Whig

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The Whigs were one of the two parties of British parliamentarianism from the 1680s to the 1850s. Their opponents were the conservative Tories . In 1859, the Whigs joined forces with moderate Tories to form the Liberal Party .

history

As early as the second half of the 17th century, the formation of parliamentary groupings could be observed in the English parliament , but they did not yet have the character of parties. Up until the Glorious Revolution , however, the structures were noticeably solidifying: the Whigs were strict opponents of the attempts at recatholization of Jacob II and consequently played a major role in the initiation of the Glorious Revolution and the deposition of Jacob, which, however, also operated leading Tories.

The term Whig was originally used insultingly by political opponents and means 'drover' (Whiggamore) . The term was first used for a parliamentary group during the crisis over the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill in the years 1679–1681. This tried unsuccessfully to prevent Jacob, Duke of York , from becoming his brother's heir to the throne with a great anti-Catholic conspiracy theory . The official name of the Whigs was at first Country Party (Party), as opposed to the Tories, the Court Party ( court party ).

With the accession of the first Hanoverian to the British throne, George I , in 1714, the Whigs began a fifty-year period of government responsibility in which the Tories played almost no role in the political arena. Under George III. this changed, as the king hoped to increase his power if he got rid of the Whigs.

During the reign of George III. the radical Whigs (Commonwealthmen), whose masterminds were John Milton and John Locke, had only a small following in England. In contrast, their views were extremely popular in the North American colonies. The settlers were encouraged by them to separate from the motherland, of which they felt "enslaved", and to declare it independent.

William Pitt the Younger ushered in a thirty-year Tory domination of government until the Whigs restored Prime Minister Earl Gray in 1830 . From a broad alliance of aristocratic landowners a more unified group developed under the leadership of Charles James Fox , whose unifying factor was the opposition to William Pitt the Younger.

In general, the party stood for political and economic liberalism , especially for free trade , a strong parliament with the right to resist in the sense of the Enlightenmentist John Locke, the abolition of slavery and religious tolerance towards the so-called dissenters (Protestant denominations that made up the episcopal system of the Church of England ). Its supporters consisted primarily of the liberal bourgeoisie. In 1832, the Liberal government of Earl Gray implemented the first parliamentary reform, which provided for an extension of the right to vote to broader strata of the population and a reallocation of the constituencies on the basis of the population; the following year, slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire . The supporters of the Whigs were found primarily in the progressive and trade-oriented strata of the rising bourgeoisie . The top management met informally, particularly at Brooks's Club and later at the Reform Club .

From the merger of the Whigs and moderate Tories, the Liberal Party emerged on June 6, 1859 , which formed the second pillar of the British two-party system until the 1920s and was then replaced in this position by the Social Democratic Labor Party . The successor organization to the Liberal Party (since 1988), the left-wing liberal Liberal Democrats , were represented as the third largest group in the British Parliament from 2010 to 2015 and were coalition partners of the Tories under David Cameron .

In the election of May 7, 2015 , the Liberal Democrats suffered a defeat: With 7.3 percent (2011: 23%) and only 8 seats (previously: 57), they lost their previous importance. In the political crisis in the wake of Brexit , however, they were able to find new strength in the EU and local elections in 2019.

Known Whigs

Fiction

In The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson the period 1655-1714, with its political, social, economic, cultural, scientific and technical upheaval is shown. Beginning with the second, but especially in the third volume, the action increasingly takes place against the background of the political currents of the Whigs and Tories in London.

literature

  • Paul Rapin de Thoyras : A Dissertation on the Rise, Progress, Views, Strength, Interest, and Characters of the tow Parties of the Whigs and Torys. First published in the year 1717. In: The history of England. Translated by Nicholas Tindal. 3. Edition. London 1743-1747. (The explanation of the origin of the terms Whig and Tory in Rapin de Thoyras' original text Dissertation sur les Whigs et les Torys is corrected in Tindal's translation based on Gilbert Burnet.)
  • Jörn Leonhard : "True English Guelphs and Gibelines ". On the historical change in meaning and function of “whig” and “tory” in English political discourse since the 17th century. In: Archives for cultural history. 84, 2002, pp. 175-213 ( full text ).
  • Leslie Mitchell: The Whig World. Hambledon & London, London 2005, ISBN 1-85285-456-1 .
  • EP Thompson : Whigs and Hunters. The Origin of the "Black Act". Allen Lane / Penguin, London 1975, ISBN 0-7139-0991-9 (also: Pantheon Books, NY 1975, ISBN 0-394-40011-9 ) as well as TB editions (about the time around 1720 and the peasant oppression) .

Web links

Commons : Whigs  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Middlekauff: The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789. Revised and Enlarged Edition. Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 978-0-19-516247-9 , pp. 51-52, 136-138