: Middle Class 1780– John Cartwright– Goals?
• London Corresponding Society, 1792 – Social stratum: Thomas Hardy– Goals?– A British national convention
and new constitution?Gillray’s unsympathetic cartoon showing a mid-1795 LCS mass
meeting outside London
Regicide and Terror: the Jacobins in Power• Flight to Varennes, Je ‘91• The Republic, Sept. ‘92• Jacobins take power,
Spring ‘93– Committee of Public
Safety• Fear of counterrevolution• Political revolution social
revolution
Contemporary image of the arrest of Louis XVI at Varennes, June 1791.
M. Robespierre, key figure on the
CPS
The Shadow of the Guillotine
• Slippery slope reaction• Issues tabled: Parliamentary
Reform; Catholic Emancipation; Abolition of Slave Trade.
• Revolt of the intellectuals: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Robert Southey.
Gillray: The Blood of the Martyr’d, Crying for Vengeance (1793)
Repression
• Fear of cross-class collaboration• Attack on radical print networks
– Royal Proclamation against seditious writings 1792
– Paine tried in absentia (1792)• British Convention (Edinburgh, fall
1793)• 1794 Treason Trials• Government propaganda: Anti-Jacobin
Review• Reevite Loyalist Societies (late ’92)
Evidence of radical arming brought forward in
Hardy’s trial (Oct. 1794)
Joseph Gerrald, LCS delegate to the British Convention at Edinburgh. Transported to Australia in 1794.
Crisis of 1795
• 1795 food riots• Monster meetings (up to 100,000
near London)• Riot against King’s carriage• Two Acts, Nov. 1795
– Treasonable Practices Act– Seditious Meetings Act
• Anti-Combination Act 1799
George Cruikshank, A Free Born Englishman, the Envy of the World!
Gillray satirizes the gov’t Opposition by making them the assassins
taking aim at Geo. III (1795)
War• Pitt’s assumptions concerning peace• Nov. 1792: Edict of Fraternity• Nov. ’92: French occupy Belgium• 1793 War against the French Revolution• France promised aid to Irish and English
Radicals
French volunteers answer the call to arms
Impact on Government
• Pitt’s policies of financial austerity abandoned.
• Financial assistance to allies.• Increased surveillance: local and
central government• Controversial policies and
legislation
William Pitt (the Younger)
Impact on Parliamentary Politics
• Disintegration of the Whig Party– Old Whigs vs Fox and the New
Whigs– Fox’s support for the Revolution– Charles Grey: the Friends of the
People• Burke, the Portland Whigs (June
1794)
Charles James Fox
Pitt vs Fox
• Fox identified with support for – The Revolution– Parliamentary Reform – Greater levels of popular
participation in politics.• Fox identified with opposition to
– Power of Crown– Government “despotism”– Continuing the war with France
Fox (top) taking aim at Lords and Commons; and (bottom whipping Wm. Pitt).
Pitt vs Fox• Pitt identified with
opposition to– French Revolution– Parliamentary Reform
• Pitt identified with support for– British constitution– Monarchy– Tradition and hierarchy– Strong executive– Support for war
Pitt (top) running roughshod over British liberties, and (bottom) on trial after the British Revolution
Irish Rebellion 1798• United Irishmen, 1791
– Constitutional reforms based on French ideals
– Leaders: Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Fox’s cousin.
• Secular republic to reconcile Protestants and Catholics, and separate from Britain– 1793: Society driven underground– 1795: planned insurrection; FR
help– 1798: insurrection--largely rural
disorder--suppressed by British army. 30,000 killed• New South Wales
Wolfe Tone
Irish Union
• Irish government had failed to prevent rebellion
• Westminster Government required greater control to maintain order and prevent a French landing
• Catholic rights more achievable under Union?
• Act of Union, 1800
One of many atrocities during the ’98: prisoners
trapped in a burning church
Conclusion
• Nationwide philosophical debate• Expansion of political sphere
– Print networks; mass mobilization; Volunteer Associations
• Reaction triumphant– “Patriotism” articulated as conservatism– Split the Whig opposition and
strengthened the (Tory) government• Heritage of working-class activism 1800s• Ideas + famine created social unrest
– Britain, 1815-1848