Abstract
If the conclusion of a union of Catholics and liberals did not require any serious reconsideration of the ideas underpinning the two oppositions in the Southern Netherlands, it nevertheless triggered a further radicalisation of political positions. In the discourse of the union of oppositions, this created a dynamic towards Belgian nationalism.
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Notes
- 1.
Constant attributed the derailment of the French Revolution to a large extent to the fact that the revolutionaries had still thought and acted in the name of an anachronistic, ancient concept of liberty.
- 2.
Some students of Constant have argued that even his preoccupation with individual liberty needs to be understood as part of a redefinition of political liberty in a liberal sense. Lucien Jaume summarised Constant’s programme in that sense as the ‘necessary individualisation of political liberty’ (Jaume 1997, 63). Michel Huysseune has argued in a similar sense: ‘Laissez faire-laissez passer has more than an economic meaning for Constant, as it also refers to the political activity of citizens, which he clearly valued in a positive sense and did not want to see subordinated to the legislator’ (Huysseune 2015, 115).
- 3.
Article of Constant in Minerve, 18 March 1818; quoted in Jaume (1997, 103–105).
- 4.
The pamphlet furthermore defended the efforts at néerlandisation of the whole country on the following grounds: ‘Let us suppose that … in ten, twenty, or maybe a hundred years from now, the majority of the people has retaken its rights in the Flemish provinces, would it then be a good idea to keep the inhabitants of a small part of the country, that which is called Walloon country [pays wallon], in perfect isolation?’ (Schilperoort 1828, 45–46).
- 5.
The reluctance in the North was undoubtedly also inspired by the fear that a reform of the political system in a liberal-parliamentary sense, for example through the introduction of parliamentary ministerial responsibility, would lead to a dominance of the Belgian part over the Dutch part in the kingdom. In other words, in the North the independent and liberal political forces also increasingly looked at the political situation through a subnational lens. Northern Protestants in particular would have considered the Catholic-clerical participation with the opposition in the South to be intolerable. In October 1829 a new journal, Nederlandsche Gedachten, directed by Groen van Prinsteren was established; according to Lode Wils its ‘exclusive aim … to maintain the Dutch-Protestant supremacy in the state’ (Wils 2007b, 305, 310; van Velzen 2005, 355).
- 6.
The reopening of seminaries for the education of priests would be allowed and the facilities for French speakers in the Flemish provinces, for example in court cases, extended (Wils 2007b, 314).
- 7.
The king had also made a tour through the Belgian cities and provinces in May–June 1829.
- 8.
Quoted in van Velzen (2005, 329).
- 9.
- 10.
For an analysis of this pamphlet, see also van Velzen (2005, 272–276).
- 11.
The relatively few negative reactions were limited to the new repressive law concerning the freedom of the press.
- 12.
The Dutch government made an attempt, through the bishop of Liège Cornelius Van Bommel , to persuade the Catholic members of parliament to change their mind, but the opposition press boycotted the effort. The reluctant Southern representatives were exposed, and, according to Lode Wils, ‘whipped’ into compliance with the opposition by the vigorous opposition press and the petitions sent to the Second Chamber (Wils 2007b, 307). On the other side, the government also made threats and took repressive actions to frighten enough representatives to take its side (Bos 2009, 220). The budget was approved by 61 votes to 46 (Wils 2007b, 312).
- 13.
Gazette des Pays-Bas, 21 April 1830; quoted in Wils (2007b, 316–317).
- 14.
Quoted in CPB, 9 November 1830.
- 15.
De Potter decided to step down from the Provisional Government, whilst his fellow-republican, Jean-François Tielemans , gave up his post in the Constitutional Commission after his colleagues unanimously voted for the monarchy.
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Marteel, S. (2018). Towards Belgian Nationalism and a National Revolution. In: The Intellectual Origins of the Belgian Revolution. Palgrave Studies in Political History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89426-3_9
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