The Personnel of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen, 1791-4

1940 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 12-53
Author(s):  
R. B. McDowell
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Independent Voters ◽  
United Irishmen

One of the most noticeable features of Irish political life in the 'later eighteenth century, is, that though political power was :oncentrated in comparatively few hands, there was a very large leasure of political freedom. One could in fact sum up the system by saying that it was oligarchy tempered by discussion. As a result, voluntary and unofficial societies and clubs arose for the purpose of educating and influencing public opinion, and were the nuclei of much political thought and action. There [were Whig Clubs, Constitutional Clubs, Societies for the [Preservation of Liberty and Peace and Associations of Independent Voters. Thus there was nothing very strange in the Iformation, in November 1791, of a Dublin branch of the newly bounded Society of United Irishmen. But this group was to prove unique in at least one respect.

Political, Social, and Cultural Legacies

2020 ◽  
pp. 239-252
Author(s):  
J.S. Grewal
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Considerable Importance ◽  
Main Stream ◽  
The Third ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Cultural Legacies

A long struggle for political power that culminated in the establishment of Khalsa Raj in the third quarter of the eighteenth century was the most striking legacy of Guru Gobind Singh. Significantly, a wide range of literature was produced during this period by Sikh writers in new as well as old literary forms. The Dasam Granth emerged as a text of considerable importance. The doctrines of Guru Granth and Guru Panth crystallized, and influenced the religious, social and political life of the Khalsa. The Singhs formed the main stream of the Sikh Panth at the end of the century. Singh identity was sharpened to make the Khalsa visibly the ‘third community’ (tisar panth).

The London Committee and mobilization of public opinion against the slave trade

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. Oldfield
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Political Life ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
African Slave ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Abolitionist Movement ◽  
Late Eighteenth

AbstractDuring the late eighteenth century organized anti-slavery, in the shape of the campaign to end the African slave trade (1787–1807), became an unavoidable feature of political life in Britain. Drawing on previously unpublished material in the Josiah Wedgwood Papers, the following article seeks to reassess this campaign and, in particular, the part played in it by the (London) Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. So far from being a low-level lobby, as historians like Seymour Drescher have suggested, it is argued here that the Committee's activities, both in terms of opinion-building and arranging for petitions to be sent to the house of commons, were central to the success of the early abolitionist movement. Thus while the provinces and public opinion at the grass roots level were undoubtedly important, not least in the industrial north, it was the metropolis and the London Committee which gave political shape and significance to popular abolitionism.

Determined to Be Free: The Meaning of Freedom in Spinoza'sTheologico-Political Treatise

2011 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-76
Author(s):  
Steven Frankel
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Alternative Account

AbstractThe goal of this essay is to offer an alternative account to the view that political freedom and philosophical freedom are consistent, harmonious, and mutually reinforcing. Certainly, freedom is central to Spinoza's political thought, but to understand it properly, we need to explain how it alleviates, rather than encourages, superstition among the nonrational multitude. In light of his belief in the permanency of irrationality and superstition, Spinoza does not hope to expunge illusions from political life. Advocating freedom is an attempt to adapt the facts of the imagination to the needs of our political order and create stability. The belief in freedom—that is, the belief that we are individual actors who decide our actions and determine our fate—is the most powerful and abiding illusion in politics.

scholarly journals “Advisor Literature” and Russian Political Thought in the Enlightenment: The Anti-Machiavellian Influence

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantin Bugrov
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Christian Morality ◽  
Effective System ◽  
The Status ◽  
Practical Guidelines

This article studies the role of the anti-Machiavellian vision of politics in the development of political thought in westernising eighteenth-century Russia. The author disputes S. Whittaker’s idea that the images of good and bad monarchs in eighteenth-century Russian “advisor literature” (rooted in the tradition of “princely mirrors”) served as a kind of political programme which the ruler was to follow (i. e. imitate good models and avoid bad ones). In “advisor literature”, one can distinguish a descriptive component, which, using the image of ideal monarchs, consolidated the status quo in the minds of subjects, and “advice” proper, suggesting a situation with several competing solutions. This type of advice was available in various spheres of state administration, including the political life of the court itself. Tracing the transformation of the genre of “princely mirrors” in Europe makes it possible to identify and understand the political implications in its Russian counterpart. Being challenged by Machiavelli, who replaced Christian ethics in politics with an immoral “state interest”, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European intellectuals produced a set of anti-Machiavellian ideas to incorporate the Machiavellian idea of political efficiency into Christian morality, prove that the most effective system of behaviour was following the ethical norms of Christianity, and develop some practical guidelines for success at court. In the eighteenth century, a number of anti-Machiavellian writings from previous centuries were translated into Russian (circulated as manuscripts and published works) and were in demand among the intellectual elite. Therefore, researchers have to consider the anti-Machiavellian influence on Russian political culture in the Enlightenment, particularly in the development of ideas about the relationship between politics and morality and the status of politicians.

Some Reflections on Colonialism

1956 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-268
Author(s):  
Hans Kohn
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Less Developed Countries ◽  
Abuse Of Power ◽  
Imperial Expansion

The meaning and implications of the word colonialism and of the closely connected terms of empire and imperialism have undergone a profound transformation in the last decades. Until the end of the nineteenth century the word empire or imperialism was generally used in a laudatory and not a pejorative meaning. The Roman Empire had been the model for Western political thought for one thousand years. The Americans at the end of the eighteenth century proudly and hopefully spoke of their empire. The French revolutionaries proclaimed the imperial expansion of their leadership. Modern Western civilization was regarded as superior to other more stagnant civilizations, and to bring higher civilization to less developed countries was considered a praiseworthy enterprise, in spite of the fact that like so many human efforts this too was inextricably mingled with all kinds of corruption and greed. Empire and colonialism always implied dominion and power; and power, whether exercised by “native” or “alien” governments, has a potency for abuse as probably no other relationship has. Yet liberal alien governments—and liberalism means primarily restraint upon, and limitations of, governmental authority—will be more easily controlled by public opinion against abuse of power than illiberal “native” governments.

Scots and Access to Spanish America from Before the Union to 1748

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Lenman
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Spanish America ◽  
Political Life ◽  
British State ◽  
Scottish Politics ◽  
Partial Integration ◽  
The Way

This article begins with the idea that there was a vigorous political life in Scotland in the first half of the eighteenth century which could focus on issues other than Jacobitism or government patronage. The article focuses on the non-dynastic issues in Scottish politics that predated the Union and which carried on into the Westminster parliament to the accompaniment of considerable activism in Scotland, and a distinctive contribution from Scottish members of both houses of the legislature. The example here examined is the burning issue of securing commercial access to the forbidden lands of Spanish America. Studying it reveals very clearly that ‘The theme of Scotland's partial integration into the British state’ and the way in which it ‘was never wholly successful’, goes back to the very start of the eighteenth century.

Aristocracy about 1760: Theory and Practice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Rank ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
Social Utility ◽  
Class Consciousness ◽  
General Consensus ◽  
The People ◽  
Important Sense

This chapter considers the prevailing notion in the eighteenth century that nobility was a necessary bulwark of political freedom. Whether in the interest of a more open nobility or of a more closed and impenetrable nobility, the view was the same. Nobility as such, nobility as an institution, was necessary to the maintenance of a free constitution. There was also a general consensus that parliaments or ruling councils were autonomous, self-empowered, or empowered by history, heredity, social utility, or God; that they were in an important sense irresponsible, free to oppose the King (where there was one), and certainly owing no accounting to the “people.” The remainder of the chapter deals with the uses and abuses of social rank and the problems of administration, recruitment, taxation, and class consciousness.

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