Liberty, retrenchment, and reform : popular liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860-1880
In common with republicanism or socialism in continental Europe, Liberalism in nineteenth-century Britain was a mass movement. By focussing on the period between the 1860s and the 1880s, this book sets out to explain why and how that happened, and to examine the people who supported it, their beliefs, and the way in which the latter related to one another and to reality. Popular support for the Liberal party was not irrational in either its objectives or its motivations: on the contrary, its dissemination was due to the fact that the programme of reforms proposed by the party leaders offered convincing solutions to some of the problems perceived as being the most urgent at the time. Part I examines popular Liberal attitudes towards issues of economic and social reform, starting from an analysis of what ordinary people thought and the way they expressed it--'the language' of popular Liberalism. As one labour leader put it in 1878, the mainstays of popular Liberalism could be summarised 'in the old watch-word of the Whigs of "Civil and Religious Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform"'. 'Liberty' and 'Retrenchment' are discussed in Part I, which concentrates on questions of contents and rational argument, while 'Reform'--democracy as the hoped-for panacea--is at the core of Part II. The latter gradually switches the focus on communication, and the means whereby the activists managed to involve those of a less developed political consciousness. Here rational arguments and emotional factors are studied as they affected one another, leading to a climax in the last chapter: an investigation of Gladstone's 'rational-charismatic' leadership
History
xii, 476 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780521403153, 9780521548861, 0521403154, 0521548861
23869026
Introduction
Themes and problems
Who were the popular liberals?
A note on the sources
pt. I: Liberty and Retrenchment
The language of popular liberalism
The Bible and the Phrygian cap
From the Reformation to the Risorgimento
The 'people' against 'privilege'
The 'coming republic'?
The 'Great Republic of the West'
The social contract
'Independence' and laissez-faire: The pastoral dream
The 'moral economy' of free trade
Gladstone and the plebeian financial reformers
Tory 'profligacy' and Liberal crusades
The social question
The search for 'independence': the ways of solidarity
Trades unions and civil liberty
Exceptions to the rule of laissez-faire: the Factory Acts
Exceptions to the rule of laissez-faire: poor relief, the drink question and municipal socialism. Exceptions to the rule of laissez-faire: the land question
Anti-clericalism
Education and human emancipation
The 1870 Education Act and its aftermath
The dynamic of popular liberal anti-clericalism
'Free churches in a free state': the disestablishment question
pt. II: Reform
The Franchise Question
The appeal of the reformers
The platform of plebeian reform
The Reform Act of 1867
The revival of 'manhood suffrage'
The missing revival of 'manhood suffrage'
The agitation for the Third Reform Bill
The end of the 'agitations'
Parliament and Community
Parliament and electors
The local community and its self-government
The party and its forms
'Direct' representation
The Lib-labs and their constituents
The charismatic leader
The need for a charismatic leader
The 'People's William', 1862-1876
The Bulgarian agitation and the origins of the 'demagogue'
the cult of the leader
The epic of Midlothian
The GOM in the 1880s