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Jacobin

Jacobin

This page describes the political term "Jacobin." For discussion of the political organization of the French Revolution era, see Jacobin Club. Jacobinism is unrelated to Jacobitism or the English Jacobean period. In the context of the French Revolution, a Jacobin originally meant a member of the Jacobin Club (1789-1794), but even at that time, the term Jacobins had been popularly applied to all promulgators of extreme revolutionary opinions: for example, "Jacobin democracy" is synonymous with totalitarian democracy. In contemporary France this term refers to the concept of a centralised Republic, with power concentrated in the national government, at the expense of local or regional governments. Similarly, Jacobinist educational policy, which influenced modern France well into the 20th Century, sought to stamp out French minority languages that it considered reactionary, such as Breton, Basque, Provençal and Alsatian.

Historical meaning

In the sense of "promulgator of extreme revolutionary opinion", the word "Jacobin" passed beyond the borders of France and long survived the Revolution.

United Kingdom

Canning's paper, The Anti-Jacobin, directed against the English Radicals, of the 18th-19th Century, consecrated its use in England. The English who supported the French Revolution during its early stages (or even throughout), were early known as Jacobins. These included the young Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and others prior to their disillusionment with the outbreak of The Terror. Others, such as William Hazlitt and Thomas Paine remained idealistic about the Revolution. Much detail on English Jacobinism is to be found in E. P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class. The Anti-Jacobin was planned by Canning when he was Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He secured the collaboration of George Ellis, John Hookham Frere, William Gifford, and some others. William Gifford was appointed working editor. The first number appeared on November 20, 1797, with a notice that "the publication would be continued every Monday during the sitting of Parliament". A volume of the best pieces, entitled The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, was published in 1800. It is almost impossible to apportion accurately the various pieces to their respective authors, though more than one attempt has been made so to do.

Austria

In the correspondence of Metternich and other leaders of the repressive policies that followed the second fall of Napoleon in 1815, Jacobin is the term commonly applied to anyone with liberal tendencies, even to so august a personage as the emperor Alexander I of Russia.

United States

Some contemporary political theorists have criticized Neoconservatism for "Jacobinist" tendencies.

Allegorical Usage

The conventionalized scrawny, French revolutionary sans-culottes Jacobin, was developed from about 1790 by British satirical artists James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson and George Cruikshank. It was commonly contrasted with the stolid stocky conservative and well-meaning John Bull, dressed like an English country squire.

References

Jacobitism

This article concerns the political movement supporting the restoration of the House of Stuart, not the earlier Jacobean period. For details of the attendant wars, see: Jacobite Rising. It is not about Jacobinism or the Jacobite Orthodox Church. Jacobite Orthodox Church Jacobitism was the political movement dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England and Scotland (and after 1707, Great Britain). The movement took its name from the Latin form Jacobus of the name of King James II and VII. Jacobitism was a response to the deposition of James II and VII in 1688 when he was replaced by his daughter Mary II jointly with her husband William of Orange. The Stuarts lived on the European continent after that, occasionally attempting to regain the throne with the aid of France or Spain. Within the British Isles, the primary seats of Jacobitism were Ireland and (especially Highland) Scotland. There was also some support in England and Wales, particularly in Northern England. Royalists supported Jacobitism because they believed that Parliament had no authority to interfere with the Royal succession, and many Catholics looked to it to restore their preeminence, but people became involved in the military campaigns for all sorts of allegiances and motives. In Scotland the Jacobite cause became entangled in the last throes of the warrior Clan system, and became a lasting romantic memory. The emblem of the Jacobites is the White Rose of York; white rose day is celebrated on June 10, the anniversary of the birth of James VIII and III in 1688.

Political background

The second half of the 17th century was a time of political and religious turmoil in the British Isles. The Protestant Commonwealth ended with the Restoration of Charles II who renewed attempts to impose Episcopalian Anglican worship on Scotland, provoking rebellions by Covenanters such as the Cameronians who were repressed in the "Killing Times" in attempts to stamp out Presbyterianism. He was succeeded in 1685 by his Roman Catholic brother, James II and VII, who continued the family disdain for democracy, their motto being a Deo rex, a rege lex (the king comes from God, the law comes from the king), which led to conflict with Parliament. In Ireland James' viceroy, Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, was the first Catholic viceroy since the Reformation and acted to reduce Protestant ascendancy and to have strong points in Ireland controlled by garrisons loyal to the cause of absolutism. In England and Scotland James attempted to impose religious toleration, which helped the Catholic minority but offended others. William of Orange, building alliances against France, lobbied Whigs to have James replaced by William's wife Mary who was James' daughter and next in line to the throne, but they were reluctant to rush a succession expected to happen in due course. Then in 1688 James' second wife had a boy, bringing the prospect of a Catholic dynasty, and the "Immortal Seven" invited William and Mary to depose James. In November William arrived in England and James fled to France: in February 1689 the Glorious Revolution formally changed England's monarch, but many Catholics, Episcopalians and Tory royalists convinced that Parliament had no right to define the succession still supported James. Scotland was slow to accept William, who summoned a Convention of the Estates which met on 14 March 1689 in Edinburgh and considered a conciliatory letter from William and a haughty one from James. Forces of Cameronians as well as Clan Campbell highlanders led by the Earl of Argyll had come to bolster William's support. On James' side cavalry led by John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee attended at the start but withdrew four days later when support for William became evident. The convention set out its terms and William and Mary were proclaimed at Edinburgh on April 11 1689, then had their coronation in London in May.

Religion, politics and adventurers

While Jacobitism was closely linked with Roman Catholicism from the outset particularly in Ireland, elsewhere in Britain Catholics were in a tiny minority by 1689 and the bulk of Jacobite support came from other groups. Catholics formed about 75% of the population of Ireland, but in England only around 1% and in Scotland about 2%. Irish support for James II was mostly from Catholics, though he was taking the French side against the League of Augsburg and William's elite force the Blue Guards had the Papal Banner with them. The war in Ireland was predominantly a Catholic nationalist uprising and after its defeat in 1691 their only significant contribution to Jacobite support came from the Irish Brigade of the French army. In lowland Britain the Catholics tended to come from the gentry and formed the most ideologically committed supporters, drawing on almost two centuries of subterfuge as a minority persecuted by the state and rallying enthusiastically to Jacobite armies as well as contributing financial support to the court in exile. Some Scottish Highland clans such as the Macdonalds of Clanranald remained Catholic, but they were exceptions. Just as much dedicated support in England came from the Nonjuring Anglicans, which started with Church of England clergy who refused on principle to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary while James still lived, and developed into an Episcopalian schism of the church with small congregations in all the English cities. Scottish Episcopalians provided over half of the Jacobite forces in Britain, and although Dundee's rising in 1689 came mostly from the western Highlands, in later risings Episcopalians came roughly equally from the north-east Scottish Lowlands north of the River Tay and from the Highland clans. They too were described as Nonjurors. As Protestants they could take part in Scottish politics, but were in a minority and were repeatedly discriminated against in legislation favouring the established Church of Scotland. However many Episcopalians were quiet about any Jacobite sympathies and were able to accommodate themselves to the new regime. About half of the Episcopalians supporting the Jacobite cause came from the Lowlands, but this was obscured in the risings by their tendency to wear Highland dress as a kind of Jacobite uniform. To the Highland clans the conflict was more about inter-clan politics than about religion, and a significant factor was resistance to the territorial ambitions of the (Presbyterian) Campbells of Argyll. Another source of Jacobite support came from those dissatisfied with political developments. Some Whigs, most obviously the Earl of Mar, reacted to political disappointments by joining the Jacobites, but while others were courted from 1692 onwards and indicated support, mostly this was just reinsurance in case the Jacobites came out on top. Some Whiggish Scots patriots such as the 10th Earl Marischal and the Master of Sinclair supported the Jacobites after 1707 in the hopes of severing the Union. The Tories were a more likely source of support given their commitment to church and king, but many were reluctant to trust the Church of England to a Catholic king. At times such as 1715–1722 when the Hanoverians appeared to be dismantling Anglican dominance and 1743–1745 when Whig dealings denied the Tories parliamentary victory they would coalesce and turn to the Jacobites, but they were fainthearts when it came to serious action. Nevertheless this gave hopes that large numbers of Tories would support a Jacobite rising with a serious prospect of winning, particularly when helped by foreign intervention. Other Jacobite recruits could be described as adventurers — desperate men who saw the cause as a solution to their (usually financial) problems. Although small in number and varying from unemployed weavers looking for excitement to impoverished gentry like William Boyd, 4th Earl of Kilmarnock who served Charles as a colonel and became a general after the Battle of Falkirk, they contributed significantly to the daring that brought the Jacobites a prospect of success in their campaigns. However, other such mercenaries often became spies and informers.

Jacobite community, ideology and policy

From its religious roots, Jacobite ideology was passed on through committed families of the nobility and gentry who would have pictures of the exiled royal family and of Cavalier and Jacobite martyrs, and take part in networks of like minded Freemasons. Even today, some Highland clans and regiments pass their drink over a glass of water during the Loyal Toast — to the King Over the Water. More widely, commoners developed communities in areas where they could fraternise in Jacobite alehouses, inns and taverns, singing seditious songs, collecting for the cause and on occasion being recruited for risings. At government attempts to close such places they simply transferred to another venue. In these neighbourhoods Jacobite wares such as inscribed glassware, brooches with hidden symbols and tartan waistcoats were popular. The criminal activity of smuggling became associated with Jacobitism throughout Britain, partly because of the advantage of dealing through exiled Jacobites in France. :Further developments are mentioned under "Jacobitism in England" below. Official policy of the court in exile initially reflected the uncompromising intransigence that got James into trouble in the first place. With the powerful support of the French they saw no need to accommodate the concerns of his Protestant subjects, and effectively issued a summons for them to return to their duty. In 1703 Louis pressed James into a more accommodating stance in the hopes of detaching England from the Grand Alliance, essentially promising to maintain the status quo. This policy soon changed with the Jacobites promising restoration of Scottish independence to exploit Scottish outrage at the corrupt machinations which forced through the Act of Union of 1707, and increasingly Jacobitism identified with causes of the alienated and dispossessed.

Military campaigns and Jacobitism

This section focusses on the political context. For military aspects of these campaigns see the Williamite war in Ireland and Jacobite Risings.

Jacobite war in Ireland

James II and VII had his viceroy Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell take action to secure Ireland for the Catholic cause, culminating in the Siege of Derry which began on 7 December 1688. By then the deposed James had fled to France, and with support from King Louis XIV of France, who was already at war with William of Orange, James landed in Ireland on 12 March 1689. Having taken Dublin and joined the Siege of Londonderry, to maintain the support of Catholic nationalists he reluctantly agreed to the Irish Parliament's demand for an Act declaring that the Parliament of England had no right to pass laws for Ireland. By August 1689 British forces relieved the siege and cleared most of Ulster of Jacobites. The following July, William's army was victorious in a skirmish at the Battle of the Boyne. The Jacobite army retreated, little damaged, but James fled to France, acquiring the nickname Séamus an chaca (James the beshitten) and leaving the Irish to fight on until in October 1691 they surrendered and the Irish army was made to leave Ireland to become the Irish Brigade of the French army. Jacobitism lingered on for another century in the ideology of nationalist secret societies, but did not play an overt role again in Ireland.

Bonnie Dundee

Irish Brigade" shows the highlanders still wearing the plaids which they normally set aside before battle, where they would fire a volley then run full tilt at the enemy with broadsword and targe in the Highland charge wearing only their shirts]] On April 16 1689, almost a month after he left the Convention in Edinburgh and five days after it had proclaimed William and Mary, Viscount Dundee, known as Bonnie Dundee to his supporters and as Bluidy Clavers to his opponents, raised James' standard on the hilltop of Dundee Law with less than 50 men in support. At first he had difficulty in raising many supporters, but after the Williamite commander had proved ineffective and 200 Irish troops had landed at Kintyre he gained support from Catholic and Episcopalian Highland Clans, though not from the Episcopal Bishops of the Scots nobility. Victory for the Jacobite Highlanders at the Battle of Killiecrankie on July 27 1689 was marred when Bonnie Dundee was killed in the fighting. A series of government expeditions to subdue the highlands eventually led to Jacobite defeat in May 1690 and lingering hopes faded with news of the Battle of the Boyne. A year later the Jacobites were forced to agree to a truce while the Clan chieftains sent requests to the exiled James VII and II for permission to submit to William, and in January 1692 the Jacobite Clans formally surrendered to the government. William's main interest was in the War of the Grand Alliance in the Low Countries against the French and he paid little attention to Scotland, trying to bribe or coerce the lawless clans. His demands that each chief put in writing the submission authorised by James resulted in the Massacre of Glencoe on February 13 1692.

The Old Pretender's attempted invasion

In 1701 James II and VII died. He was succeeded in his claims by his son, James Francis Edward Stuart. He was recognised as King James III of England and King James VIII of Scotland by the courts of France, Spain, and Modena, and by the pope; to his detractors he was known as the Old Pretender. After a brief peace, the War of the Spanish Succession renewed French support for the Jacobites and in 1708 James Francis set out with French troops, but the French fleet was chased away by the Royal Navy and retreated round the north of Scotland back to France.

Union and Hanoverians

In March 1702 William died and the throne passed to Mary's sister who became Queen Anne. Scotland's economy was faltering and the English parliament used trade sanctions to force the Scottish parliament towards union. One Scottish politician who thrived in these unpopular negotiations was John Erskine, 6th Earl of Mar who, despite his Episcopalian background, ably supported the Scottish Revolution interest and after being a signatory to the Act of Union of 1707 was rewarded by Queen Anne and rose in the new British parliament to a key role in running Scottish affairs, a position formalised in 1713 when the post of Secretary of State for Scotland was revived for him. In that year he was part of the ministry that negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht which ended hostilities between France and Britain, in a deal unpopular with Hanoverians and Whigs. Widespread discontent gave the Jacobites increasing hopes of James Francis gaining power when the popular Anne died leaving no immediate successor. However, the Act of Settlement 1701, confirmed by the Act of Union, required the monarch to be Protestant while James Francis was a devout Catholic. In the event the Whigs were quick to bring in from Hanover George I, great grandson of James I of England and VI of Scotland, an uncharismatic German who spoke poor English. This unattractive foreign figure revived populist loyalism, still slow to transfer affection to the new regime while the old dynasty lived. His arrival in 1714 was greeted by a winter of riots in England. George favoured the Whigs, and in the spring of 1715 the Tories lost the General Election to the Whigs who then impeached Tory leaders for their part in the peace negotiations with France. Tory fears for themselves and for the High Church of England led to conspiracy for armed rebellion, but when the time came their leaders were paralysed with fear and indecision and an alerted government ordered the arrest of the major players. At the day for the rising in the south-west a large number of Tory gentry turned up for "a race meeting" at Bath, but on receiving a letter from their leader (who was in hiding) saying that all was lost, they went home.

The 'Fifteen

In Scotland years of famine and hardship fed discontent with the Union, providing fertile ground for what is often referred to as the First Jacobite Rising (or Rebellion). Mar had found himself identified with the previous government which thwarted his attempts to continue in office in the incoming Hanoverian government of King George I, and fearing impeachment he turned his loyalty to James, justifying his nickname Bobbin' John.
James Francis corresponded with Mar from France, as part of widespread Jacobite plotting, and in the summer of 1715 he called on Mar to raise the Clans without further delay. Mar, realising that the government had found out about his part in the conspiracy, rushed from London to Braemar and summoned clan leaders to "a grand hunting-match" on August 27 1715 where he announced his change of allegiance. On September 6 he proclaimed James as "their lawful sovereign" and raised the old Scottish standard, whereupon (ominously) the gold ball fell off the top of the flagpole. Mar's proclamation called on men to fight "for the relief of our native country from oppression and a foreign yoke too heavy for us or our posterity to bear". While Mar succeeded in raising an alliance of clans and northern Lowlanders united mainly in detesting the Union and recent Whig repression, he turned out to be an indifferent and indecisive general. Planned risings in Wales and Devon were forestalled by government arrests. A rising in the north of England joined forces with a rising in the south of Scotland and with a contingent from Mar marched into England, but did not meet the expected welcome and surrendered after a brief siege at the Battle of Preston (1715). Mar's forces in Scotland were unable to defeat government forces. A ship from France belatedly brought James Francis to Peterhead, but he was too consumed by melancholy and fits of fever to inspire his followers. After briefly setting up court at Scone, Perthshire then retreating to the coast, he withdrew to France with Mar on February 4, 1716, leaving a message advising his Highland followers to shift for themselves.

Jacobitism in England

The unpopularity of George and the Whigs continued. Over the next five years, and to a reduced extent afterwards, a significant section of the English crowd asserted loyalism in Jacobite forms, including songs, symbolic oak leaves and white roses worn on anniversaries, attacks on Whigs and hanging or burning effigies of George with cuckold's horns. They derided his marital problems and mistresses (who got nicknames like the Goose and the Elephant) with songs (preserved in Jacobite Reliques) like Cam Ye O'er Frae France which includes the words "Saw ye Geordie's grace, Riding on a goosie?". In the minds of many, the "King over the Water" (whom the Jacobites' opponents called the Old Pretender) became a mythical Arthurian figure, a good king who would one day return and put things right. There was also a developing myth of Jacobite martyrs, praising the brave defiance of Jacobites at the scaffold and treasuring relics in an almost religious way. This inspired their supporters, but for most people these hangings merely showed that the Jacobites were on the losing side.

Spanish supported Jacobite invasion

The failure of the '15 convinced the Jacobites that to overthrow the Hanoverians they needed the support of a major European power, and in an age when the Habsburg empire was collapsing and armies becoming professionalised this gave a lever to any country in dispute with Britain. With France still at peace, the Jacobites found a new ally in Spain's Minister to the King, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, but an invasion force which set sail in 1719 failed to reach England and the party of Jacobites and Spanish soldiers which reached Scotland met only lukewarm support and the Spanish soldiers were forced to surrender at the Battle of Glen Shiel.

The Atterbury plot

Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester and a passionate High Tory, conspired with Mar who had been appointed "Secretary of State" by James Francis in France, for a rising to coincide with the general election in 1722 aiming to exploit public anger over the South Sea Bubble. English Tories out in their constituencies were to summon their kinsmen, friends and tenants to secure their localities and march on London, while volunteers from the Irish Brigade were to land in the south to join them. While the French were sympathetic, an official request for assistance from the Jacobite court in exile meant that they could no longer turn a blind eye so they informed the English ambassador and posted the Irish Brigade out of temptation's way. Mar was bullied into betraying the conspiracy, which collapsed with arrests, denunciations and flights abroad.

Aftermath of the 'Fifteen in Scotland

In the aftermath of the 'Fifteen, the Disarming Act and the Clan Act made ineffectual attempts to subdue the Scottish Highlands, and efforts at "rooting out of the Irish language" (Gaelic) were renewed. Government garrisons were built or extended and linked to the south by the Wade roads constructed for Major-General George Wade. Jacobitism lingered on amid resentment of economic hardship and the Whig government, and Catholic missionaries increased their influence with some clans, but political resistance to the Union lessened and Jacobitism became more of a secretive game with the glasses of claret being waved over water before the Loyal Toast so that it became a toast to "the King (over the water)". In 1725 Wade raised the independent companies of the Black Watch as a militia to keep peace in the unruly Highlands, but in 1743 they were moved to fight the French in Flanders.

The Cornbury plot

Robert Walpole's Excise Scheme of 1733 caused a crisis with public disorders, and Lord Cornbury, heir to the Earl of Clarendon, convinced the French ambassador in London and the French Secretary of State in Paris that the Hanoverian regime was crumbling and proposed a French invasion matched with Jacobite risings. The French cabinet considered the scheme then rejected it, their officials were demoted and Cornbury abandoned politics.

1744 French invasion attempt

Anglo-French relations gradually worsened and the Jacobites tried proposing further schemes, starting in 1737 with John Gordon of Glenbucket suggesting a Highland rising backed by French invasion and continued with lobbying by Lord Semphill as "official" Jacobite agent at the French court. During 1743 the War of the Austrian Succession drew Britain and France into open, though unofficial, hostilities against each other. Through Semphill, English Jacobites made a formal request to France for armed intervention. The French king's Master of Horse toured southern England meeting Tories and discussing their proposals, and in November 1743 Louis XV of France authorised a large-scale invasion of southern England in February 1744. Charles Edward Stuart (later known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender) who was in exile in Rome with his father (James Francis) was invited to accompany the expedition and rushed to France, but a storm destroyed the attempt. The British lodged strong diplomatic objections to the presence of Charles, and France declared war but abandoned ideas of Jacobite risings and gave Charles no more encouragement.

The 'Forty-Five'

Early in 1744 a small number of Scottish Highland clan chieftains had sent Charles a message that they would rise if he arrived with as few as 3,000 French troops, and even against later cautions from his advisers he was determined not to turn back. He secretively borrowed funds, pawned his mother's jewellery and made preparations with a consortium of privateers. He set out for Scotland in July 1745 with two ships, but the larger ship with 700 volunteers from the Irish Brigade and supplies of armaments was forced back. Charles landed with his seven men of Moidart on the island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides on 2 August 1745, and though Scottish clans initially showed little enthusiasm Charles went on to lead the Second Jacobite Rising in his father's name, taking Perth and Edinburgh almost unopposed. The small British army in Scotland under Sir John Cope chased round the Highlands, and eventually encountered Charles near Edinburgh where they were routed by a surprise attack at the Battle of Prestonpans, as celebrated in the Jacobite song "Hey, Johnny Cope, are you waking yet?". There was alarm in England, and in London a patriotic song was performed including the defiant verse: :Lord grant that Marshal Wade
:Shall by thy mighty aid
:Victory bring
:May he sedition hush,
:And like a torrent rush
:Rebellious Scots to crush
:God save the King.
This song was widely adopted and was to become the National Anthem (usually sung without that verse). After Charles held court at Holyrood palace for five weeks he overcame Lord George Murray's caution by declaring that he had Tory assurances of an English rising and the Jacobite army set for England. Under Murray's command they successfully manoeuvred past government armies to reach Derby on 4 December, only 125 miles (200 km) from a panicking London, with a resentful Charles barely on speaking terms with his general. By then Charles was advised of progress on the French invasion fleet which was then assembling at Dunkirk, but at his Council of War his previous lies about assurances were exposed. They returned to join their growing force in Scotland, with a petulant Charles refusing to take any part in running the campaign until he insisted on fighting an orthodox defensive action at the Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746 and they were finally defeated. Charles fled to France blaming everything on the treachery of his officers and making a dramatic if humiliating escape disguised as Flora Macdonald's "lady's maid". Cumberland's forces crushed the rebellion and effectively ended Jacobitism as a serious political force in Britain.

Decline of Jacobitism

Jacobitism entered permanent decline after the "Forty-Five" rebellion. The French made every effort to rescue Jacobite chieftains as well as Charles, and gave him a hero's welcome back to France, but soon tired of his badgering them to provide a renewed assault on the Hanoverians. After French victories knocked the Netherlands out of the war, the British offered reasonable peace terms and made the expulsion of Charles from France a precondition of negotiations. Charles ignored the French court's order to depart, continued to demand military action and support for his extravagant lifestyle and flaunted his presence around Paris as peace negotiations for the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle got under way. After British complaints the French government lost patience with Charles and in December 1748 he was seized on his way to the Opéra and briefly jailed before being expelled.

The Elibank plot

From 1749 to 1751 Charles laid the groundwork for a rising in England including a visit to London in 1750 when he conferred with the Jacobite leaders and considered an assault on the Tower of London as well as converting to Anglicanism. The English were clear that they would not move without foreign assistance, and Charles turned to Frederick II of Prussia. While Frederick was indifferent to the Jacobite cause he made diplomatic use of the opportunity, and appointed the Earl Marischal as his ambassador to Paris, in a position to keep him informed and veto any plans. Andrew Murray of Elibank, the liaison between Charles and the plotters, finally realised there was no hope of foreign assistance and ended the conspiracy, but by then Charles had sent two exiled Scots as agents to prepare the clans. They were betrayed by Aleistair Ruadh MacDonell of Glengarry, a spy in Charles' entourage, and while one was arrested the other barely escaped. Typically Charles responded to the failure by denouncing his comrades, drunkenness and beating his mistress. Finally, in a dispute with Marischal and the English conspirators in 1754 a drunken Charles apparently threatened to publish their names for having "betrayed" him, finally forcing his supporters to abandon the Jacobite cause. The English Jacobites stopped sending funds and by 1760 Charles had returned to Catholicism and to relying on the Papacy to support his lifestyle.

Crushing of the clans

In an effort to prevent further trouble in the Scottish Highlands, the government outlawed many cultural practices in order to destroy the warrior clan system. The Act of Proscription incorporating the Disarming Act and the Dress Act required all swords to be surrendered to the government and prohibited wearing of tartans or kilts. The Tenures Abolition Act ended the feudal bond of military service and the Heritable Jurisdictions Act removed the virtually sovereign power the chiefs had over their clan. Laws tried to end use of the Gaelic language. The extent of enforcement of the prohibitions was variable and sometimes related to a clan's support of the government during the rebellion. Government troops were stationed in the Highlands and built more roads and barracks to better control the region, with a new fortress at Fort George to the east of Inverness which still serves as a base for Highland Regiments of the British Army. Highland clans found a way back to legitimacy by providing regiments to fight overseas in the Hanoverian cause.

Henry IX

When Charles died in 1788 the Stuart claim to the throne passed to his younger brother Henry, who had become a Roman Catholic cardinal, and now styled himself King Henry IX. After coming into financial difficulty during the French Revolution, he was granted a stipend by George III. However he never actually surrendered his claims to the throne. Following the death of Henry in 1807, the Jacobite claims passed to those excluded by the Act of Settlement: initially the House of Savoy, and then, through a daughter, to the House of Bavaria. Franz, Duke of Bavaria is the current Jacobite heir. Neither he nor any of his predecessors since 1807 have pursued their claim, although his father was known to wear the Stuart tartan on occasion.

Outcome

What began with the English parliament asserting a new authority and William looking to expand alliances against France quickly developed into a major distraction, with William being forced to focus attention on Ireland and Scotland, and parliament having to fund the mercenaries needed to overcome the Jacobites. This distraction helped keep Britain from intervening on the continent and contributed to twenty years of peace in Europe, while continuing unrest forced the British state to develop repressive strategies with networks of spies and informers as well as increasing its standing army. Nationalism was bolstered in both Ireland and Scotland, but was then set back by association with the catastrophic failure of Jacobitism. While it increasingly appealed to the disaffected, Jacobitism inherently bowed to higher authority and thus reinforced the social order. It left the British state strengthened to deal with the more revolutionary movements that developed later in the 18th century.

Romantic revival

Jacobitism became a remnant of hidden relics. It was remembered in folk songs and became the subject of romantic poetry and literature, notably the work of Robert Burns and Walter Scott. Walter Scott combined romantic Jacobitism with an appreciation of the practical benefits of the Hanoverian government, and in 1822 he arranged a pageantry of reinvented Scottish traditions for the visit of King George IV to Scotland when George IV visited Edinburgh and dressed as a tubby kilted successor to his distant relative Bonnie Prince Charlie. The tartan pageantry was immensely popular and the kilt became Scotland's National Dress.

Jacobite Claimants to the Thrones of England, Scotland, (France), and Ireland

- James II and VII (February 6, 1685 – September 16, 1701).
- James III and VIII (September 16, 1701 – January 1, 1766), James Francis Edward Stuart, also known as the Chevalier de St. George or as the Old Pretender.
- Charles III (January 1, 1766 – January 31, 1788), Charles Edward Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Chevalier, or as the Young Pretender.
- Henry IX and I (January 31, 1788 – July 13, 1807). Since Henry's death, none of the Jacobite heirs has actually claimed the throne. They are as follows (given with their Jacobite regnal titles):
- Charles IV (ex-King Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia (July 13, 1807 – October 6, 1819), who was descended from the youngest daughter of Charles I).
- Victor (King Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia) (October 6, 1819 – January 10, 1824), his brother.
- Mary III and II¹ (Maria Beatrice, Princess of Sardinia and later by marriage Duchess of Modena) (January 10, 1824 – September 15, 1840), his daughter.
- Francis I (Francis V of Habsburg-Este, Duke of Modena) (September 15, 1840 – November 20, 1875), her son.
- Mary IV and III¹ (Maria Theresia, Princess of Modena and later Queen consort of Bavaria) (November 20, 1875 – February 3, 1919), his niece.
- Rupert (or Robert I and IV, Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria) (February 3, 1919 – August 2, 1955), her son.
- Albert (Albrecht, Duke of Bavaria) (August 2, 1955 – July 8, 1996), his son.
- Francis II (Franz, Duke of Bavaria) (July 8, 1996 – present), his son. ¹Mary III/II and Mary IV/III were numbered in such a way because some Jacobites regard Elizabeth I of England as illegitimate, and therefore consider Mary Queen of Scots to have been the rightful Queen of England from the death of Mary I.

Future descent after the Duke of Bavaria

The heir presumptive of Franz, Duke of Bavaria, is his younger brother
- Prince Max of Bavaria, Duke in Bavaria. Then his daughter
- Sophie, Hereditary Princess of Liechtenstein, and then her eldest son
- Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein, born 24 May 1995 in London. The first heir in the Jacobite line born in the British Isles since James III and VIII, The Old Pretender in 1688.

Alternative Successions

While Franz, Duke of Bavaria, is the most universally acknowledged Stuart heir there are two others. If one discounts the marriage of the Duke of Bavaria's ancestress Maria Beatrice of Savoy as being invalid in British law (she married her uncle) then the succession would have passed from her to her younger sister Maria Teresa who married the Duke of Parma. Her representative today is HRH The Infanta Alicia, dowager Duchess of Calabria (b. 1917) and mother of the heir of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The second alternative succession is rather surprising to many. In the book The Highland Clans, by The Honourable Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk it is stated that "by the fourteenth century it had become common law [in both England and Scotland] that a person who was not born in the liegeance of the Sovereign, nor naturalized, could not have the capacity to succeed as an heir. He was in the strictest sense "illegitimate," though not of course born out of wedlock. This legal incapacity of aliens to be heirs applied to all inheritances, whether honours or lands. The effect of the succession opening to a foreigner was that, if he had not been naturalized or if his case was not covered by some special statute, the succession passed to the next heir "of the blood," who thus became the only "lawful" heir. It was of course always open to the Sovereign to confer an honor or an estate on a foreigner; the rule of law merely prevented aliens from being "lawful heirs" to existing inheritances. This "common law" principle was rigorously applied until the Whig Revolution of 1688 after which it was gradually done away with by the mid-nineteenth century. It was precisely because of this law that Queen Anne found it necessary to pass special legislation naturalizing all alien-born potential royal heirs under the "Act of Settlement" provisions. But, of course, from the Jacobite point of view, no new statute could be passed after 1688, and the old law remained static until the death of Cardinal York [King Henry IX] in 1807. At that time, Henry IX's nearest heir in blood under this argument was not as is sometimes supposed the King of Sardinia, for he had not the legal capacity to be an heir in Britain, unless naturalized which he was not. The nearest British-born heir of Henry IX would have been, in fact, George III, hence his son could indeed legitimately claim to be a Jacobite monarch as portrayed during the visit of King George IV to Scotland. Thus, following this argument, the de jure and legitimist heir to the crown of Great Britain would, ironically, be the de facto sovereign Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. However, this argument is weakened by the fact that James I and VI had been born in Scotland, which was not then under the liegeance of the English Crown, but had been allowed to succeed to the English throne without opposition in 1603. Under that argument the heir to the throne of England would be Michael Abney-Hastings, 14th Earl of Loudoun.

External links

- [http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/lennich/jacobite.htm The Jacobites]
- [http://jacobite.ca/ The Jacobite Heritage]
- [http://DefendersOfScotland.org/ Defenders Of Scotland]
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/ni/ennis_newt.shtml BBC-History Williamite Wars]
- [http://www.electricscotland.com/history/genhist/index.html General History of the Highlands] Category:Jacobitism Category:Rival Successions ja:ジャコバイト

Jacobean era

The Jacobean era refers to a period in English history that coincides with the reign of James I (1603 – 1625). The Jacobean era succeeds the Elizabethan age and specifically denotes a style of architecture, visual arts, decorative arts, and literature that is predominant of that period. In literature, some of Shakespeare's most powerful plays are written in that period, as well as those by John Webster and Ben Jonson. Ben Jonson also contributed to some of the era's best poetry, together with John Donne and the Cavalier poets. In prose, the most representative works are found in those of Francis Bacon and the King James Bible. Category:Historical eras Category:History of Britain

Jacobin Club

The Jacobin Club was the most famous of the political clubs of the French Revolution. Among its most prominent members were Jean-Paul Marat and Robespierre. It originated as the Club Breton, formed at Versailles as a group of Breton deputies to the Estates General of 1789. Initially moderate, it soon became associated with what became known during that period as left-wing politics. It broadened its membership over the next few years—first to professionals outside of political office, and then even more broadly—and became, during the Reign of Terror, one of the most powerful institutions in France. At the height of its influence, there were between five and eight thousand chapters throughout France, with a membership estimated at 500,000 in 5,500 local clubs.[http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9043200] After the end of the Terror in 1794, the club was closed and some of its members were executed. To this day, the terms Jacobin and Jacobinism are used as pejoratives for left-wing revolutionary politics.

Birth of

Formed shortly after the Estates General was convened, the club was at first composed exclusively of deputies from Brittany, but was soon joined by others from various parts of France, and counted among its early members Mirabeau, Sieyès, Barnave, Pétion, the Abbé Grégoire, Charles Lameth, Alexandre Lameth, Robespierre, the duc d'Aiguillon, and La Revellière-Lépeaux. It also had an Indian ruler Tipu Sultan among its ranks. At this time its meetings occurred in secret and few traces remain of what took place at them.

Fall of Monarchy

After the émeute of 5 October and 6, 1789, the club, still entirely composed of deputies, followed the National Constituent Assembly to Paris, where it rented the refectory of the monastery of the Jacobins in the Rue St Honoré the seat of the Assembly. The name "Jacobins", given in France to the Dominicans (because their first house in Paris was in the Rue St Jacques), was first applied to the club in ridicule by its enemies. The title assumed by the club itself, after the promulgation of the constitution of 1791, was Société des amis de la constitution séants aux Jacobins a Paris, which was changed on September 21, 1792, after the fall of the monarchy, to Société des Jacobins, amis de la liberté et de l'égalité. It occupied successively the refectory, the library, and the chapel of the monastery.

Paris

Once transferred to Paris, the club underwent rapid modifications. The first step was its expansion by the admission as members or associates of others besides deputies; Arthur Young entered the Club in this manner on January 18, 1790. On February 8, 1790 the society became formally constituted on this broader basis by the adoption of the rules drawn up by Barnave, which were issued with the signature of the duc d'Aiguillon, the president. The objects of the club were defined as: # to discuss in advance questions to be decided by the National Assembly # to work for the establishment and strengthening of the constitution in accordance with the spirit of the preamble (that is, of respect for legally constituted authority and the Rights of Man) # to correspond with other societies of the same kind which should be formed in the realm.

Standards & practices

At the same time the rules of order and forms of election were settled, and the constitution of the club determined. There were to be a president, elected every month, four secretaries, a treasurer, and committees elected to superintend elections and presentations, the correspondence, and the administration of the club. Any member who by word or action showed that his principles were contrary to the constitution and the rights of man was to be expelled, a rule which later on facilitated the "purification" of the society by the expulsion of its more moderate elements. By the 7th article the club decided to admit as associates similar societies in other parts of France and to maintain with them a regular correspondence. This last provision was of far-reaching importance. By August 10, 1790 there were already one hundred and fifty-two affiliated clubs; the attempts at counter-revolution led to a great increase of their number in the spring of 1791, and by the close of the year the Jacobins had a network of branches all over France. It was this widespread yet highly centralised organization that gave to the Jacobin Club its formidable power. At the outset the Jacobin Club was not distinguished by unconventional political views. The somewhat high subscription confined its membership to well-off men, and to the last it was—so far as the central society in Paris was concerned—composed almost entirely of professional men, such as Robespierre, or well-to-do bourgeois, like Santerre. From the first, however, other elements were present. Besides Louis Philippe, duc de Chartres (afterwards king of the French), liberal aristocrats of the type of the duc d'Aiguillon, the prince de Broglie, or the vicomte de Noailles, and the bourgeois who formed the mass of the members, the club contained such figures as "Père" Michel Gerard, a peasant proprietor from Tuel-en-Montgermont, in Brittany, whose rough common sense was admired as the oracle of popular wisdom, and whose countryman’s waistcoat and plaited hair were later on to become the model for the Jacobin fashion.

Changes

The provincial branches were from the first far more democratic, though in these too the leadership was usually in the hands of members of the educated or propertied classes. The earliest network outside Paris was formed in the south-west and the Mediterranean Midi, where members sometimes took over the premises, and rituals, of religious lay confraternities. In some areas there was continuity with ancien régime Masonic lodges. Large numbers of Jacobin clubs were established in the north between 1793 and 1794. The greatest concentration, however, was in the south-east: in the Var, 92 per cent of communes had a Jacobin club by 1794. Up to the very eve of the republic, the club ostensibly supported the monarchy; it took no part in the petition of 17 July 1790 for the dethronement of King Louis XVI; nor had it any official share even in the insurrections of 20 June and 10 August 1792 (see 10th of August (French Revolution)); it only formally recognized the republic on 21 September 1792. But the character and extent of the club's influence cannot be gauged by its official acts alone, and long before it emerged as the principal focus of the Reign of Terror; its character had been profoundly changed by the secession of its more moderate elements, some to found the Club of 1789, some in 1791—among them Barnave, the Lameths, Duport and Bailly—to found the club of the Feuillants scoffed at by their former friends as the club monarchique. The main cause of this change was the admission of the public to the sittings of the club, which began on 14 October 1791. The result is described in a report of the Department of Paris on "the state of the empire", presented on 12 June 1792, at the request of Roland, the minister of the interior, and signed by the duc de La Rochefoucauld, which ascribes to the Jacobins all the woes of the state. "There exists", it runs, :in the midst of the capital committed to our care a public pulpit of defamation, where citizens of every age and both sexes are admitted day by day to listen to a criminal propaganda. . . . This establishment, situated in the former house of the Jacobins, calls itself a society; but it has less the aspect of a private society than that of a public spectacle: vast tribunes are thrown open for the audience; all the sittings are advertised to the public for fixed days and hours, and the speeches made are printed in a special journal and lavishly distributed. In this society—according to this government report—all authorities are calumniated and all the organs of the law bespattered with abuse, and even taking up arms is promoted; as to its power, it exercises "by its influence, its affiliations and its correspondence a veritable ministerial authority, without title and without responsibility, while leaving to the legal and responsible authorities only the shadow of power" (Schmidt, Tableaux i. 78, etc.). The constituency to which the club was henceforth responsible, and from which it derived its power, was in fact the sans-culottes of Paris—cosmopolitans and starving workpeople—who crowded its tribunes. To this audience, and not primarily to the members of the club, the speeches of the orators were addressed and by its verdict they were judged. In the earlier stages of the Revolution the mob had been satisfied with the fine platitudes of the philosophes and the vague promise of a political millennium; but as the chaos in the body politic grew, and with it the appalling material misery, it began to clamour for the blood of the traitors in office by whose corrupt machinations the millennium was delayed, and only those orators were listened to who pandered to its suspicions. Hence the elimination of the moderate elements from the club; hence the ascendancy of Marat, and finally of Robespierre, the secret of whose power was that they really shared the suspicions of the populace, to which they gave a voice and which they did not shrink from translating into action.

The ascendancy of Robespierre

After the fall of the monarchy Robespierre was in effect the Jacobin Club; for to the tribunes he was the oracle of political wisdom, and by his standard all others were judged. With his fall the Jacobins, too, came to an end. Not the least singular thing about the Jacobins is the very slender material basis on which their overwhelming power rested. Some groaned under their autocracy, which they compared to that of the Inquisition, with its system of espionage and denunciations which no one was too illustrious or too humble to escape. Yet it was reckoned by competent observers that, at the height of the Terror, the Jacobins could not command a force of more than 3000 men in Paris. But the secret of their strength was that, in the midst of the general disorganisation, they alone were organised. The police agent Dutard, in a report to the minister Garat (30 April 1793), describing an episode in the Palais Egalité (Royal), adds: "Why did a dozen Jacobins strike terror into two or three hundred aristocrats? It is that the former have a rallying-point and that the latter have none". When the jeunesse dorée did at last organise themselves, they had little difficulty in flogging the Jacobins out of the cafés into comparative silence. Long before this the Girondin government had been urged to meet organisation by organisation, force by force; and it is clear from the daily reports of the police agents that even a moderate display of energy would have saved the National Convention from the humiliation of being dominated by a club, and the French Revolution from the Terror. But though the Girondins were fully conscious of this, they were too timid, or too convinced of the ultimate triumph of their own persuasive eloquence, to act. In the session of April 30, 1793 a proposal was made to move the Convention to Versailles out of reach of the Jacobins, and Buzot declared that it was "impossible to remain in Paris" so long as "this abominable haunt" should exist; but the motion was not carried, and the Girondins remained to become the victims of the Jacobins. Meanwhile other political clubs could only survive so long as they were content to be the shadows of the powerful organisation of the Rue St Honoré. The Feuillants had been suppressed on August 18, 1792. The turn of the Cordeliers came so soon as its leaders showed signs of revolting against Jacobin supremacy, and no more startling proof of this ascendancy could be found than the ease with which Hébert and his fellows were condemned and the readiness with which the Cordeliers, after a feeble attempt at protest, acquiesced in the verdict. The apology usually put forward for the Jacobins by republican writers of later times, according to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Brittanica, is that France was menaced by civil war within, and by a coalition of hostile powers without, meaning the "discipline" of the Terror was perhaps necessary if France was to be welded into a united force capable of resisting this double peril.

Fall from power

The Jacobin Club was closed after the fall of Robespierre on 9 Thermidor of the year III (July 29, 1794) and some of its members were executed. An attempt was made to re-open the club, which was joined by many of the enemies of the Thermidorians, but on 21 Brumaire, year III (November 11, 1794), it was definitively closed. Its members and their sympathizers were scattered among the cafés, where a ruthless war of sticks and chairs was waged against them by the young "aristocrats" known as the jeunesse dorée. Nevertheless the Jacobins survived, in a somewhat subterranean fashion, emerging again in the club of the Panthéon, founded on November 25, 1795, and suppressed in the following February (see Babeuf). The last attempt to reorganise Jacobin adherents was the foundation of the Réunion d'amis de l'égalité et de la liberté, in July 1799, which had its headquarters in the Salle du Manège of the Tuileries, and was thus known as the Club du Manège. It was patronized by Barras, and some two hundred and fifty members of the two councils of the legislature were enrolled as members, including many notable ex-Jacobins. It published a newspaper called the Journal des Libres, proclaimed the apotheosis of Robespierre and Babeuf, and attacked the Directory as a royauté pentarchique. But public opinion was now preponderatingly moderate or royalist, and the club was violently attacked in the press and in the streets, the suspicions of the government were aroused; it had to change its meeting-place from the Tuileries to the church of the Jacobins (Temple of Peace) in the Rue du Bac, and in August it was suppressed, after barely a month’s existence. Its members revenged themselves on the Directory by supporting Napoleon Bonaparte. The judgement of a later generation of Parisians can be seen in a Latin quatrain composed in the 19th century for a market situated near the club house: :Impia Tortorum longas hic turba furores, :sanguinis innocui, non satiata aluit. :Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro, :mors ubi dira vita salusque patent. :(Here the impious clamor of the torturers, :insatiate, fed its rage for innocent blood. :Now happy is the land, destroyed the pit of horror; :and where grim death stalked, life and health are revealed)

References

That Britannica article, in turn, gives the following references:
- The most important source of information for the history of the Jacobins is FA Aulard's La société des Jacobins, Recueil de documents (6 volumes, Paris, 1889, etc.), where a critical bibliography will be found. This collection does not contain all the printed sources—notably the official Journal of the Club is omitted—but these sources, when not included, are indicated. The documents published are furnished with valuable explanatory notes.
- See also WA Schmidt, Tableaux de la révolution française (3 volumes, Leipzig, 1867 - 1870), notably for the reports of the secret police, which throw much light on the actual working of Jacobin propaganda.
- [http://www.d.umn.edu/~aroos/jacobins.html /jacobins.html], on the site of Anna Marie Roos, University of Minnesota, Duluth
- [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255/kat_anna/jacobins.html The Jacobins] Mount Holyoke college course site Category:French Revolution ja:ジャコバン派

1794

1794 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar).

Events

- February 11 - 1st session of the United States Senate is open to the public.
- March 14 - Eli Whitney is granted a patent for the cotton gin.
- March 27 - The United States Government authorized the building of the first six United States Navy vessels (in 1797 the first three frigates, USS United States, USS Constellation and USS Constitution went into service), not to be confused with October 13, 1775 which is observed as the [http://www.history.navy.mil/birthday.htm Navy's Birthday].
- April 5 - Execution of Georges Danton
- April 30 - Battle of Boulou between French and Spanish forces.
- May 8 - French chemist Antoine Lavoisier is executed by guillotine.
- May 18 - Battle of Tourcoing between French and British forces.
- May 28-June 1 - The Glorious First of June (Battle of Ushant), naval battle between British and French.
- June 4 - British troops capture Port-au-Prince in Haiti.
- June 26 - Battle of Fleurus between French forces and those Austria.
- July 13 - Battle of the Vosges between French forces and those of Prussia and Austria
- July 27 - French Revolution: French Convention ousts Maximilien Robespierre - he is arrested when he encourages the execution of more than 17,000 "enemies of the Revolution."
- July 28 - Maximilien Robespierre is guillotined in front of a cheering crowd, for sending thousands of others to a similar fate during the French Revolution.
- August 7 - Whiskey Rebellion begins: Farmers in the Monongahela Valley of Pennsylvania rebel against the federal tax on liquor and distilled drinks.
- August 20 - Battle of Fallen Timbers - American troops force a confederacy of Shawnee, Mingo, Delaware, Wyandot, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa and Potawatomi warriors into a disorganized retreat.
- October - Fort Wayne founded in what is now the U.S. state of Indiana.
- October 2 - Battle of Aldenhoven between French forces and those Austria.
- November 19 - The United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign Jay's Treaty, which attempts to clear up some of the lingering problems left over from the American Revolutionary War.
- November 20 - Battle of St-Laurent-de-la-Muga fought between French and Spanish forces.

Unknown dates

- Horatio Nelson loses a right eye at Calvi in Corsica
- Coffee forbidden by royal decree in Sweden
- France occupies Aachen.

Ongoing events

- French Revolution (1789-1799)
- French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802)-First Coalition

Births

- February 20 - William Carleton, Irish novelist (d. 1869)
- February 21 - Antonio López de Santa Anna, Mexican general and President of Mexico (d. 1876)
- April 10 - Matthew Calbraith Perry, American commodore (d. 1858)
- May 17 - Anna Brownell Jameson, British writer (d. 1860)
- May 27 - Cornelius Vanderbilt, American entrepreneur (d. 1877)
- July 5 - Sylvester Graham, American nutritionist and inventor (d. 1851)
- November 3 - William Cullen Bryant, American poet (d. 1878)
- Charles Thomas Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1868)

Deaths

- January 4 - Nicolas Luckner, Marshal of France (executed) (b. 1722)
- January 6 - Louis d'Elbée, French Revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1752)
- January 8 - Justus Möser, German statesman (b. 1720)
- January 16 - Edward Gibbon, English historian (b. 1737)
- January 28 - Henri de la Rochejaquelein, French Revolutionary leader (b. 1772)
- January 31 - Marriott Arbuthnot, British admiral (b. 1711)
- March 24 - Jacques Hébert, French Revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1757)
- March 28 - Marquis de Condorcet, French mathematician, philosopher, and political scientist (died in prison) (b. 1743)
- April 5 - Georges Danton, French Revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1759)
- April 5 - Camille Desmoulins, French Revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1760)
- April 5 - Marie Jean Hérault de Séchelles, French Revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1759)
- April 5 - Fabre d'Églantine, French dramatist and revolutionary (executed) (b. 1750)
- April 5 - François Joseph Westermann, French Revolutionary leader and general (executed)
- April 13 - Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, French Revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1763)
- April 13 - Lucile Duplessis, wife of Camille Desmoulins (executed) (b. [1770]])
- April 18 - Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1714)
- April 23 - Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, French statesman (executed) (b. 1721)
- April 27 - Sir William Jones, British philologist (b. 1746)
- May 8 - Antoine Lavoisier, French chemist (executed) (b. 1743)
- June 14 - Francis Seymour-Conway, 1st Marquess of Hertford, Viceroy of Ireland (b. 1718)
- June 17 - Marguerite-Élie Guadet, French Revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1753)
- June 18 - François Nicolas Leonard Buzot, French Revolutionary leader (suicide) (b. 1760)
- June 18 - James Murray, British military officer and administrator
- June 27 - Wenzel Anton Graf Kaunitz, Austrian statesman (b. 1711)
- June 27 - Philippe de Noailles, duc de Mouchy, French soldier (executed) (b. 1715)
- June 27 - Charles-Louis-Victor, prince de Broglie, French soldier (executed) (b. 1756)
- July 17 - John Roebuck, English inventor (b. 1718)
- July 23 - Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais, French politician and general (executed) (b. 1760)
- July 25, André Chénier, French writer (executed) (b. 1762)
- July 28 - Maximilien Robespierre, French Revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1758)
- July 28 - Augustin Robespierre, French Revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1763)
- July 28 - Louis de Saint-Just, French Revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1767)
- July 28 - François Hanriot, French Revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1761)
- August 6 - Henry Bathurst, 2nd Earl Bathurst, British politician (b. 1714)
- September 4 - John Hely-Hutchinson, Irish statesman (b. 1724)
- September 15 - Abraham Clark, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1725)
- September 25 - Paul Rabaut, French Huguenot pastor (b. 1718)
- November 3 - François-Joachim de Pierre de Bernis, French cardinal and statesman (b. 1715)
- November 15 - John Witherspoon, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1723)
- November 16 - Jean-Baptiste Carrier, French Revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1756)
- November 22 - John Alsop, American Continental Congressman (b. 1724)
- November 28 - Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, Prussian army officer (b. 1730) Category:1794 ko:1794년 ms:1794 simple:1794

Totalitarian democracy

"Totalitarian democracy" is a term coined by Israeli historian J. L. Talmon to refer to a system of government in which lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation state whose citizens, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of the government.

Criticism of Rousseau's ideas

Talmon's 1952 book The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, which discusses the transformation of a state in which traditional values and articles of faith shape the role of government into one in which social utility takes absolute precedence. His work is a criticism of the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a French philosopher whose ideas influenced the French Revolution. In The Social Contract, Rousseau contends that the interests of the individual and the state are one and the same, and it is the state's responsibility to implement the general will. The political neologism messianic democracy also derives from Talmon's introduction to this work: :Indeed, from the vantage point of the mid twentieth century the history of the last hundred and fifty years looks like a systematic preparation for the headlong collision between empirical and liberal democracy on the one hand, and totalitarian Messianic democracy on the other, in which the world crisis of to-day consists. [http://www.coloradocollege.edu/Dept/PS/Finley/PS425/reading/Talmon.html] In a similar vein, Herbert Marcuse, in his 1964 book One-Dimensional Man, describes a society in which, in his words, "…liberty can be made into a powerful instrument of domination. … Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves."

Differences in democratic philosophy

The philosophy of totalitarian democracy, according to Talmon, is based on a top-down view of society, which sees an absolute and perfect political truth to which all reasonable humans are driven. It is contended that not only is it beyond the individual to arrive at this truth independently, it is his duty and responsibility to aid his compatriots in realizing it. Moreover, any public or private activities which do not forward this goal have no useful purpose, sap time and energy from those which do, and must be eliminated. Thus economic and social endeavors, which tend to strengthen the collective, are seen as valuable, whereas education and religion, which tend to strengthen the individual, are seen as counterproductive. "You cannot be a citizen and a Christian at the same time," says Talmon, referring to Rousseau's arguments, "for the loyalties clash." In his paper Advances in Chinese Social Sciences (2001), Mao Shoulong, a professor of Public Policy at Beijing University, takes a different position. He posits that "totalitarian democracy", or what he terms equality-oriented democracy, is founded on the idea that it is possible, and necessary, that the complete rights and freedoms of people ought not be held hostage to traditions and social arrangements. Shoulong recognises that the term "totalitarian" has a connotation attached to it, coined as it was by Benito Mussolini, the Second World War Italian dictator, to describe his own fascist government. He sees the proponents of liberal democracy (or "Western" democracy) as holding a negative attitude to the world and believing that force is not an appropriate way to achieve a goal no matter the value of that goal. He prefers the term freedom-oriented democracy to describe such a political entity.

Fundamental requirements

A totalitarian democracy, says Talmon, accepts exclusive territorial sovereignty as its right. It retains full power of expropriation and full power of imposition, i.e., the right of control over everything and everyone. Maintenance of such power, in the absence of full support of the citizenry, requires the forceful suppression of any dissenting element except that which the government purposefully permits or organizes. Liberal democrats, who see political strength as growing from the bottom up (cf: "grass roots"), reject in principle the idea of coercion in shaping political will, but the totalitarian democratic state holds it as an ongoing imperative. A totalitarian democratic state is said to maximize its control over the lives of its citizens, using the dual rationale of general will (i.e., "public good") and majority rule. An argument can be made that in some circumstances it is actually the political, economic, and military élite who interpret the general will to suit their own interests. Again, however, it is the imperative of achieving the overarching goal of a political nirvana that shapes the vision of the process, and the citizen is expected to contribute to the best of his abilities; the general is not asked to guide the plow, nor is the farmer asked to lead the troops. It can approach the condition of totalitarianism; totalitarian states can also approach the condition of democracy, or at least majoritarianism. Citizens of a totalitarian democratic state, even when aware of their true powerlessness, may support their government. The Nazi government that led Germany into World War II appears to have had the support of the majority of Germans, and this view holds that it was not until much later, after Germany's losses began to mount, that support for Hitler began to fade. Josef Stalin was practically worshipped by hundreds of millions of Soviet citizens, many of whom have not changed their opinion even today, and his status ensured his economic and political reforms would be carried out.

Cold War and socio-economic illustrations

The period of the Cold War following WWII saw great ideological polarization between the so-called "Free World" and the Communist states. Yet the irony was, and is, that both Eastern and Western governments were faced with the same barriers in achieving their objectives - the objections of their own citizens. In the East, religious and intellectual repression was met with increasing resistance, and the Hungarian revolt of 1956 and Alexander Dubček's Prague Spring in 1968 are two well-known acts of defiance. In the United States, in the meantime, alleged Communists and Communist sympathizers were being investigated by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Shortly after the time of Talmon's book, the Vietnam War would bring active hostility between the American government and many of its citizens. One concept fundamental to both "liberal" and "totalitarian" democracy is that of liberty. According to Talmon, totalitarian democracy sees freedom as something which can be achieved only in the long term, and only through collective effort; the political goal of ultimate order and ultimate harmony will bring ultimate freedom. In addressing every aspect of the lives of its citizens, the totalitarian democratic state has the power to ensure that all material needs are met from cradle to grave, and all that is required of the citizen is to carry out his role, whatever it may be, to the best of his ability. Liberal democracy, on the other hand, posits freedom as something which can and should be achieved by the individual in the short term, even at the expense of things such as material well-being, and sees as an element of this freedom a "freedom from government" wherein the individual is able to exercise "freedom" in his own terms to the extent that they do not contravene the law. Proponents of both kinds of democracy argue that their particular approach is the best one for the citizens of their respective countries. It is Mao Shoulong's contention that "equality-oriented democracy recognises the value of freedom but holds that (it) can't be attained by individual efforts," but rather, by collective efforts. He argues that while equality-oriented democracy stresses the value of equality over individual freedoms, the reverse is true for freedom-oriented democracy, and in each case, the state will move either to ensure equality by limiting individual freedom, or to ensure individual freedom by giving up equality. Some critics of this view may argue that equality and individual freedoms are inseparable, and that one cannot exist (or be sustained) without the other. Other critics argue that equality can only be ensured by continuous coercion, while ensuring individual freedom only requires force against coercive individuals and external states. Shoulong also holds that a law is not valid if it does not have the approval of the public. Laws passed by the state do not require approval by the citizen on a case-by-case basis, and it can be easily argued that some laws currently in place in some countries purporting to be liberal democracies do not have the approval of the majority of citizens. Cynics frequently note that in many so-called democracies, individuals are politically free only once every two or four years, when they vote for their representatives.

Modern contexts and Western powers

It would be unproductive to permanently consign modern governments to boxes labelled either "liberal" or "totalitarian," for most governments can be found someplace between, and most, moreover, have either subtly or dramatically shifted positions over the decades. Instead governments should be placed on a continuous spectrum from liberal to totalitarian, with careful documentation of the point in time for any particular consignment. For example, at the beginning of the 20th Century, most Western nations did not have universal suffrage. One needs only to examine who was allowed to vote. In the U.K., for example, fully half the population was disenfranchised until 1930, when women were finally able to vote. In many parts of the United States, it was not until 1920 that white women were granted the right to cast a ballot, and while the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution had nominally granted the vote regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude", the Jim Crow laws effectively denied the vote to African Americans in the U.S. South and it was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that they had an effective means to exercise their franchise. Moreover, a different aspect of 'totalitarian democracy' is portrayed by powerful states that function by democratic principles internally, but act with force and hegemony outside their borders. Both the former Soviet Union and the United States have enjoyed so-called "superpower" status and both have had a long, well-documented history of acting both overtly and covertly outside of their borders to "protect the national interest". The United States espouses and prescribes the adoption of its own internal democratic principles by other nations. But even should all nations develop and embrace standardized democratic principles and practices, some academics think that because whatever nation has the military or economic capacity to set expectations for the behaviors of other nations has historically chosen to do so, modern democracies will continue to do so in the future. This is a rather common external interpretation of American policy, a view which holds that America's Dulles-Kennan-influenced social, military, and economic foreign policies are equivalent to hegemony, and bear no relationship to the internal democratic processes by which the US elects its representatives. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, few Western governments would deny the label of liberal democracy, and in many respects, it is a fair analysis. Governments are more open and responsive to the concerns of their citizenry than has traditionally been the case. At the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, the ubiquity of the mass media, and in particular, its immediacy and visual power, have been influential in shaping political policy in nations around the world. Modern nations, whether they like it or not, have become more accountable, not just to the rest of the world, but to their own citizens for their actions, and it has become increasingly difficult to get away with objectionable behavior such as the 1991 Kurdish massacre in Iraq.

External links

- Extensive excerpts from Talmon's [http://www.coloradocollege.edu/Dept/PS/Finley/PS425/reading/Talmon.html The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy]
- [http://www.polyarchy.org/paradigm/english/democracy.html Paradigm: from totalitarian democracy to libertarian polyarchy]
- [http://www.new-thinking.org/journal/totalitariandemocracy.html Criticizing Totalitarian Democracy: Herbert Marcuse and Alexis de Tocqueville (Zvi Tauber)]
- For more on the persistence of authoritarianism in the Middle East, see Chris Zambelis, [http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/05autumn/zambelis.htm The Strategic Implications of Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Middle East], originally in Parameters, the U.S. Army War College Quarterly, Autumn 2005.
- Category:Historiosophy

Centralisation

Centralization is the process by which the activities of an organization, particularly those regarding decision-making, become concentrated within a particular location and/or group. In political science, this refers to the concentration of a government's power - both geographically and politically, into a centralized government. See also:
- board of directors, nationalism, nation-state
- decentralisation
- centralized system
- centralization (phonetics) Category:Management category:Organizational studies and human resource management Category:Business terms

Reactionary

Reactionary (or reactionist) is a political epithet typically applied to extreme ideological conservatism, especially that which wishes to return to a real or imagined old order of things, and which is willing to use coercive means to do so. The term is primarily used as a term of opprobrium (groups rarely identify themselves as reactionary), meant to assert the idea that the opposition is based in merely reflexive politics rather than responsive and informed views. More specifically, the term "reactionary" is frequently used to refer to those who want to reverse (or prevent) some form of claimed "progressive" change. (An equivalent term would be regressivism. The term reaction is sometimes used as a general term for the program or philosophy of designated reactionaries.) It was coined in the context of the French Revolution to refer to those who wished to restore the conditions of the Ancien Régime. Through the nineteenth century, it was used to refer to those who wished to preserve feudalism or aristocratic privilege ag