This thesis examines the intellectual foundation of the London Corresponding Society’s (LCS) efforts to reform Britain's Parliamentary democracy in the 1790s. The LCS was a working population group fighting for universal male suffrage and... more
This thesis examines the intellectual foundation of the London Corresponding Society’s (LCS) efforts to reform Britain's Parliamentary democracy in the 1790s. The LCS was a working population group fighting for universal male suffrage and annual parliaments in a decade that was wrought with internal social and governmental tension. Many Britons, especially the aristocracy and those in the government, feared the spread of ideas of republicanism and equality from revolutionary France and responded accordingly by oppressing the freedom of speech and association. At first glance, the LCS appears contradictory: it supported the hierarchical status quo but fought for the voice and representation of the people; and it believed that the foundation for rights was natural but also argued its demands for equal rights were drawn from Britain’s ancient unwritten constitution. This thesis contextualizes these ideas using a contemporary debate, the Burke-Paine controversy, as Edmund Burke was the epitome of eighteenth century conservative constitutionalism in "Reflections on the Revolution in France" while Thomas Paine’s "Rights of Man" represented a Lockean interpretation of natural rights and equality. Thus using "Reflections" and "Rights of Man" as a framework, this thesis demonstrates that the LCS thoroughly understood its demands for parliamentary reform and uniformly applied its interpretation of natural rights and equality to British constitutionalism and the social and governmental hierarchies.
O presente artigo explora as transformações e diferenças entre republicanismo e liberalismo nas linguagens políticas do debate britânico setecentista. Pretendemos demonstrar como as dinâmicas próprias ao que estamos chamando de “momento... more
O presente artigo explora as transformações e diferenças entre republicanismo e liberalismo nas linguagens políticas do debate britânico setecentista. Pretendemos demonstrar como as dinâmicas próprias ao que estamos chamando de “momento oligárquico” inglês se expressam em linguagens políticas distintas: de um lado, a retomada de certo tipo de republicanismo maquiaveliano volta-se contra o predomínio das oligarquias e apela ao protagonismo da coroa; do outro, a defesa das transformações sociais e econômicas acarretadas pela expansão do comércio e da vida civil conduz ao diagnóstico da incompatibilidade do republicanismo antigo com a modernidade e acentua a necessidade de convivência entre o indivíduo privado e o cidadão moderno. Ao fim, este debate, indissociável de problemas contextuais e históricos do processo político inglês, ilustra uma transformação central para a emergência das linguagens políticas que constituem as ideologias e instituições predominantes da democracia liberal.
Short history, key ideas and further reading about the FTU 1903-1950s and the Cobden Club 1866-1950s. Published in D Brack & E Randall (eds) Dictionary of Liberal Thought (2007).
