In the U.S., conservatives were likewise eager to claim that they, and they alone, were the true defenders of freedom. True liberty-defined by Eötvös as respect for “well-earned rights”-could best be achieved by limiting state power as much as possible, not by democratization. Writing in the wake of the brutally suppressed revolutions that rose against several European monarchies in 1848, he complained that the insurgents, battling for manhood suffrage, had confused liberty with “the principle of the people’s supremacy.” But such confusion could only lead to democratic despotism. The Hungarian politician Józseph Eötvös, among many others, agreed. Here, Constant claimed, freedom, understood as “peaceful enjoyment and private independence,” was perfectly secure-even though less than five percent of British adults could vote. Benjamin Constant, one of Europe’s most celebrated political thinkers, rejected the example of the French revolutionaries, arguing that they had confused liberty with “participation in collective power.” Instead, freedom-lovers should look to the British constitution, where hierarchies were firmly entrenched. In the course of the 19th century this view became widespread among European elites, who continued to vehemently oppose the advent of democracy. Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter As British subjects, they enjoyed “more security than was ever before enjoyed by any people.” This meant that the colonists’ liberty was best preserved by maintaining the status quo their attempts to govern themselves could only end in anarchy and mob rule.
As, for instance, the Scottish philosopher Adam Ferguson-a staunch opponent of the American Revolution-explained, liberty consisted in the “security of our rights.” And from that perspective, the American colonists already were free, even though they lacked control over the way in which they were governed.
Their authors vehemently denied that the Atlantic Revolutions would bring greater freedom. From the 1770s onward, as revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic rebelled in the name of liberty, a flood of pamphlets, treatises and newspaper articles appeared with titles such as Some Observations On Liberty, Civil Liberty Asserted or On the Liberty of the Citizen. This particular way of thinking about freedom was pioneered in the late 18th century by the defenders of the Old Regime. This means that freedom can best be preserved by institutions that curb the power of those majorities, or simply by shrinking the sphere of government as much as possible. Democratically elected majorities, conservatives point out, pose just as much, or even more of a threat to personal security and individual right-especially the right to property-as rapacious kings or greedy elites. From this perspective, preserving freedom has little to do with making government accountable to the people. In their view, true freedom is not about collective control over government it consists in the private enjoyment of one’s life and goods. Over the past 250 years, the cry for liberty has also been used by conservatives to defend elite interests. John Lewis called on Americans to “let freedom ring”, he was drawing on this tradition.īut there is another side to the story of freedom as well. While these groups had different objectives and ambitions, sometimes putting them at odds with one another, they all agreed that their main goal-freedom-required enhancing the people’s voice in government.
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