Old liberals

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In a broader sense, the old liberals are those liberals who, after 1849, followed the tradition of the moderate, constitutional liberalism of Vormärz and the revolution of 1848/49 . In the narrower sense, the term is used to denote a parliamentary group in the Prussian House of Representatives . Their origin was the Vincke fraction in the 1850s. Unless they had switched to the Progressive Party in 1861, their deputies were absorbed into the National Liberals or the Free Conservative Party after 1866 .

Concept and delimitation

The term old liberal is contemporary and has been used. a. used by Robert von Mohl after 1849 to describe the supporters of a constitutional system of government. The term was also used as an external description. The Democrats called those who “lagged” behind their demands. This usage reflects that the claim of liberalism as a comprehensive political movement began to split along various ideological fault lines. After the liberal camp was further differentiated in the 1860s, the term Old Liberals referred to the group between the left liberals of the Progress Party and the National Liberals.

Old liberal faction in Prussia

In the Prussian House of Representatives, the Vincke faction, named after Georg von Vincke , which emerged in the mid-1850s, was a group that was considered to be old liberal in the general sense. In parliament, she initially represented the left , as left-wing liberals and democrats were partly exposed to the repression of the reaction era or did not participate in elections in protest against this policy. It was only with the beginning of the New Era that the left-wing liberals began to take part in political life again. Your MPs initially joined the Vincke parliamentary group.

From 1858 to 1861 the Vincke faction had a majority in the House of Representatives. In the elections of 1858 the old liberals made up 58% of the MPs. During this time, the old liberals had the greatest political influence. The government ministers were close to them or to the liberal-conservative weekly newspaper party. Interior Minister Maximilian von Schwerin-Putzar and Finance Minister Robert von Patow were old liberals.

In the long run, however, the differences within the parliamentary group could not be bridged. The left wing put forward a program that called for a clearer liberal course. However, the majority of the group rejected this. As a result, 19 members split off in February 1861 and formed the Forckenbeck faction, named after Max von Forckenbeck . A short time later, the Progress Party emerged from this group together with members of the German National Association . This split clearly weakened the old liberals. In the elections of 1861 they got 40% together with the left center, while the Progressive Party got 29.5%. In 1865 the ratio was 30% and 40%. However, in the elections of 1866, which took place in the midst of the patriotically heated mood of the German War , the old liberals achieved considerable gains at the expense of the left liberals. After this election, the old liberal faction formed around Vincke in the House of Representatives.

The End

The founding of the National Liberal Party from November 1866 meant a weakening of the old liberals in the broader and narrower sense. A remainder of the old liberals were represented in the first Reichstag of the Empire from 1871 to 1874 as the Liberal Reich Party faction . Insofar as their deputies were re-elected, they were absorbed into the National Liberals or the Free Conservative Party.

literature

  • Gerd Fesser : Altliberale (Al) 1849-1876. In: Dieter Fricke et al. (Ed.): Lexicon for the history of parties. Vol. 1. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1983, DNB 850223156 , pp. 59-65.
  • Walter Tormin : History of the German parties since 1848. 2nd edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart et al. 1967, DNB 458434701 , pp. 48, 57, 59.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jörn Leonhard : Liberalism. On the historical semantics of a European pattern of interpretation , Göttingen 2001, p. 443.
  2. ^ Jörn Leonhard: Liberalism. On the historical semantics of a European pattern of interpretation , Göttingen 2001, p. 514.