National Unification Lecture

Professor Buckley

The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed the creation of the modern nation state.

It is important to note that this process was not restricted to Europe

The modern state was created by diplomacy and war, often civil war. I think its fair to say that the American Civil War, whatever else it accomplished, proved that Federal power was stronger than states rights, that the large union had existance prior to that of the states. Before the 1840s no one had paid much attention to Washington, but after 1865 federal power increased exponentially, controlling a federal banking system and credit, distributing land to farmers, railroads and land grant colleges.

In Japan there was the Meiji Restoration of 1868. The old feudal military system of the Shoguns collapsed to be replaced by an ever stronger Imperial system, supported by young intellectual urban Samurai who favored western models of development. (In the US we often associate the word samurai with purely traditionalist perspectives.) National preservation meant capitalist transformation, As in Germany Japan witnessed a revolution from above with the Emperor's bureaucrats setting the course of industrial modernization.

So throughout the world we see the appearance of large states, flexing their economic then military muscles, engrossing the worlds resources, subjecting populations to their rule and their ever tightening spheres of influence.

Let's see how this happened.

With the 1848 social revolution crushed, the triumph of bourgeois liberalism looked certain. We have seen that in many cases the 1848 revolutions had been initiated by the middle classes themselves seeking legal and political equality. But under pressure from below, pressure from the working classes, the urban crowd, the streets of red republicanism, the bourgeoisie withdrew their support from revolutionary activity . The revolutionaries fell to the forces of conservative reaction. The middle classes preferred social stability to the rule of the mob. All revolutionary leaders of 1848 went into hiding or exile, planning their return, but most were never heard from again. Two notable exceptions. Marx retreated to the fogs of London were he wrote Das Capital. and the great Italian revolutionary Guisseppi Garibaldi escaped to Staten island were he joined the Richmond volunteer fire brigade.

But the message of 1848 was not forgotten even if the revolutions failed. The forces of conservatism, privilege, wealth knew that they would have to defend themselves in new ways. Dynastic principles were discredited. Few believed that empires ruled by kingly families would form the basis of legitimate power. Metternicks old hopes for an alliance of princes and kings against the presumptions of the middle-class seemed a joke. The major innovation of post 1848 was that defenders of the social order Had to learn the politics of the people. The most intelligent of the arch conservatives Otto Von Bismarck knew that he would have to turn to forces worked out by popular movements. he would have court public opinion, nationalism, and democracy. The new states then incorporated the forces of nationalism and democracy which had been radical , even revolutionary forces before 1848.

Nationalism and Democracy

I. France. 1848. Louis Napoleon elected President December

1851. Stages Coup. Eighteenth Brumaire.

1852. Second Empire. Louis Napoleon crowns himself. Confirms with plebiscite. Railroads, free trade, Baron Hausmann and the rebuilding of Paris, imperial ventures in Suez, Africa, Mexico.

II. Italy 1852. Count Camillo de Cavour becomes Prime Minister of Sardina/Piedmont under King Victor Emmanuel. 1854. Crimean War 1856. Peace of Paris. 1858. Plombieres Agreement with Louis Napoleon 1859. Austro-Franco War. French help Cavour defeat Austrians July 1859. Louis Napoleon makes separate peace at Villafranca. 1860. Italian Uprisings. spirit of Risorgimento and Realpolitik Garibaldiand his Redshirts, Army of 1000 Boys. Garibaldi unites with Victor Emmanuel. 1861. Kingdom of Italy. Italy united but with North/South divide.

III. Prussia 1862. Otto von Bismarck becomes Prime Minister of Prussia under Wilhelm. 1862-1866. constitutional Struggles. Bismarck gains power of purse Unification from above: "Not by speeches and majority but by blood and iron." 1864. War with Denmark over Schleswig-Holstein. 1866. Austro-Prussian War. seven Week war. Battle of Sadowa. 1867. Ausgleich. Habsburg Empire forced into Dual Monarchy. 1867. North German Confederation. 1870. Franco-Prussia War. Ems Dispatch. Battle of Sedan. 1871. German Empire proclaimed at Versailles. . V. Germany Bismarckian constitution. Universal male suffrage. 3 Tier system. 1872. Kulturkampf. Anti Jesuit. Alliance with liberals. 1874. Septennat. Taming the Parliament. 1878/9. Reshaping of Reich. Marriage of Iron and Rye 1878. End Kulturkampf. Anti-Socialist Laws. (SPD, 1875 in Gotha) 1879. Tariffs imposed. Great Depression. Starts 1873, height 1877/78. Organized Capitalism. Cartels, tariffs, centralized banking, state rails. 1880s. Social Insurance laws. Welfare state from above.

VI. Great Britain. Lonely commitment to laissez faire 1867. Second Reform Bill under Disraeli

By 1880 many of the aims of the 1848 revolutionaries had been accomplished. Italy and Germany were sovereign nations. Hungary was autonomous. France and Germany enjoyed universal suffrage and representative government was established in Britain. Everywhere the state accepted a growing responsibility for social welfare. In a broad sense, nationalism had triumphed though it fed on conflict and stressed a strong army more than cultural democracy. The political changes after 1848 were a response to ideas and to the new economic conditions which the radicals had been among the first to recognize. But these changes were brought about by the state which the radicals had failed to capture. Everywhere the state increased its authority, its social role, its sovereign claims and its expenditures. It prefigured broad social changes, building institutions like the army, higher education, library services often in advance as it were of palpable demand. The ascendant age of middle class liberalism had proven to be short-lived. The age of liberal individualism ended in 1870 said A.V. Dicey and the age of collectivism had begun. The great watchwords of liberal policy - free trade and cheap government - carried progressively little weight. The European states were increasing locked in an economic war for supremacy. Russia and Austria abandoned free trade in 1875, Spain in 1877, Germany in 1879 and Britain by the mid 1880s. Cheap government also fell from view. Military budgets increased to patrol the working classes at home and the encroachment of other states in colonial lands. Above all new money was needed to extend the provisions of social welfare, especially pensions. "The modern version of the Rights of man" thought the historian Jacob Burckhardt in 1870, "includes the right to work and subsistence. For men are no longer willing to leave the most vital matters to society and to markets, because they want the impossible and imagine it can only be secured by the state." The powerful leaders could no longer speak for the lower orders and rely on their uncompensated support. To meet these costs the large European nation states increasing looked to their colonial dependencies to secure their wealth. Britain, by 1890, had exchange informal control over 2/3rds of world trade for formal control over 1/3rd. The age of collectivism in effect became the age of imperialism.