ABSTRACT
For the aristocratic liberals, the threefold threat of despotism faced by nineteenth-century Europe was embodied first by the domination of one set of ideas—the commercial spirit—and second by the hegemony of one class or another—either the middle class or the proletariat. In politics, the third leg of the aristocratic liberals' characteristic explanatory tripod, the chief dangers were the centralized state, aided and abetted by the various parties struggling to control it, and the power of public opinion. The aristocratic liberals shared the common belief of most nineteenth-century liberals that public opinion was a decisive force in political and social life. Through the press and through peer pressure, public opinion controlled individual behavior and exercised a sometimes decisive influence on the state. Universal male suffrage had a number of positive aspects for the aristocratic liberals. Suffrage in itself was an important means of political education in their view.
