Stuurman-1848_ Revolutionary Reform in The_Netherlands

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DOI: 10.1177/026569149102100402

1991 21: 445European History QuarterlySiep Stuurman

1848: Revolutionary Reform in the Netherlands

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Siep Stuurman

1848: Revolutionary Reform in theNetherlands

The Dutch merchant vessel Gertrude sailed from Batavia in the

first week of 1848. Winds were intermittent and, at best, weak,so the voyage aroundAfrica took a long time and the ship reachedSt Helena at the end of February. Some days later, having crossedthe Equator, the Dutchmen encountered an English brig. In pass-ing the Englishman signalled to them: France revolution/kingshot dead/republic. This was all they could make out.At first themen aboard the Gertrude were simply amazed.After some time,however, they decided that the message was too fantastic to be

true, and that the Englishman had obviously been pulling theirleg.Amonth later, sailing off the French coast, they learned thatthere had in fact been a revolution. Finally, in the Channel, anIrish pilot came aboard. Eagerly the Dutchmen asked for newsof their own country. Holland, the Irishman said, Holland, letme see ... yes, to be sure, from one of the small states of

Germany the king ran away too, but I dont know which king itis. This was none too clear and somewhat alarming, but inquiries

among French and Belgian fishermen did not get the Dutchmenany further. Finally, on one of the last days ofApril, a Dutch

pilot came aboard. He knew nothing about the state of Europeanpolitics but he told the crew that all was quiet in the Netherlands;there was merely a new Ministry in The Hague.

i

The reactions of the Dutch to rumours of revolution follow a

pattern: first amazement, then incredulity followed by apprehen-sion and fear, and finally relief when the play seems to be overbefore it has even really begun. In other countries revolutionstake place, but in The Hague only the Ministry is changed. This

pattern neatly fits the dominant myth of nineteenth- and twenti-

eth-century Dutch history. Gradualism, sedateness and an instinc-

European History Quarterly (SAGE, London, Newbury Park and New Delhi),Vol.

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tive distrust of wild schemes are held to be ingrained in thenational character.Adeferential attitude on the part of the popu-lar classes further serves to blunt political and social conflict. The

role of violence in politics is therefore marginal, and institutionalchange is accomplished within the safe confines of elite politics.There is an element of complacent, inward-looking nationalismin this historical myth.Asharp contrast is imagined between theDutch and those unfortunate other people who somehow lackthe good sense to keep out of trouble.2

2

There is certainly some truth in this Dutch version of a Whig

Interpretationof

History.The

politicalelites in 1848

engagedin

what we today would call successful crisis management. Thingsdid not get out of control in the French style. On the other

hand, there was a real crisis. It even exhibited some revolutionaryovertones, and resulted in a drastic transformation of the basic

political institutions of the country. The constitutional reforms of1848 laid the groundwork for the modern Dutch state as we knowit today.

Terms like gradualism and moderation are, of course, onlymeaningful in a comparative context. To say that Dutch politicsin the mid-nineteenth century were relatively placid reallyamounts to an assertion that the Netherlands was more like Brit-

ain than like France. In this context, the political crisis of 1848seems a most appropriate subject for analysis. Its coincidencewith, indeed dependence on, the tide of European revolutionmakes a comparative analysis both feasible and fruitful.

The older historiography of the Dutch crisis of 1848 largelybelongs to the genre of old-style narrative history and does not

engage in a broader analysis of the political process. The mostrecent major study is Boogmans book Rondom 1848.3 Boogmansstudy appeared in 1978 and since then no new research has been

published. Moreover, the existing historiography tends to under-play the revolutionary overtones of the political crisis and thereis no sustained analysis of the interconnection between the processof decision-making at The Hague, the broader movement of opin-ion in the country, and the rhythm of European politics. Finally,neither in the Dutch historiography nor in the general studies of1848 in Europe has there been any comparative analysis of the1848 crisis in the Netherlands.44

To put the events of 1848 in perspective I shall first give a shortoutline of the pre-1848 political system and the development of



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a Liberal opposition within it. Thence I will proceed to a some-what more detailed analysis of the political crisis in the spring andsummer of 1848, followed by a short account of the subsequentdevelopment of the political system. In the concluding section Ishall compare the course of events in the Netherlands in 1848

with those in France and Britain. By means of a comparativeanalysis I shall attempt to arrive at a more sober assessment ofthe dynamics of revolutionary reform, avoiding the opposingpitfalls of revolutionary romanticism and complacent Whiggery.The inclusion of the Dutch case can, moreover, serve to supporta more

general conjectureabout the crucial

importanceof the

relationship between the middle classes and the governing elitesin the political crises of 1848. I shall conclude with some remarkson the significance of 1848 in the larger pattern of state-formationin the Netherlands.

Liberalism in the 1840s

The post-1815 political system in the Netherlands was a bizarremixture of Napoleonic centralization and some of the features ofthe old Republic of the United Provinces.5 The former federalstructure was replaced by a monarchy, and some of the French

departments of state were retained. The Code Napol6on remainedin force until 1838, when it was supplanted by Dutch legal codeswhich closely followed the French model. (The Code Penal was

only replaced by Dutch law in the 1880s.) There was a two-chamber parliament, named the States-General for the sake oftradition. The First Chamber was composed of members of the

nobility and great notables, who were appointed by the king. The

representative element of the system was to be found solely inthe Second Chamber, and it was here that the persistence of theinstitutions and the spirit of theAncien Regime was most stronglyfelt: the members of the Chamber were elected by the Provincial

Estates, who were in turn elected by the three estates: the

nobility, the towns and the so-called landed estate.6The nobility,comprising from about 10 to about 100 persons according to prov-ince, voted directly for their representatives; but for the othertwo estates the suffrage was indirect. The landed estate elected a

college of electors, while the system for the towns was even morecumbersome. The burghers elected a college of electors which sat



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for nine years; this college elected the Stedelijke Raad whosemembers sat for life; and this council in turn elected the membersof the Provincial Estates. The closed, oligarchical character of the

system was enhanced by the fact that the lifelong members of thecouncil could, and did, hold seats in the College of Electors. Co-

optation had been a marked feature of town politics during the

Republic, and it was continued in the post-1815 system.Another

Republican practice also returned, namely that whereby the Gov-ernors of the provinces, appointees of the king, would normallyinfluence the elections. Moreover, a large proportion ofmembers

of the Second Chamberwere

also office-holders ofone sort or

another and in that capacity they were, of course, vulnerable to

government pressure. Finally, the representative bodies deliber-ated in secret. Oppositional journalism was considered a subver-sive activity, and the government frequently tried to prosecutenewspapermen for libel.

7

The king possessed a fair amount of personal power. There wasno ministerial responsibility. Monarchical centralization acted as

a countervailing power to the particularistic tendencies in thesystem of representation. The institution of the monarchy and theadministrative apparatus, the legacy of the Napoleonic period,precluded a return to the political fragmentation which had sooften paralysed the decision-making process in the Dutch Repub-lic. In their actual conduct of politics both William I (1814-40)and William II (1840-9) employed formal procedure as well asinformal tactics to get their way with the parliament and with theinterests in the country.8

8

The command of financial resources was, of course, of majorimportance. Parliamentary control of the budget was minimized

by a number of devices, like ten-year budgets and a special syndi-cate for the administration of the national debt. Moreover, the

king considered the government of the colonies a personal pre-rogative. Under the so-called Cultures System the government,

or rather the king, acted as a monopolistic landholder and com-mercial entrepreneur. There was no parliamentary control overthe finances of the West and East Indies. The sources of infor-

mation about the situation in Java, the richest and greatest of all

the overseas possessions, were wholly in government hands, there

being no independent press in the East Indies. Official reportsfrom Batavia were sometimes unreliable, and in any case arrivedwith a delay of three years. Each year the government reported



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the batig slot, the financial surplus of the East Indian adminis-tration, to Parliament, but this official surplus amounted to lessthan 20 per cent of the actual amount.9

9

King William I sometimes employed his authority to force inno-vations on the reluctant oligarchy.10 But in many fields, notablythose of appointments and taxation, the royal policies accorded

quite well with the interests of the big merchant and bankingfamilies who, together with the landed proprietors, made up thecore of the oligarchy.The Belgian revolution of 1830, part of the general European

turmoil of that period, was the first blow to this unwieldy system.In the northern Netherlands the force of the Liberal oppositionwas speedily neutralized by the patriotic backlash to the secessionof the southern part of the kingdom.&dquo; It was only towards theend of the 1830s that a durable Liberal opposition emerged. Public

opinion began to exert some influence, and an oppositional pressdeveloped; the foremost Liberal newspapers were theAlgemeenHandelsblad, based inAmsterdam, and the more radicalArnhem-

sche Courant, published in the east of the country. The men whowould occupy the centre of the stage in 1848 first caught theattention of the nation in the 1830s. One of the most radical

among them, Dirk Donker Curtius, castigated the existing systemin strident terms: &dquo;You give me this appointment, and I will getyou that place&dquo;; this shameful camaraderie usurps the towns, theBoards ofAccount, the Mint, the States-General... .12Johan Rudolf Thorbecke, who was to be the

principalarchitect

of the constitutional reforms of 1848, succinctly stated that theConstitution ought to be a national force, but noted that it wasnot. 13 The radical Liberals would often employ a political languagethat harked back to early-modern times. In all constitutions, theymaintained, three principles were present: the monarchical, thearistocratic and the democratic. The first two were certainly to befound in the Netherlands, but the third was entirely lacking. No

sound equilibrium could therefore emerge, and the influence ofthe aristocratic principle in particular tended to develop at theexpense of the interests of the burghers, the members of theindustrious middle classes. 14 The term aristocracy was frequentlyused in a rather unspecified sense, referring sometimes to a mer-cantilist elite, sometimes to the noble and patrician families, andoften simply to the political oligarchy. It also carried the odiumconveyed by the memory of the closed political system of the



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Dutch Republic. Thorbecke argued that the Netherlands, in con-trast to France and England, had never had a noble estate ofthe

realm,and that the

separate representationof the

nobilityconstituted an anomaly in the Dutch political systems. 15The constitution was partially reformed in 1840; ministers of

the Crown would henceforth be legally but not politically respon-sible. This half-hearted improvement did not satisfy the Liberal

opposition at all. They now wanted full ministerial responsibility,direct elections and full control by Parliament over finances, tax-ation and colonial affairs. The financial state of the kingdom was

indeed a shambles, with payments on the enormous national debtmaking up some 47 per cent of government expenditure. The taxburden fell heavily on the middle classes and the common people,while the rentiers and financiers paid only 17 per cent of taxrevenues. 16 The complaint that the middle ranks of society wereovertaxed was frequently voiced by Liberal newspapermen and

pamphleteers, who seldom failed to point out that the existingsystem unfairly benefited those who also monopolized the seats

of political power and patronageAnother occasion for Liberal annoyance was railway construc-

tion, which had hesitantly commenced in 1838.About 60 per centof construction costs went on the purchase of land. The law on

compulsory sale was unwieldy and favoured landed interests.Landowners could, and would, often force the railway companiesto purchase large tracts of land at inflated prices, alleging that thesmoke and ashes would damage their properties. 18After 1840 the government deficit steadily increased. The fin-

ancial reforms of 1844 certainly avoided state bankruptcy, butthey left the tax structure essentially intact and did nothing toprevent fresh financial misadvantures. Parliament, pressed byMinister Van Hall, a moderate Conservative from theAmsterdam

banking milieu, who threatened new taxes if his loan proposalwas not approved, passed the reforms by a small majority. Thosewhose

Liberalismwas

confined to financial retrenchmentwere

contented for the time being. But the Liberal press and the oppo-sition inside and outside Parliament thought the reforms a meresham. The influential and radicalArnhemsche Courant con-

demned Van Halls measures in very strong terms. 9At the close of 1844 nine members of the Second Chamber

introduced a proposal for a reformed constitution. It was drafted

by Thorbecke, who was by now the principal spokesman of the



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Liberal opposition. Thorbecke and his allies asked for direct elec-tions and ministerial responsibility. TheArnhemsche Courant sup-ported their demands and urged the citizens to petition the Parlia-ment and the king. This call to arms yielded 122 petitions with atotal number of 4520 signatures.2 The majority in Parliament,however, declined to discuss the proposal of the nine men. The

impetuous reaction of King William II was: This proposal? Never!Even if the scaffold were the alternative!21

The Liberals always contended that they spoke for the nationor the people, but also frequently stressed the pivotal role of the

middle classes. By middle classes or middle ranks they usuallymeant all those who belonged neither to the aristocracy nor tothe uncivilized multitude. This broad intermediate stratum was

also known as the burgerstand.22 This self-image was probably notfar from the truth; the adherents of Liberalism were intellectuals,

newspapermen, members of the professions, numerous aca-

demics, notables in smaller towns, merchants, some industrialists,the well-to-do farmers and some of the artisans.23 The influential

Amstel Society, a Liberal club with members all over the

country, counted some 200 adherents in the years between 1846

and 1851.Among these there were 37 lawyers, 34 merchants, 12

partners in insurance firms, 10 solicitors, 17 members of the medi-

cal profession, 11 professors, 6 teachers and 27 politicians andcivil servants. Industrial capitalism was represented only by 9manufacturers and one engineer .24 The Liberals thus did not rep-

resent a bourgeoisie in the economic sense of the term. The bigmerchants and bankers were in most cases not Liberals, but made

up the core of the established oligarchy. Industrial capitalists werefew and far between, and anyway politically not very vocal. TheLiberals certainly felt themselves to be speaking for industrial

progress, but their actual rank and file consisted of the much

broader middle rank, the respectable and industrious burgerstand.Alarge part of the small bourgeoisie as well as the prosperousfarmers would belong to this Liberal middle class, or so, at anyrate, Liberal spokesmen thought. They always took great care,however, to keep a safe distance from democracy and popularradicalism, which manifested itself chiefly in vituperative periodi-cals and tracts as well as in short-lived bread riots and tax revolts.25

In the final analysis, the middle classes were both a socio-economic substratum and a creation of Liberal discourse.26 It was



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in the fusion of these two elements that Liberalism as a politicalmovement was formed.

Liberalism,especially

radical Liberalism, was more entrenchedin the peripheral regions than in the old province of Holland,where the established patrician families had their strongholds. Ofthe four major cities in the western part of the country, onlyAmsterdam and Rotterdam produced a viable Liberal opposition,whereas The Hague and Utrecht were bulwarks of Conservatism.2In the petition movement of 1845, Groningen, Zeeland and Guel-derland were much better represented than North and South Hol-

land.28 The oppositional press exhibited a similar pattern. TheAmsterdam-basedAlgemeen Handelsblad defended a moderateLiberalism, and the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant made its

appearance on the scene only in 1844. The radical Liberal paperswere published in the outer provinces. TheArnhemsche Couranthad its headquarters inArnhem, the capital of Guelderland. Thetwo other influential radical papers were based in Vlissingen (Zee-land) and Kampen (Overijssel). In the northern provinces bothLiberalism and democratic radicalism were well developed.29 Thenine MPs who launched the reform platform of 1845 were also

overwhelmingly from the periphery; only one of them was a Hol-lander.3 Some had a typically Patriot family background.3

This regional pattern is apparently a long-term phenomenon,which can be traced back to the Patriot movement in the late

eighteenth century.32 Both the Patriots in the 1780s and the Lib-erals in the 1840s exhibited some features of a revolt of the

peripheral elites against the old establishment in the centralregion. Radical strongholds were situated in the towns of theeastern provinces and in both the towns and the countryside inthe northern provinces of Groningen and Friesland. The overall

regional pattern persisted up to the end of the nineteenth cen-tury. 33

Religious cleavages produced some further complications. The

old Dutch Reformed Church was a semi-state institution, and theChurch establishment was predominantly conservative. Prot-estants of many other varieties, as well as Jews and Catholics,were represented in the Liberal movement. The Catholics, whomade up some 40 per cent of the population and were mainlyconcentrated in the two southern provinces, had acquired full civilrights in the Batavian revolution of 1795-6. But Catholic schoolsand Church organization were still subject to severe legal con-



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straints. The great majority of the Catholics were certainly notLiberals, but there was a sizeable amount of Catholic sympathy

for some Liberal goals, especially for freedom of education andthe separation of Church and State. There were also pronouncedLiberal leanings within the local elites in some of the southerntowns. Finally, the important Catholic minority inAmsterdamincluded some Liberals who in the 1840s launched an influential

newspaper which was widely read by Catholics in all parts of the

country.Liberalism was thus situated within a complex web of political,

social, regional and religious tensions. It was not a unified move-ment, in fact it was only weakly organized in this period. Whatunited all sorts of Liberals was a common enemy, the established

elites who profited from the unfair tax system, who were concen-trated in the centre of the country and who controlled the Re-formed Church. Constitutional reform became the rallying cry ofall those who harboured discontent against the policies of the oldestablishment.

The Political Crisis of 1848

Immobility and a hardening of political tensions reinforced eachother after 1845. The material hardships of those hungry yearsled to intermittent popular violence, which was especially virulent

in 1847. Parliament and the king turned a deaf ear to the demandfor reform.35 In the autumn of 1847 only two members of theChamber supported a motion for constitutional reform.36 On his

birthday, 6 December 1847, the king, toasting the welfare of thecountry, sneered about the Liberal schemes which would cer-

tainly not do the country any good. 17 In December Van Hall,himself by no means a Liberal, was replaced in the cabinet by amore die-hard Conservative. The king announced revisions to

the Constitution, but nobody took such empty promises seriously.The nation and the government are now diametrically opposedto one another, the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant wrote in itsfirst issue of 1848.3& And theArnhemsche Courant stated that

since the reigning Conservatives were now more conservative thanever, the sitting Chamber would never be willing to pass anyreform whatsoever.39

But outside the Netherlands the storm was gathering. It was



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the victory of the revolution in Naples, in the first week of Febru-ary 1848, that provided the first hint of change. TheAlgemeenHandelsblad immediately pointed out that the king of the TwoSicilies would now be forced to grant the people much more thanwould have been gratefully accepted earlier, and concluded: This

might give some pause to princes and politicians outside Naplestoo!4 Little more than two weeks later the lesson was broughthome with even greater emphasis. The news from Paris shook thenation. The Liberal press generally took the line that timelyreform was the true antidote to violent revolution. In France the

consequences of an obdurate conservatism were there for all the

world to see.41 The Conservatives contended that order and calm

were more needful than ever before. The Handelsblad agreedwith this to some extent. In an editorial the paper warned the

opposition that it should in no case try to enlist the popular massesin the cause of reform, for the entry of the rough multitude into

politics was extremely dangerous. 42 TheArnhemsche Courant,

however, greeted with scorn the appeals for moderation andnational unity. Its editors conceded that republican ideas werenot popular with the Dutch people, who loved the House of

Orange, but then hinted darkly that this could change in the nearfuture unless the king heeded the lessons of history. 43 Faint-hearted and irresolute people were admonishing the populace tounite around the throne and the government, but this was to

reverse the proper order of things: It is not the people that mustsubmit to the government, but the government that must submitto the people.44And some of the radical democratic periodicalsused even stronger language.

In the meantime the mood in government circles was changing.In the first week of March the majority of the Second Chamberhad come to accept the urgency of reform, although MPs couldnot agree on a positive course of action.45 The cabinet meeting of29

Februaryconcerned itself

mainlywith the attitude of

Belgiumand the need to reinforce the militia.Ageneral mood of wait-and-see still predominated.~ The next day, the Dutch envoy inBrussels reported two things to The Hague: that the new regimein France was consolidating itself, and that the Belgian govern-ment had introduced a proposal to extend the franchise drastically;il vaut mieux prdvenir que detre prevenu, commented the

envoy. 47 Two days later The Hague learned in a secret missive

that the Belgian king had even contemplated abdication but was



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persuaded by the Liberal ministers to stay.~ During the first daysof March disquieting messages began to arrive at The Hague from

the envoys in Berlin, Frankfurt and finally Vienna. On 6 Marchthe Dutch Foreign Office was informed that Mettemich was

depressed (atterrd) . It was clear that some of the German

princes had started to make concessions to the opposition, andevery day the press reported new disastrous occurrences.

In the meantime, the Parliament was in session. On 7 Marchthe Minister of the Interior announced that in view of the events

in France an extra levy for the National Militia would be called.Two days later the old, modest and partial proposals for consti-tutional reform were introduced. The reaction of public opinionto these measures was negative in the extreme. In the same week

popular disturbances occurred inAmsterdam on the occasion ofthe trial of two radical-democratic journalists. During the nightof 8 March placards were posted all over the city with slogans likeDown with the Ministers and Long live the Republic. The next

daythe crowd was on the streets

again,the

policewere out

in force, but violence was avoided.Alatent tension remained,

however, marked by sporadic demonstrations and the singing ofthe Marseillaise .49 The Liberal press found the proposed reforms

totally insufficient, and the tone of their comments was decidedlyhostile. The Ministry, stated theArnhemsche Courant on 12March, was inexperienced, unpopular and generally distrusted inthe country. The European situation was perilous: We, who are

no advocates of violent revolutions and who do not long for arepublic, we pray: May God grant wisdom to the King!50 Publicconfidence was definitely shaken. Stocks and public securities fell,and a number of business failures added to the general nervous-ness. The Director of Police at The Hague thought the situationso critical that he doubted whether law and order could be main-

tained unless constitutional reform along Liberal lines were under-taken. King William received his memorandum on 12 March.51

It was in this rather alarming atmosphere that the king, on 13March, opted for reform. In a confidential talk with the Presidentof the Chamber he declared that he was now willing to accept a

far-reaching reform of the Constitution. The king insisted that

speed was important to preclude the impression that they were

being forced to act in this way. 52 Some MPs got wind of the newson the morning of 15 March; one of them leaked it to Rotterdam,and the evening edition of the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant



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published the joyful tidings.53 In the harbour at Rotterdam flagswere hoisted on ships and public buildings, and similar manifes-

tations of joy took place inAmsterdam In many provincialtowns similar reactions were observedThe ministers who had not been informed of his change of heart

by the king were of course both shocked and indignant. TheAlgemeen Handelsblad published the next day the following cable-grams : The Hague, 15 March, 2.15 pm: some Ministers seem tohave resigned. 2.32 pm: all the Ministers have resigned; 3.30 pm:Mr Luzac is summoned by the King.S6 Luzac was a leading Liberalwho was very close to Thorbecke and the other radical Liberals.The pace of change now began to accelerate. On the evenings

of 15 and 16 March popular demonstrations in The Hague helpedto maintain the pressure on the king. The Princess Sophie, wifeof the kings son, noted on 17 March that strange doings weretaking place at The Hague, unsavoury figures roamed the streetsand the city looked so different now. 57 These demonstrationswere

organizedby artisans, butAdriaan van Bevervoorde, a

democratic journalist, took over the leadership. Behind the scenesDonker Curtius was also active. He and some other radical Lib-

erals had met with Van Bevervoorde on the afternoon of 15

March. The Liberals encouraged the popular agitation and pro-vided some money. Donker Curtius is reported to have remarkedthat good order ought of course to be maintained, but that itwould do no harm if some windows were to be smashed at the

homes of the ministers who had not yet resigned. 58 The king nowsought the counsel of this very same Donker Curtius. They meton 16 and 17 March, and the crucial decree on the procedure forconstitutional reform was drafted by this radical Liberal who heldno official position, who was not even a member of the Chamber,and who only a few weeks earlier had been regarded as thenightmare of all the supporters of the established order.59There was in fact no official government during those days. The

President of the Chamber urged the British envoy to intervenewith the king, lest William deliver himself entirely into the handsof extreme Liberalism, but it was already too late.60 The kingappointed a committee of five Liberals, among whom Thorbeckeand Donker Curtius were the most prominent.61 They wereentrusted with the drafting of a new constitution and the formationof a new Ministry. Some days later, Donker Curtius was appointedMinister of Justice ad interim.

Amonghis first actions was a secret



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but forceful call for moderation to Van Bevervoorde and his

friends which was quite effective.62 But to Conservative observers

the world hadturned

upside-downin

less thanten

days, andthe

total victory of Thorbecke and his friends seemed imminent.63On 22 March Thorbecke wrote to his wife that his appointment

as Minister of the Interior was certain, and the next day theNieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant reported the appointment asfact.64 On his way to an engagement on the evening of 23 MarchThorbecke ran into Schooneveld, a Conservative-Liberal memberof the Chamber. Schooneveld averred that the fate of the countrywas now wholly in the hands of Thorbecke and his colleagues:He, and Parliament as well, would swallow anything we pro-posed, realizing that all would be lost if we resigned

In the meantime a countermove of the Conservatives was under

way. The king had summoned the London ambassador, CountGerrit Schimmelpenninck, to The Hague to help in the formationof a new government (a task he had simultaneously entrusted tothe committee of the five Liberals!). Schimmelpenninck was aconservative individual who disliked the Liberals. In his journalhe termed Donker Curtius one of the most fanatical ultra-

Liberals, while Thorbecke was by far the most evil member ofthe clique of Dutch Jacobins.66 Schimmelpenninck thought thecommittee of the five Liberals a revolutionary committee, andhe strove to impede its establishment as a new government. Hesucceeded in keeping Thorbecke out, but had to accept DonkerCurtius. Thorbecke was furious: his

prattling colleaguesand the

king who behaved like a child had freed the way for Schimmel-

pennincks move to exclude him. 61The Ministry finally took office on 25 March, immediately after

a day of street demonstrations inAmsterdam.68 It was composedof Conservatives, Liberals and one Catholic. Schimmelpennincksmain public statement was to the effect that Dutch institutions

ought to be reformed along the lines of the British Constitution.

The Liberal press greeted the new Ministry with mixed feelings.All the important papers were disappointed by Thorbeckesabsence from the Cabinet and theArnhemsche Courant adoptedfrom the outset an extremely hostile tone toward Schimmelpen-ninck.69 In the meantime Thorbecke and his committee had not

been idle. The draft of a new constitution was ready on 10April.The next morning Thorbecke went to the king and obtained his

permission to have the draft published immediately by the



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Government Printing Office. 70 Only the trusted Liberals in theGovernment, Luzac and Donker Curtius, had previously read the

draft. Schimmelpenninck learned about this move too late to beable to prevent it.1

Thorbeckes ploy worked. It gave the draft semi-official statusbefore the Cabinet had even seen it, and the Liberals could nowmobilize public opinion in its favour. The Liberal press was indeednearly unanimous in its praise of Thorbeckes constitutional draft.Moreover, from the end ofApril a steady and growing stream of

petitions began to flow to The Hague.Apamphlet war com-menced in which the Liberals held the upper hand.Aformereditor of theArnhemsche Courant, Roest van Limburg, even

proposed that the constitutional draft should be submitted directlyto the enfranchised citizens, bypassing the Chambers who hadforfeited their title to a real representation of the nation?2 TheLiberal press, however, disapproved of this advocacy of plebisci-tary democracy.3

Schimmelpenninck beganto feel

distinctly uneasy.He could

not trust all of his colleagues in the Cabinet, the upsurge of Liberal

public opinion put great pressure on the decision-making process,and he thought Thorbeckes constitutional draft unacceptable. Itwas anti-monarchical and de facto amounted to a republic oreven a democracy?4 But Schimmelpenninck was unable tomuster an anti-Liberal majority in his own Cabinet because theCatholic Minister, Lightenvelt, went over to the Liberal side under

strong pressure from Catholic public opinion which wanted thefreedom of religion and education the new constitution wouldguarantee. 75 Meanwhile, the European situation was hardlyreassuring, with democratic and revolutionary movements con-tinuing unabated in Germany,Austria and Italy. In France uni-versal suffrage seemed to have come to stay. Only the failure ofthe great Chartist demonstration in London on 10April offeredsome consolation to conservative minds.

Schimmelpenninck now decided to make a last attempt to haltthe march of events. He told the king that he himself was preparedto incur great risks if only William would give him unwaveringsupport. He assured the king that if only he would personallycommit himself to a strong line, he could count on political allies.It would be a dangerous undertaking, but some people had exag-gerated the risks that were involved. The king reacted hesitantlyand

gaveno definite

reply. Schimmelpenninckknew then that



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the cause was lost and communicated as much to his allies. 76 The

last week of his government coincided with the mounting tension

in Paris, which culminated in the great journee of 15 May.&dquo; Theking dared not separate himself from the Liberals, although hehinted that it was sometimes possible to make concessions andretract them at a later time, a remark Donker Curtius did notlike.78 For Schimmelpenninck there was nothing left but to resign,and on 13 May Donker Curtius, who was now the de facto leaderof the government, announced to the Chamber that the Cabinet

would be reconstructed. He

appealedto the

countryfor

support,and stated that general opinion and a great number of petitionswere in favour of the proposed reform. He also referred to politi-cal developments abroad which were in accord with Liberal doc-trines .79 The Constitutional Reform Bill was finally introduced inParliament on 20 June. But the play was not yet over.

The Making of the New Constitution

FromApril to September 1848 a veritable deluge of pamphletsand petitions flooded the country, and the daily press publishednumerous comments on the struggle for reform. It soon becameclear that there were four main points of contention. First andmost salient was the issue of direct versus indirect elections;second came religious freedom, especially for the Roman Cath-

olics ; the third contested point was freedom of association; andfinally there was the long-standing problem of colonial adminis-tration.Although opinions were somewhat divided on the desir-

ability of a First Chamber, a fair amount of consensus seemed bynow to reign on the issues of ministerial responsibility and thetotal abolition of the old Estates representation. The majority ofthe sitting MPs, who owed their political existence to the systemof indirect elections,

rightlyfeared that the introduction of direct

elections would mean the end of their political careers. The

government, on the other hand, had been since 13 May a staunchdefender of the direct vote. The king seemed to approve of thecourse of Donker Curtiuss new Cabinet, and the affairs of Europewere still in flux. In these circumstances public opinion was ableto exert considerable influence. The Liberal press steered a

straightforward course, supporting the reforms, insisting on speed,

and thus urgingon

both Cabinet and Parliament. TheArnhemsche



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Courant criticized the government from the left, alleging thatDonker Curtius was watering down some of Thorbeckes radical

proposals. The entire Liberal press considered the Colonial para-graphs of the new constitution insufficient. The Nieuwe Rotter-damsche Courant and theArnhemsche Courant wanted to abolish

the First Chamber, while theAlgemeen Handelsblad was willingto retain that institution in a modernized guise.Some Conservative pamphleteers concentrated their attack on

direct elections. Three objections were voiced: the broad mass ofcitizens would be vulnerable to

corruption;many honest citizens

were capable of grasping only local or regional affairs at the most;and finally direct elections would in the end lead to manhood

suffrage because a tax census would always remain an arbitraryboundary, inviting criticism from those who were excluded. Inaddition, there was the old, Montesquieuian argument that thearistocratic principle was a necessary intermediary powerbetween the monarch and the demos.80Another critic of direct

elections maintained that the fundamental cause of the recentpolitical catastrophes was the doctrine of the sovereignty of thepeople. Direct elections and majority rule were actually the first

step on the road to the violent overthrow of all authority.81The Liberals turned these arguments upside-down. It was thestubbornness of the political oligarchy which had caused the revo-lution in France; it was the British aristocracy which, by clingingtenaciously to its privileges, had provoked the Chartist outbursts;and the system of indirect elections in the Netherlands only servedthe purpose of barring the way to outsiders and influencingelections, precisely those things which had led to the fall of theFrench monarchy.82

Jongstra, a Frisian lawyer, invoked both France and Britain. InFrance the censitary qualification had been too high, creating avery small electorate which could be intimidated and co-opted bythe government. The case of Britain demonstrated the

oppositeperil, for the endemic corruption in English politics was causedby the inclusion of economically dependent men in the electorate.

Areasonable census would avoid both these dangers and at thesame time enhance civic virtue. The recent history of Belgiumdemonstrated that such a system was feasible.83And anAmster-dam lawyer reminded his readers of the historical origins ofindirect elections: these had been the keystone of the ill-fated

provincial sovereignty through which the oligarchy had ruled the



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former Dutch Republic. He conceded the need for the three

Montesquieuian elements in a moderate political regime, butadded that a

properbalance could

onlybe achieved if the demo-

cratic element was strong and independent, that is, in a system ofdirect elections. By democratic, however, he did not mean suf-

frage universel but a reasonable census.~Although most Lib-erals would not defend popular sovereignty in all its rigour, somedid, like the youthful philosopher Cornelis Opzoomer who statedthat universal suffrage would arrive in due course, although atpresent it was not yet a realistic option.85 Democracy and man-

hood suffrage were of course defended by the Radical Democrats,but these were outside the orbit of respectable Liberalism.86Another contested issue was freedom of association. The Con-

servatives wanted this right restricted. One of them warned thatthe people were stirring everywhere: the French Banquets rifor-mistes, which were the immediate cause of the revolution in Paris,and the Chartist agitation in England were both instances of thenefarious use malcontents might make of an unlimited freedom. 87

But this generalized critique of the right of free association waspolitically not a very salient issue. Things were different, however,when anti-Papist fears were aroused. Freedom of religion andeducation was attacked by many Protestants who were afraid offurther Catholic emancipation. For the same reason it was ofcourse enthusiastically defended by the Catholics, who were thechief allies of the Liberals throughout the political struggles of the

year.Meanwhile an increasing number of petitions from all over the

country were arriving at The Hague. In the first half of May onlypetitions in favour of reform arrived. During the months of Mayand June a total number of 838 petitions came in. Most of thesewere signed by between twenty and one hundred persons, but

greater numbers were also found. In 325 petitions the reformswere generally supported, whereas only 25 petitions attacked the

entire reform project. Public opinion was, however, sharplydivided on the issue of religious and educational freedom. In306 petitions these freedoms were deemed undesirable, while 179

petitions argued in favour of them. The provinces most in favourof the reforms were Groningen, Friesland, Guelderland, NorthHolland, and the Catholic southern province of North Brabant (ofthe 179 petitions pleading the cause of religious and educationalfreedom, 137 originated in North Brabant). The anti-Liberal



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opposition was most pronounced in South Holland and Utrecht,but anti-Papist hostility to the granting of educational and religiousfreedom was more

widespread.In most

petitionsother demands

were also expressed. Those from the northern part of the countryfrequently contained radical demands such as the abolition of theFirst Chamber and total parliamentary control over colonialaffairs. The abolition of slavery was also mentioned fairly often.In many petitions from all parts of the country the abolition of anumber of indirect taxes, the accijnsen, was demanded.88Four conclusions are warranted: (i) Conservative opposition

against the whole reform programme was weak; (ii) the Catholicsouth was massively pro-Liberal during these crucial months; (iii)it was only on the issue of religious and educational freedom thatthe Conservatives had something like mass support; and (iv) therewas considerable support for demands which were more far-

reaching than the proposals for reform which the government hadintroduced in Parliament.89

It took a final, but minor, political crisis to get the old Chambersto pass the reforms. Donker Curtius had to threaten resignation,and the king personally appeal to the Members of Parliament.Even then some parts of the reform programme passed by bare

majorities. In October, nevertheless, the new constitution was atlast a fact. Its main features followed the ideas of Thorbecke and

the Liberals. On three issues, however, some concessions hadbeen made to the Conservative opposition. The most importantone concerned freedom of

education,where

publicschools were

favoured over those run by Catholics or orthodox Protestants.This satisfied mainstream Protestant opinion, which had expresseditself so strongly in the petition movement.Asecond concessionwas the maintenance of a First Chamber whose members were to

be elected by the Provincial Estates instead of the general elector-ate. Only those who paid quite a large sum in direct taxes wereeligible for this First Chamber, which can thus be regarded as a

last remnant of the old aristocratic element. Finally, parliamen-tary control over colonial affairs was established but thereremained some leeway for independent rule by the crown. Thecentrepiece of the new constitution was the system of direct elec-tions for the Second Chamber of Parliament and for the municipalcouncils. The elections in the autumn of 1848, organized on thebasis of an interim law, yielded a Liberal majority.

In the autumn of 1849 Thorbecke, the architect of the new



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constitution, was at last called upon to form a Cabinet9 and itwas his government that produced the final Electoral Law. The

countrywas divided into

sixty-eight constituencies,and for the

first time in the history of the Netherlands the rural districts couldoutvote the cities.91 The qualification for voting varied from theconstitutional minimum of 20 guilders in the country constitu-encies to about 50 guilders in medium-sized towns, 100 guildersin The Hague, and 112 guilders inAmsterdam. For the municipalelections this level was halved. The Belgian Constitution had

obviously served as a model.92 There was a secret ballot in all

elections.93 The electorate of 1850 comprised 10.7 per cent of allmale inhabitants above the age of 22 years.94 For municipal elec-tions the figure was 18.8 per cent.95 If we project these figures onto the class structure of Dutch society around 1850, we can safelyconclude that, apart from the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, a

large section of the small bourgeoisie would also have had thevote in national elections In some towns even artisans would

occasionally vote, and well-to-do farmers, especially in the north,would also have been enfranchised.After 1848, the social compo-sition of the Parliament became somewhat more bourgeois.Before 1848 about 40 per cent of MPs belonged to the nobility;thereafter the figure fluctuated between 20 and 29 per cent. 97The Liberals certainly benefited from the whole affair. Before

1848 they had always remained a rather modest minority in theParliament, but in the remaining half of the century they obtained40 to 60

percent of the vote in most

generalelections. It is

onlyfair to add, however, that many of the new Liberals were moder-ates whose Liberalism was of a rather thin variety. Many of thosewho had been moderate Conservatives before 1848 now reap-

peared as moderate Liberals. None the less, the 1848 reforms

gave rise to a new forward momentum in the political culture ofthe country. Improvement and reform had made their entry onthe political scene and were there to stay.Ahalf-hearted attempt

to turn the clock back was made in 1853, but that proved to bethe last stand of old-style Conservatism.98After 1848 the Liberals replaced the old Conservative establish-ment in many municipal governments. But it took another twentyyears to attain full parliamentary supremacy. Characteristically,colonial reform arrived in the same years (1868-70) which wit-nessed the disappearance of the last vestiges of the personal powerof the king. In the field of economic policy things changed slowly:



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quite a few liberalizing measures were enacted in the 1860s and1870s, but tax reform had to wait until the very end of the cen-

tury.~

Conclusion: The Netherlands between France and Britain

Although the Netherlands did not experience anything like violentrevolution in 1848, the political events of that year assuredlydeviated from the normal course of Dutch politics. The reforms

of 1848 were by no means the logical outcome of the tendenciesof Dutch political life during the 1840s.100Aprofound change inthe political regime, which nobody had envisaged as late as Febru-

ary 1848, was implemented with great rapidity. Normal consti-tutional procedures were repeatedly disregarded and the majorityof Parliament and the established political elite either circum-vented or intimidated. The fundamental cause of the non-violent

revolution in the Netherlands is without doubt to be found in the

European revolutions, notably those in France, Germany andAustria. The upsurge of Liberal and Democratic movements,

accompanied by popular violence, frightened the Conservativesas much as it emboldened the opposition. The influence of publicopinion, expressed in the press, in pamphlets and in the massivepetitioning campaign, increased dramatically within the space ofa few months. The Conservatives, who enjoyed comfortable

majorities in the formal power structure,were

suddenly seen torepresent only a minority of the citizenry of the country. Finally,the popular disturbances in March caused an undefined but never-theless very real anxiety in the ranks of both the Conservativesand the Liberals.

The behaviour of the king was a crucial factor during the entirecrisis. His unexpected conversion to a course of reform created avoid in the Conservative camp. The Conservatives had always

aligned themselves with the throne, and their political psychologymade it extremely hard for them to contemplate action againstthe king. William II himself was temperamentally a conservativeman, but he was no astute politician, and in perilous circumstanceshe was susceptible to the influence of others.101 But this, of course,explains only that he was influenced. Both his choice of advisersand the political nature of the advice itself were clearly related tothe course of the

Europeanrevolutions. There have been some



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conjectures about the relative importance of French and Germaninfluence, but in my opinion this is beside the point. It was clearly

the cumulative impact of the succeeding waves of revolution,starting with the February insurrection in Paris, which shook theconfidence of the Conservatives. The first stage of the Dutch

political crisis (March) coincided with the spread of revolutionfrom France to Germany and theAustrian empire. The second

stage of the crisis, Schimmelpennincks failure to enforce a Con-servative strategy, followed in the first half of May when French

politics were moving towards a new revolutionary climax. Onlythe last, minor crisis (August) coincided with the beginning ofthe downturn of the European revolutionary movement; but to

contemporary observers it was not clear whether this would be

more than a temporary lull in revolutionary activity.Without the support of the king the Conservatives felt them-

selves isolated. Their obstruction never turned into outright resis-tance to all reform and their politics therefore lacked the firmresolve of those of their adversaries. The

petitionmovement

clearly demonstrated that they were isolated in the country at

large.Both Conservatives and Liberals lived in fear of a popular

upheaval, but the Liberals could employ this mood of insecurityfor their own ends whereas the Conservatives could not. This fear

of popular revolt is a most interesting phenomenon, for the realextent of popular agitation was extremely modest. It was an

imagined rather thanan

actual insurrection which occupied theminds of the politicians. The placid artisans marching through thestreets of The Hague assumed alarming shapes to men haunted

by the pictures of Parisian barricades. From March to May, andpossibly much longer, the political imagination of the sedateDutch burghers wavered and seemed to become kaleidoscopic.Utterances about the dangerous multitude are to be found side

by side with reassuring talk about the Dutch peoples traditional

love of order. The press published admonitions against theerroneous doctrines of socialists and communists, although such

opinions were found only among tiny minorities of artisans, manyof them Germans living inAmsterdam. 102 It was precisely the

vagueness of this apprehensive mood which made it a very real

political agency. It created an atmosphere in which a great numberof people felt that something ought to be done, without havingany very clear idea of what. The radical Liberals, with Thorbecke



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and Donker Curtius in the lead, benefited from this psychologicalclimate. They were the only ones who knew precisely what they

wanted and where theywere

going.Can the Dutch crisis be situated in the context of the Europeanrevolutions of 1848? Do the Netherlands belong to the group ofcountries without revolution, or do they occupy an intermediate

position? Britain and Belgium are frequently mentioned asinstances of countries without revolution, and this is sometimes

explained by their relatively industrialized economies.101 Such an

explanation could scarcely apply in the case of the Netherlands,where modem industry was in its infancy.Another approachwould place the Netherlands in the same class as Britain, bothbeing old nations which experienced an early growth of commer-cial civilization. Both countries are often supposed to possessan ancient tradition of interest representation, compromise andbargaining, which acts as an antidote to political violence. Thereis some truth in this conjecture but it is rather too vague and

general. Thelate-eighteenth

and early-nineteenth-century politi-cal trajectories of both Britain and the Netherlands were definitelyless cataclysmic than that of France, but neither were they entirelydevoid of violence, rebellion or even the threat of revolution.104Acomparison of the Netherlands with the classic cases of revo-lution and non-revolution, France and Britain, might shed some

light on the problem. In treatments of the 1840s in France the

deepening estrangement between the small governing elite and

the broad strata of the middle classes is usually emphasized. 105In this one respect the Dutch situation was not very different.Throughout the 1840s the middle classes had been either apatheticor hostile to the established political elite. The causes of middle-class discontent were essentially the same in both countries: eco-nomic policies which benefited only a restricted upper class,attempts to curb the freedom of the press, the involvement of the

government in real or alleged corruption, and scandals in high

places.6 In both countries the government became isolated asthe major newspapers turned against it.l In France as well as inthe Netherlands the Liberal opposition was based in the broadstrata of the middle and lower bourgeoisie.108 In neither of thetwo countries could the government count on middle-class supportin the case of grave popular disturbances.At the very least, the

ruling elites felt extremely unsure of the political reliability of themiddle classes. In the Dutch case the attitude of the Catholics



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further weakened the established regime. They supported theLiberals for reasons of their own but thereby effectively neutral-ized the conservative potential of the Catholic establishment.There were also some crucial differences between France and

the Netherlands. There existed in the Netherlands hardly anytradition of independent political movements of the popularclasses. This can partly be explained by the more powerfuldynamic of the French economy which had spawned a sturdy andself-conscious artisan class.109 Still, both countries went through a

period of crisis and severe material hardship, and the divergent

political responses of Dutch and French artisans cannot bereduced to an offshoot of the differences in socioeconomic struc-ture. The entire revolutionary tradition of 1789, 1793 and beyondwent into the making of the French popular movement. Publicmonuments celebrating revolutionary events were erected in thecentre of Paris during the reign of Louis Philippe.10 The memoriesof 1830, and even of 1793, were still alive for many people. Thiskind of political culture was entirely absent in the case of the

Netherlands.The cleavages within the French upper class were, moreover,

more complicated than those in the Dutch governing class. First,there was no republican party of any consequence in Dutch poli-tics. (The Liberal aversion to aristocracy was definitely not a

republican sentiment.) Then there was the predicament of themonarchy. This was rather more precarious in France because ofthe long-standing feud between the Legitimists and the Orleanistswithin the Monarchist camp.Attacks on the person of the kingcould easily turn into a crisis of the institution of monarchy itself.

Finally, the position of the Dutch king himself was different; hedid not, like Louis Philippe, owe his throne to a revolution, norwas he the prisoner of a strong minister, as Louis Philippe was ofGuizot. But the major difference was that the House of Orangewas much more solidly rooted in the history of the nation thanwas the House of Orldans in France.

In the final analysis, the entire structure of the major politicalconflicts was more clear-cut in the Netherlands. There was thus

no danger of a glissade along French lines, from the gauche dynas-tique via the Republicans to the democratic republic.All thesefactors, in their interaction, explain why the king could defuse theDutch imbroglio by one early and decisive concession to the Lib-eral, middle-class opposition, while this would have been much



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more difficult to achieve in the French case. The amorphouscharacter of the popular movement actually benefited the DutchLiberals.

Theydid not have to face the kind of

proto-socialistdemands their French counterparts found so hard to answer effec-

tively. The cleavage between the popular and the Liberal forces,which in the end proved fatal to the French Second Republic,could therefore not occur in the Netherlands. The Dutch insti-

tutional reforms proved durable, while in France the cycle of

major regime changes did not end with 1848.The weakness of the popular movement is thus in itself not

sufficient to explain the non-revolutionary course of reform in theNetherlands.Acomparison with Britain will make this clearerstill. The Chartist movement in Britain was, in terms of popularsupport, organizational development and political sophistication,stronger than anything on the Contingent. 111 Even though 1847 and1848 did not represent the high point of Chartist activity, the

deployment of mass rallies was still impressive, with election meet-

ings all over the country in 1847 and meetings in fifty-six citiesand towns in March 1848.12 Finally there was, of course, the massdemonstration of some 150,000 people on 10April 1848.113 Butin the end it proved that this immense popular movement wasunable to challenge the British political establishment.

In a recent study of the relations between Chartism and thestate in 1848, Saville has argued that the decisive point was the

overwhelming support for the government among the middle

strata of society, of whom some 80,000 volunteered as SpecialConstables. 114 The entire course of British politics, from the greatReformAct to the Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, had bluntedthe edge of Liberal discontent. Sir Robert Peel, who lost the

leadership of the Tory party as a result of his concessions to theLiberals in the matter of the Corn Laws, wryly commented on

hearing about the fall of the French monarchy:

This comes of trying to govern the country through a narrow representation in

Parliament, without regarding the wishes of those outside. It is what this partybehind me wanted to do in the matter of the Corn Laws, and I would not do

it. &dquo;s

By 1848 the British middle classes were firmly attached to the

existing political system. This was reflected in the attitude of the

major newspapers, who were vehemently hostile to the Chartists



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throughout 1848. The Chartist press was no match for the com-bined power of the metropolitan and provincial presses. 116 Herewe have a crucial difference from the situation in France andthe Netherlands, where the most influential papers were alignedagainst the government. While the Dutch press intimated that theevents in France demonstrated the urgency of timely reform, theBritish papers stressed the need for a firm stand in the face of

popular demands. Louis Philippes neglect of the National Guardwas emphasized rather than his obdurate immobility. 117 BothDutch and British journalists were busy drawing lessons fromParis, but they arrived at almost diametrically opposite con-clusions.

The Dutch crisis of 1848 was in some respects more similar tothe British turning point of 1832 than to the British 1848. Popularradicalism in the years preceding the great ReformAct was cer-

tainly vigorous, but it was decidedly weaker than Chartism and itlacked a common political platform. 118 Nevertheless 1832 consti-

tuteda

profound rupture in British political development while1848 did not. Moreover, in 1832 the radical wing of British Liber-alism exploited the fear of revolution for its own ends, just asthe Dutch Liberals did in 1848.19 In both cases we witness the

juxtaposition of middle-class defection and popular unrest. Inboth cases the political crisis was set against the background of aEuropean upheaval of which Paris was the symbolic epicentre. Inthis type of crisis it is the image of a revolutionary threat that

counts, rather than the real thing.Quinault has recently contended that the events of 1848 did not

represent a total fiasco for the Chartists and that their agitationhad, after all, some tangible consequences, even though the out-come forced them to relinquish their revolutionary hopes andaspirations. Chartist militancy enabled the radical Liberals to putthe issue of parliamentary reform back on the political agenda.The political consensus on the finality of the 1832 settlement was

destroyed. 120 Quinaults argument seems unexceptionable, but thedifference between the French and Dutch cases where majorregime changes ensued, and the British one where such a changefailed to occur, remains considerable. In this respect the Nether-lands clearly conformed to the French pattern and not to theBritish one.

In my opinion the crucial factor explaining the difference is tobe found in the nature of the

political systemand

the relationship



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470

between the middle classes and the old governing class. The

governments that fell were deserted by the middle strata of

society, despised by journalists and intellectuals, and generallyfelt to be ineffective and obsolete. Tocquevilles concise verdict,cette fois, on ne renversait pas le gouvernement, on le laissait

tomber, applies with equal force to the Dutch cases Where this

type of political conjuncture obtained, a major change of regimeensued. The British case shows that in the absence of such con-

ditions even a very strong popular movement proved unable to

effecta

major modification of the political system.The Dutch

case, on the other hand, demonstrates that, where such conditionsdid prevail, even the fears engendered by the image of a ratherweak popular movement were sufficient to do the job.122The comparison of the Netherlands with France shows, more-

over, that the internal structure and the prior history of the politi-cal system itself are also relevant. The stronger dynamic of theFrench economy and the popular movement are assuredly essen-

tial to any explanation of the difference here, but it was only theconjunction of the artisan movement with specific weaknesses ofthe political system and certain aspects of French political culturethat resulted in the violent and spasmodic trajectory of the Second

Republic.In the final analysis the Dutch 1848 does not neatly fit the

dichotomy of a French or a British model. The peculiarities ofthe Dutch case are best explained by situating the reforms of 1848in the longer process of state-formation in the Netherlands.The democratic Patriots of the 1780s had envisaged the destruc-

tion of the oligarchical edifice of the Dutch Republic. The Batav-ian revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic administrations

effectively demolished it. 123 The restoration of 1815 was from the

very beginning an ambiguous undertaking. The administrative

machinery established by the Napoleonic reforms was largelyretained for the sheer want of a viable alternative. But the

systemof political representation was partly fashioned on the provincial-oligarchic model of the Republican past. The Stadtholderate, how-

ever, did not return. It was replaced by a monarchy, in order to

preclude a resurgence of federalist particularism. 124 The king wasinvested with a considerable amount of personal power which

might also be used to keep oligarchical tendencies in check. In

part it did so, but at the same time a new clientelist system of

cliques and deals developed, with the king at its centre.



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The Liberals were thus hard pressed; looking one way theyfaced a representative system which tended to exclude them, and

in the other direction they ran into the barrier of the autocraticpractices of the king.At the same time, realizing that the aristo-cracy was their main enemy, they would not hesitate to ally them-selves with the king against the oligarchy of the established fami-lies. Thus the modernizing policies of William I, frequentlyenforced over the opposition of a majority in Parliament, elicitedLiberal sympathy. The Liberals, discovering the virtues of politicaleconomy, felt that the real enemies of economic progress were

the rentiers, bankers and those who held places in the state

apparatus, in short the unproductive and parasitic heirs of themerchant oligarchy of Republican times. This is what they meant

by the aristocratic element, and they always hoped that themonarchical element would act as a counterforce. The policiesof William II in 1848, however idiosyncratically motivated, canthus be seen to fit into the larger historical pattern. It is also

easyto understand

whythe issue of direct elections was more

controversial than ministerial responsibility, for the formerdemand was directly aimed at the foundation of the oligarchyspolitical power, while the pragmatic Conservatives had experi-enced their own share of trouble with the personal rule of

capricious kings.Another reason for the centrality of the demandfor direct elections was the deeply-held Liberal conviction thatthe public will could only flourish in a self-governing community,

and that the democratic element was therefore a necessary pre-condition for the material and moral progress of the nation.

The reforms of 1848 put an end to both the political monopolyof the oligarchy and the vagaries of personal government. It wasthe concluding act in the series of political crises and institutionaltransformations which had begun in the 1780s. Throughout these

sixty years the forward momentum of Dutch politics was eitherenhanced or impeded by the European cycle of revolution and

restoration; this was so in 1787, 1795 and 1798, and again in 1815,1830 and 1848. The year 1848 thus marks the final demise of the

Ancien Regime in the Netherlands.



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Notes

1. Het Leven van een Vloothouder:Gedenkschriften

van M. H.Jansen (Utrecht1925), 235-7.

2. Dutch historians have frequently stressed the minor role of violence inDutch history. In a broad comparative framework this is not unjust, but one shouldnot underestimate the political importance of many violent episodes in the historyof the Dutch Republic. On this see W. Ph. te Brake, Violence in the DutchPatriot Revolution, Comparative Studies in Society and History 30 (1988), 143-63,where further references can be found. Since the Napoleonic wars the role ofviolence in politics has indeed been minimal, with the important exceptions of the

Belgianrevolution and a whole series of colonial wars.

Generally,the

importanceof revolutionary ruptures has been rather played down in Dutch historiography.The Patriot movement of the 1780s was seen as rather ineffective, and the Batavianrevolution considered a result of the importation of French politics. Largelythanks to the work of De Wit and Schama the autonomous causes and effects of

these episodes are now much better recognized. See C. H. E. de Wit, De StrijdtussenAristocratie en Democratie in Nederland, 1780-1848 (Heerlen 1965); S.Schama, Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands, 1780-1813 (NewYork 1977); for some representative recent views, H. Bots and W. W. Mijnhart,eds, De Droom van de Revolutie: Nieuwe Benaderingen van het Patriottisme

(Amsterdam 1988); Th. S. M. van der Zee, J. G. M. M. Rosendaal and P. G. B.Thissen, eds, 1787: De Nederlandse Revolutie? (Amsterdam 1988). The politicalcnses of 1830 and 1848 have not yet been included within this broader framework:

see, for example, the rather summary treatment of 1848 in E. H. Kossmann, TheLow Countries 1780-1940 (Oxford 1978), 192-5. The assessment of the importanceof discontinuity within Dutch history is further complicated by the fact that all

important political crises, from 1787 to 1848, were induced and/or resolved byforeign intervention or the impact of European political conjunctures. Some schol-ars have attributed the successful resolution of crises such as that of 1848 to a

typically Dutch style of politics, in which elite bargaining and popular deferencereinforced each other. For diverging views of this matter, see H. Daalder, TheNetherlands: Opposition in a Segmented Society, in R. Dahl, ed., Political Oppo-sitions in Western Democracies (New Haven and London 1966), 188-236; S. Stuur-man, Verzuiling, Kapitalisme en Patriarchaat:Aspecten van de Ontwikkeling vande Moderne Staat in Nederland (Nijmegen 1983), esp. 307ff. There is a usefuloverview of English-language studies of Dutch history and politics in West Euro-pean Politics, Vol. 12, No. 1 (January 1989), 162-85.

3. The constitutional reform of 1848 is a familiar landmark in Dutch politicalhistory. More or less detailed treatments include: J. de Bosch Kemper, Geschie-denis van Nederland na 1830, Vol. V (Amsterdam 1882); B. D. H. Tellegen, 1848:Het Voorspel van de Herziening der Grondwet, De Gids, Vol. I (1883), 1-33;H. T. Colenbrander, 1848, in idem, Historie en Leven, Vol. II (Amsterdam1915), 181-251; K. E. van der Mandele, Het Liberalisme in Nederland: Schets vande Ontwikkeling in de Negentiende Eeuw (Arnhem 1933), 46-71; C. de Ru, Jhr.Mr. Willem Boreel van Hogelanden, Lid en Voorzitter van de Tweede Kameromstreeks 1848, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 60 (1947), 156-86; C. W. de Vries,Politieke Invloeden op de Grondwetsherziening 1848, Tijdschrift voor Geschie-



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denis 71 (1958), 51-79; J. C. Boogman, The Dutch Crisis in the Eighteen Forties,in J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossmann, eds, Britain and the Netherlands (London1960), 192-203; G. D. Homans, Constitutional Reform in the Netherlands in

1848, The Historian 28, (1965-6), 405-25; N. Cramer, Keerpunt 1848: het Binnen-hof in de ban van het Buitenland, De Negentiende Eeuw, Symposiumreeks 1

(1978), 2-22; M. J. F. Robijns, Radicalen in Nederland 1840-1851 (Leiden 1967);J. J. Giele, De Pen inAanslag: Revolutionairen rond 1848 (Bussum 1968); seealso the books by De Wit and Kossmann quoted above, as well as W. Verkade,Thorbecke als Oost-Nederlands Patriot (Zutphen 1974). The most recent study isJ. C. Boogman, Rondom 1848: de politieke Ontwikkeling van Nederland 1840-1858

(Bussum 1978); Boogmans book is an expanded version of his contribution to the

Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, Vol. 12 (Haarlem 1977). Some memoirs

and journals of important participants have been published: Dagverhaal vanThorbecke, maart 1848, De Gids

,

Vol. I (1903), 466-92 (hereafter Thorbecke,Dagverhaal); Schimmelpennincks Notanda, Onze Eeuw, Vol. IV (1904), 173-210(hereafter Schimmelpenninck); Herinneringen van Jhr. Mr. W. Boreel van Hoge-landen, Bijdragen en Mededelingen van het Historisch Genootschap 52 (1931),321-96 (hereafter Boreel).

4. In general surveys of 1848 the Netherlands are seldom mentioned: W. L.

Langer, Political and Social Upheaval 1832-1852 (New York 1969); P. Robertson,Revolutions of 1848:ASocial History (Princeton 1952); P. N. Stearns, 1848: The

Revolutionary Tide in Europe (New York 1974); R. Price, The Revolutions of 1848(London and Basingstoke 1988). Stearns and Price give some information on theNetherlands, which is unfortunately for the most part factually wrong. The English-language article by Homans, quoted in note 3 above, largely confines itself to the

decision-making process at The Hague.5. Within the space of this article I cannot treat the complications in the system

caused by the union with Belgium which lasted from 1815 to 1830. For a short

treatment, see C. H. Church, Europe in 1830 (London 1983), 79-94; see also E.H. Kossmann, Belgi en Nederland, 1780-1830, Bijdragen en Mededelingen van

het Historisch Genootschap 77 (1963), 27-49.6. The distnbution of seats among the three estates was different in each

province. Just as in the Republic, the share of the towns was highest in Hollandand lowest in Guelderland. The Republican system had had no separate landed

estate; its existence served to bolster the position of the nobility and the estab-lished great families as the inhabitants of small townships and villages were suscep-tible to their influence. For details of the operation of the system, see L. Blok,Stemmen en Kiezen: Het Kiesstelsel in Nederland in de Periode 1814-1850 (Gron-ingen 1987).

7. For notable examples see Robijns, Radicalen in Nederland, 130, 142-3,192-3, 222-8.

8. See N. C. F. van Sas, Het Politiek Bestel onder Koning Willem I, Docu-mentatieblad WerkgroepAchttiende Eeuw 49-50 (1981), 110-33.

9. See C. Fasseur, Kultuurstelsel en Koloniale Baten: De Nederlandse Exploi-tatie van Java 1840-1860 (Leiden 1975), 41-2, 46-7. The colonial revenues wereof strategic importance, for they enabled the government - barely - to avoid afinancial deficit. R. T. Griffiths, Industrial Retardation in the Netherlands 1830-1850

(The Hague 1979), 49.



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10. See H. R. C. Wright, Free Trade and Protection in the Netherlands 1816-30

(Westport 1971), 214-21.11. N. C. F. van Sas, Het politieke Klimaat in Noord-Nederland

tijdensde

Crisis van het Verenigd Koninkrijk, 1828-1830,Acta Colloquium over de Gesch.v.d. Belgisch-Nederlandse Betrekkingen tussen 1815 en 1945 (Gent 1982), 103-27;E. H. Kossmann, Is het Nederlandse Volk door de Scheiding van 1830 wakker

geschud?, De Negentiende Eeuw 5 (1981), 179-88.12. D. Donker Curtius, Orde (Arnhem 1839), 19-20. In another pamphlet

Curtius stated that the Constitution was illegal because the kingdom was de factodissolved by the Belgian secession: De Onbevoegdheid van de Helft der Leden vande Staten-Generaal van het gesloopte Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (Arnhem 1839).He had also inveighed against the failure of the government to promote the

building of a railway network linking the Dutch markets with Germany and France:lets over het Nut der Ijzeren Wegen voor Nederland (The Hague 1837).

13. J. R. Thorbecke,Aanteekening op de Grondwet (Amsterdam 1839), preface.14. This theme is found in T. M. Roest van Limburg, Ontwerp van Regtstreek-

sche Verkiezingen en Zamenstelling der Staten-Generaal in Nederland (Arnhem1839); J. F. Zijlker, Gemeenzame Brieven over het wenschelijke van Hervormingenin het Staatshurshoudelijk Bestuur van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (Winschoten1840). Donker Curtius had stated that the separation of powers of the greatMontesquieu was not always respected in the Netherlands: De Regtsmagt der

Hooge- enAndere Heemraadschappen Betwist (The Hague 1834).15. Thorbecke,Aanteekening op de Grondwet, 2nd edn (Amsterdam 1841),

219-20. Later on he also stated that the ridderschappen were destroyed once andfor all in the Batavian revolution:Aanteekening

,

2nd edn, Vol. II (Amsterdam1843), 19.

16. Griffiths states that there was thus a significant transfer of income fromother sources of revenue to the holders of non-productive wealth. Griffiths,Industrial Retardation, 48-53.

17. Cf. Donker Curtius, Orde, 11.

18. Griffiths, Industrial Retardation, 73.19. M.A. Kok and C. Scheffers-Van Lingen, De Belastingvoorstellen van F.

A. van Hall en deArnhemsche Courant, 1843-1844, in G.A. M. Beekelaar et

al., Maar Wat is dat toch voor eene Courant, deArnhemsche? (Arnhem 1981),167-80.

20. L. Canisius, Negen Mannen en n Courant, in Beekelaar, Maar wat isdat toch voor eene Courant?, 212.

21. L. C. Suttorp, F.A. van Hall en zijne Constitutioneele Beginselen (Amster-dam 1932), 61.

22. Burgerstand is a difficult term to render in English: it refers both to thebourgeois and the citoyen, and it carries a distinct cultural surplus meaning The

typical burger is a thrifty, sober, industrious, religious but not overzealous, usefulmember of society. He - not she - is a family father who cares for the future well-

being of himself and of those who are entrusted to him. Cf. the entry for burger-stand in the first nineteenth-century Dutch encyclopedia, theAlgemeen Noodwen-

dig Woordenboek der Zamenleving, by P. G. Witsen Geysbeek, Vol. I (Amsterdam1836).

23. Boogman, Rondom 1848, 30. Many of the Liberals of the 1840s belongedto the

younger generation: Blok,Stemmen en

Kiezen

,

28;see also Th. van

Tijn,



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Tien Jaren Liberale Oppositie inAmsterdam, 1844-1854, Bijdragen voor deGeschiedenis der Nederlanden 17 (1962), 195ff; J. H. von Santen, DeAmstelsoci-teit : liberale

Organisatiein Nederland in de Jaren 1846-1851, in

Figurenen

Figuraties (Groningen 1979).24. Calculated from data in Von Santen, DeAmstelsociteit, 134-41.

25. SeeA. Doedens, Collectief Verzet in de Nederlanden 1813-1848: een

terreinverkenning, in idem, ed.,Autoriteit en Strzjd (Amsterdam 1981).26. The discourse of respectability, productivity and industriousness is generally

found in European Liberalism in this period. It served both to generate a critiqueof the idle and parasitic aristocracy, and to exclude the uncivilized multitude.See D. Nicholls, The English Middle Class and the Ideological Significance ofRadicalism 1760-1886, Journal of British Studies 24 (1985), 419; J. Kocka, ed.,Burgertum im 19. Jahrhundert (Munich 1988), 20ff.;A. Daumard, Les Bourgeoiset la Bourgeoisie en France depuis 1815 (Aubier-Montaigne 1987), 44ff.

27. OnA

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