Rise of Nation-States: Industry and Oppression

The European revolutionary wave of 1848 sought liberal political change and constitutional reform in countries across the continent, but ultimately failed to achieve these liberal ends in most cases because their conservative monarchs used the nationalist fervor for their own purposes.

The balance of power in Europe changed with Germany and Italy gaining the status of unified nation-states and the weakening of Austria-Hungary. A series of wars after 1848, namely the Crimean, Austro-Prussian, and Franco-Prussian conflicts, contributed to the changing political climate and power balance. Both in Europe and in the United States and Canada, the acquisition of new territories and conquest of indigenous peoples fueled economic growth and nation building. Political reform was in the air, and debates raged as to which groups deserved citizenship and the right to participate in the political process. Ever since the French Revolution, liberalism and nationalism were seen as part and parcel of the progress toward creating nation-states. Nations were understood in these debates as constituting a sovereign people, and the term nationalism applied to the peoples of a nation who shared a common history, character, and customs of a unified people (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

Between 1789 and 1848, Europeans commonly associated nationalism with liberalism. Liberals saw constitutions, the rule of law, and elected assemblies as necessary expressions of the people’s will, and they sought to use popular enthusiasm for liberal forms of nationalism against the conservative monarchs of Europe. The upheavals of 1848 marked the high point of this period of liberal revolution, and their failure marked the end of that age. By the end of the nineteenth century, conservative governments also found ways to mobilize popular support by invoking nationalist themes (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

Great Britain

Building on the reforms and progress of the First Reform Bill of 1832, backed by the Whig Party and its allies, combined efforts won legislation against the Tory Party and eliminated corrupt practices of large land owners controlling seats in Parliament to their own advantage and the disadvantage of the middle class and working class. When efforts to expand the rights of these citizens—such as universal franchise, secret ballot, and ending property qualifications to hold office—were thwarted in Parliament, large-scale populist protests and strikes threatened to expand into popular uprisings, such as those that had taken place in France, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere. Largely rebuffed by police and military forces, widely supported petitions were unsuccessful in meeting their demands for these rights. This support subsequently led to a second reform effort in 1867 (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).                                                                                                                                         Political cartoon of the Reform Act of 1832Continued demands for political reform were pursued.by the middle class and members of the skilled trades who represented British liberalism. Prominent among these were support for universal suffrage and an end to discrimination for dissenters, who were religious believers refusing to be members of the Anglican faith. Dissenters were denied employment, military service, and educational opportunities. While some in the liberal movement supported women’s suffrage and felt that the efforts of women in opposing the Anti-Corn Laws and ending slavery should be rewarded, a majority felt that extending the vote to British women and opening wage-earning and educational opportunities to them would have a destabilizing effect on the family. Women’s suffrage would wait until the next century, but expanded political participation created new opportunity and constituencies as a direct result of pressure from below (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

United States

Map showing which areas of the United States did and did not allow slavery in 1858. Territories and states which had not specifically banned slavery are colored red/pink.

With its liberation from Britain and opportunity for self-governance, the newly created United States of America had a federal republican form of government that bound together a loose confederation of states and territories with a populace having been inspired by the impulse for democratic rule which led to the 1776 revolution. The U.S. Constitution perpetuated the liberties that colonial Americans had won from Britain and were inscribed further in the Bill of Rights. The federal government was set up to provide for a system of shared powers among three co-equal branches of government: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. The system offered checks and balances so that the executive would not become a monarchy once more, and that the populace would be held in check by a code of law more than the power of armed militia, although the latter was an option, if needed (Corbett et al., 2017).

A nation of free farmers (mostly white) was the backbone of support for this system of government. Economic well-being was based on having land to cultivate and farm, which meant the continuing need for new land unbroken by the plow. Westward expansion and the vision of democracy introduced into these new territories were informed by the Jacksonian doctrine of “Manifest Destiny.” This vision of expansion and nation building was understood to proceed along divine intentions that Providence was making available for those with courage and determination to seize for themselves. With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, millions of acres of pristine farmland were added to the young country. New territory in Washington and Oregon was achieved through the signing of the Oregon Treaty with Britain in 1846. War with Mexico (1846–1848) marked the first war fought on foreign soil and added territories to the American southwest, which were to become: Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and California (Corbett et al., 2017).

Difficulties accompanied this territorial expansion. African American slave labor to open the new lands to cotton production also moved west. The occupants of this new land, Native Americans, would be forcibly moved west beyond the Mississippi River. This legacy of the first half of the 19th century set the stage for a conflict of vision regarding abolition of slavery, testing the bonds of union. This led to the cessation of the Southern slave states and the creation of the Confederate States of America (Corbett et al., 2017).

The new country had been spared the class wars of Europe but was about to enter into civil war over the slavery question. Attempts at compromise (Missouri Compromises 1820–1821, Compromise of 1850, and Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, along with several Fugitive Slave Acts) all sought to accommodate slave owners and to settle how the issue would be handled in new areas west of the Mississippi. But ultimately, they were not enough to forestall the cessation and armed conflict of the Civil War of 1861–1865, killing more Americans than in any subsequent military action. In the process, the abolition of slavery was accomplished when the historic Emancipation Proclamation was issued by presidential decree on January 1, 1863, by Abraham Lincoln, who declared “that all persons held as slaves are, and henceforward shall be, free” (Corbett et al., 2017).

With the end of military hostilities, the United States was a nation without slavery, and it was confirmed that all citizens, according to the Fourteenth Amendment, were first and foremost citizens of the nation. This made their residence in a particular state of secondary importance. As such, no citizen could be deprived of “life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

The outworking of this progressive process of nation building had similar features characteristic of these steps in European nation building, with new rights gained for middle-class members of society as well as the underclass and former slaves (Corbett et al., 2017).

France

Portrait of Napoleon by Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux (1815–1884)

France was the lead sled dog on the continent for forging a path to transform the political status quo and institute greater popular democracy, not as distant colonialists against their king as in America, but as citizens of France. The events and ethos created by this rebellion informed, inspired, and inflamed popular liberal movements elsewhere in Europe and beyond. Nation building for the French was, as true elsewhere, a series of forward advances and steps of retreat (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

Revolutions in 1789 and the ensuing counterrevolution defeat of the nationalist moderates created the First Republic in which the Jacobin leaders who headed the National Convention ruled the country for a short period. These members of the professional, law, and artisan class were intent on ending the monarchy, and in 1793 Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, were tried, condemned, and killed. The same year French troops met and fended off invading Austrian and Prussian armies in league with counterrevolutionaries, who sought to end the revolution and return power to the monarchy and nobility. Other nations, feeling the threat of French political influence and economic competition, engaged the reorganized armies of France, Britain, Spain, Holland, and Austria (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

By 1796 the French were in control of large regions of Spain, Switzerland, and parts of Italy, ending the threat of the coalition that had opposed them. The “second” revolution seriously weakened major institutions, including the Catholic Church and the guilds and parish structures that had provided order and a common bond among the French. A unifying sense of nationalist identity and common defense against the armed aggression of its European neighbors brought French people together. Political clubs and local assemblies that had long met throughout the revolution provided direction and established themselves as a major institutional force. Radical leaders of this second revolution included Jean Paul Marat (1743–1793), George Jacques Danton (1759–1794), and Maximillien Robespierre (1759–1794). These leaders who spoke for the “will of the people,” to end the monarchy, took leading roles in the National Convention. The two-year period of 1792–1794 brought much ruthlessness and loss of life at the hands of the infamous “Committee of Public Safety” in its efforts to carry out the agenda of the republic. The course of these events reversed much of the intention of the revolution of 1789’s goals of decentralization and democracy (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

When the Jacobins fell out of favor and their leaders were executed, a new constitution was approved in 1795 that had a more conservative flavor. Political power was delegated to the hands of a board of five members known as the Directory. When efforts failed to restore order and to abate high inflation, the members of the Directory turned to Napoleon Bonaparte, a young general who had won major victories for the French in Italy and against the British. In conjunction with a political coup against the Directory, Bonaparte stepped into the leadership role of “temporary consul” as a strong, popular figure who was not a king (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

With his appointment, the revolution was ended. Bonaparte used his position to consolidate political power, utilizing the instrument of popular plebiscite to bypass legislative approval for his platform with direct approval of the populace. He did much to curb the benefits that came by virtue of privilege, making skill and initiative criteria for gaining positions in the regime. More effective administration and professional civil bureaucracy brought better fiscal management and helped alleviate the poor state of the economy (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

He is perhaps best known for instituting a comprehensive legal code known as the Napoleonic Code which created greater national uniformity and ended many of the privileges of special interest such as nobles, clergy, craft guilds, and municipalities. With time and rising popularity, Napoleon eventually removed all efforts and vestiges of Republicanism, crowning himself emperor at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in 1804. Seeing the threat that a muscular France posed, the armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria, Sweden, and Britain united to contain Napoleon’s ambitions. Leading a well-trained army, Napoleon’s innovative military tactics proved enough to defeat these opponents. The territories and kingdoms he seized were soon lead by his trusted generals and family members who were installed on the respective thrones. Also instituted were the Napoleonic Code of law and the same reforms that had transformed France when Napoleon became its ruler (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

When British naval blockades cut off sea transport to the continent, the impact to the economy of Europe was given a blow. With loss of the support of revolutionaries at home, the overextended governance of such a vast empire, and the economic pain brought on by the British, Napoleon’s support began to dry up. When Lord Nelson defeated the French Navy at Trafalgar in 1805, the tide began to turn. Loss of support from the Spanish allies and a disastrous retreat from the abortive invasion of Russia brought new efforts from France’s enemies. Uniting once more, they gave the French a disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig. When Paris fell to these forces, Napoleon was forced to abdicate and was exiled to the Island of Elba. A final return to reclaim his position and power united enough popular support in Paris to raise an army even as a peace treaty was being signed at Versailles. His inevitable defeat at Waterloo ended his brilliant career and led to his final banishment and death on the Atlantic isle of St. Helena in 1821 (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

Napoleon had done much to aid the march toward the establishment of a French nation and instituted legal and political changes that were more effective than the conservative model of monarchy or liberal model of republic that preceded it. These changes provided better political organization, along with economic and legal innovations that were adopted by other European nations in their path toward nationhood. Most importantly, he had done much to facilitate and embed a strong sense of French national identity that was to inspire other countries who would embrace this notion of national identity in the future (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

Germany

The Congress of Vienna in 1815 had created a weak political body known as the German Confederation, composed of thirty-nine states, including Austria and Prussia. Its intended purpose was common defense, but it lacked real executive power. Prussia had designs to be the leading German state with ascendancy over Austria’s power in the region. In 1834 it achieved some success in this direction with the formation of a customs union, known as “Zollverein,” where free trade within the partnership and trade protectionism was established. Within a few years, support grew in Prussia, and a number of middle-class professionals, students, and radicals in the smaller German states within the confederation demanded representative governmental reform, believing German nationhood alone would break the Austrian or Prussian domination that opposed political reform. With the election of Frederick Wilhelm IV (1840–1861), there was optimism for reform, and although the new king made efforts in this direction, he was put down by a popular revolt among textile workers in the state of Silesia as economic conditions worsened. True reform was not yet to happen (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

As 1848 arrived, the French revolutionary uprising spread to Germany, erupting in the rural areas and leading to some 250 deaths in Berlin. A shaken Prussian king relented, as did other leaders among the Germanic states pledging reforms: freedom of the press, expanded suffrage, jury trials, and other liberal reforms (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

A gathering called the Frankfurt Assembly met with the intent to draft a constitution as the National Assembly had done in France. The representatives for this body, however, lacked resources, lacked a single legal code, and had multiple governments to accommodate and satisfy. Divisive was the issue: which nationality should be chosen to lead, and who would join such a state created? A majority favored “the Great German Position,” which would include as many Germans as possible from Austria and Prussia. The emperor in Austria withdrew support in the negotiations for this plan, however, and the minority position of a “Small Germany” prevailed, with the intention that Frederick Wilhelm IV of Prussia would head the government. He refused this role, declining to accept the position from a parliament. The assembly dissolved under opposition from the Prussian king, but the fervor among dissidents increased for reform (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

Black and white reproduction of a portrait of German chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1905)

By 1850 the Prussian king granted the right to form a constitution, a two-house parliament, and male suffrage of those paying taxes. As the growing middle-class achieved greater wealth—Germany with its liberal intelligentsia, established civil service, and influential press—was able to win elections for the liberal movement and position themselves to present a formidable opposition to the conservative king. By 1862 a political standoff arose over the king’s military spending and the suspected privatizing of the armed forces for himself. As a result, Frederick Wilhelm appointed Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) to be minister-president, which proved an important turning point. The new leader posed a formidable force, and proceeded with determined intent to unify Germany under Prussian leadership, which he felt was inevitable (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

In a move to bring the states together, Bismarck entered into war with Denmark with Austria’s assistance, when the Danish king sought to annex German provinces. These contested border states of Schleswig and Holstein were claimed by both the German Confederation and Denmark and were inhabited by both Danes and Germans. When Denmark was defeated after a brief conflict, the two states were ceded to Prussia and Austria. Bismarck then declared war on Austria, contesting the spoils of war. In the nationalistic “Seven Weeks War” (1866), Austria lost the two border provinces and was compelled to end its German Confederation. Bismarck replaced it with the North German Confederation, composed of all German states north of the Main River (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

The further expansion and consolidation of the larger Germany followed with the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. Bismarck’s hope was that the southern states of Bavaria, Wurttemberg, and others would rally to the national cause against France. When war ensued, these regions did just that. They joined Prussia in its conflict, which ended after only three months of fighting with the capture of Napoleon III. On January 18, 1871, a treaty was signed in Versailles between the German states and France. As a consequence, all the German states with the exception of Austria gave allegiance to William I. A stronger and more unified German nation emerged from these struggles to bring various states and constituencies together. It was not the version that German liberals had wished, because it represented a unification from above rather than below, but the hope remained that the empire under rule of William I “would evolve in a different political direction and that they could eventually ‘extend freedom through unity’” (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

Italy

Italy had been united in the time of the Roman Empire but had become a collection of small states, with several of northern states controlled by Austria. The year 1848 featured prominently in Italy’s path to nationhood. A short time following the toppling of the French King in that year, popular uprisings took place in the north of the peninsula protesting Austrian rule. Italian nationalist leader Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) led resistance through an underground movement in the Piedmont seeking constitutional reform and Italian unification. Efforts to unite the Papal States in southern Italy were thwarted after the intervention of Louis Napoleon and French troops when the pope’s power was restored. So the desire for single Italian nation continued to grow from both the north and the south. Two approaches to this end were in place: (1) a desire for a republican nation created from a popular base from below favored by Mazzini; and (2) a desire for a more conservative monarchy created from above led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, favored by the Italian royalty and noblemen. In the north, Camilo Benso di Cavour (1810–1861), brought into Piedmont-Sardinia as prime minister, sought moderate reforms and was initially successful in gaining French support to help end Austrian rule (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

When the French emperor Napoleon III’s troops withdrew from its efforts to oust Austria, Cavour was successful in adding a number of northern and central Italian states, doubling the size of Piedmont-Sardinia. To the south, Garibaldi joined forces revolting against the Bourbon king of the Two Sicily, Francis II (1859–1860). Middle-class workers and artisans joined Garibaldi’s leadership and troops and worked their way north toward Rome, where French forces guarded the Pope. Fearing French or Austrian intervention, di Cavour demanded Garibaldi turn over military control to him. This led to victory and the creation of a single nation under the rule of King Victor Emmanuel (1861–1878). When French troops left Rome in 1871 at the start of the Franco-Prussian War, Italian troops took control, establishing Rome as the capital of the reunited country (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

Hungary/Austria

The Hapsburg Empire or monarchy was heir to the Holy Roman Empire. It was also a multi-national union of territories, duchies, kingdoms, and other domains of the House of Hapsburg, who ruled for the most part from Vienna, Austria. A dual monarchy, also known as Austria-Hungary, it ruled over a diverse array of ethnic and language groups such as Poles, Czechs, Germans, Magyars, Slovaks, Italians, Serbs, Jews, and others (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

The nationalistic sentiment of the mid-nineteenth century was strong and proved to be divisive to autocratic control of the Hapsburg regime. The nationalist fervor made it increasingly difficult to hold together such diverse groups. Unification efforts that had proved successful in the Germanic states due to similarity of language and ethnicity were not successful in the Hapsburg Empire. Aside from nationalism, Pan-Slavism, a cultural movement of Slavic peoples that included national Russian Slavs, created tensions between Austria and the tsar of Russia, who were rival powers. With the coming of 1848, these ethnic and cultural tensions were reaching a breaking point. Hungarian revolutionary Lajos Kossuth advocated and nearly succeeded in getting Hungary to separate from Austria in 1849 when he called for Hungarian Magyar autonomy through a constitution and innovative representative institutions (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

Political and social reforms also came from within Austrian social elements of students and artisans. Faced with widespread opposition, the House of Hapsburg gave in to demands to form a single house of representatives, institute male suffrage, and begin the process of ending forced labor and serfdom. The empire yet survived, as no single ethnic group could successfully gain political autonomy without creating strong opposition from other minority groups at the same time. Aligning with Russia or Germany posed both difficulties and risks and brought equal opposition so that no consensus could be achieved among the various ethnic groups. Fear of change from the known entity of Austria somehow kept the leaky Hapsburg ship more or less together with just enough concessions to different ethnic factions when it mattered. This disunity and distrust assisted the Austrians to divide and conquer with their superior military presence and organization despite being despised by minority groups. In this manner they succeeded in surviving, though the underlying ethnic unrest and nationalistic hopes continued as well (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

Russia

Ilya Repin, Barge Haulers on the Volga, 1870–1873

In the Industrial Age, Russia and the tsar had a huge problem with the institution of serfdom, an institution that was first formalized in 1649. The surge of nationalist spirit after 1848 in Europe inspired those in Russia to work for a modern national state and the abolition of serfdom. The nobility strongly opposed the freeing of serfs and the consequent economic loss that would ensue. Nevertheless, Alexander II ended serfdom in 1861, recognizing that it posed a continued source of division and potentially violent conflict. As a result, some 22 million serfs were freed and provided a portion of the land that they had previously worked. In exchange, they had to offer installment payments for this to the collective ownership of the village commune. The result of this meant they were not free land owners but continued to be laborers for their former masters (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).

Russia extended its territory beyond its contemporary boundaries, expanding into Siberia for its rich natural resources, and along the Silk Road into several Islamic kingdoms. Increasing its territorial boundaries meant expansion, but it did not constitute a unified nation bringing diverse culture and language groups into partnership. Often the assimilation was political without an effort to impose Russian culture and language on the populace (Cole, Symes, Coffin, & Stacey, 2012).