"There's revolution in all these places in 1848. The big wave. Why not in Britain? Why not? You probably already know some of the answers. There are really two major contexts in all of this. First is that the Reform Act of 1832 puts down the drawbridge and opens it to more voters. More people can vote now. Again, voting was based on property qualification. Feargus O'Connor, who is an Irish Chartist whom I'll talk about in a minute, he didn't even have the right to — he is not disbarred, but he's thrown out of parliament because he doesn't make enough money in order to actually qualify to vote himself. You could vote if you paid X number of pounds and shillings in taxes.
What happens is 1832 opens up the drawbridge and more people can vote. The political arena expands a little bit and the same thing happens in France in 1830, as you know. In France the revolution of 1830 doubled the number of people that could vote. But it still leaves people on the outside looking in. In 1867 they would pass a second reform bill that lets more people in. In 1884 they pass another one that lets almost everybody in except for, I think, domestic servants and maybe rural proletarians... The political arena is expanding. The point of this is it's expanding through reform. Britain reforms. The self-image, the self-identity of the freeborn Englishman, tracing more or less, at least in the imaginary, antecedents back to June 15, 1215 at Runnymede near London. The idea that the freeborn Englishman has rights and that we British citizens, our identity is we reform. We don't rebel.
...British national identity, like all national identities, have to be systematically reinvented and reconstructed. This happens in 1848 and subsequent years as well, the sense that we are respectable."
© John Merriman
Yale Lectures on European Civilization, 1648-1945 (2008)
[link]
What happens is 1832 opens up the drawbridge and more people can vote. The political arena expands a little bit and the same thing happens in France in 1830, as you know. In France the revolution of 1830 doubled the number of people that could vote. But it still leaves people on the outside looking in. In 1867 they would pass a second reform bill that lets more people in. In 1884 they pass another one that lets almost everybody in except for, I think, domestic servants and maybe rural proletarians... The political arena is expanding. The point of this is it's expanding through reform. Britain reforms. The self-image, the self-identity of the freeborn Englishman, tracing more or less, at least in the imaginary, antecedents back to June 15, 1215 at Runnymede near London. The idea that the freeborn Englishman has rights and that we British citizens, our identity is we reform. We don't rebel.
...British national identity, like all national identities, have to be systematically reinvented and reconstructed. This happens in 1848 and subsequent years as well, the sense that we are respectable."
© John Merriman
Yale Lectures on European Civilization, 1648-1945 (2008)
[link]
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