ABSTRACT
Classical liberalism as a historical term refers to the ideas and movements that were described as liberal (and saw themselves as such) in the period between roughly the 1820s and the 1900s. Earlier thinkers such as Locke were not themselves liberals but rather proto-liberals who, from within the tradition of classical republicanism, worked out a body of ideas and attitudes that developed into liberalism, after the challenge of the French Revolution. The key thinkers in that process defined it as a position that rejected both the reactionary position of conservatives and the egalitarian and revolutionary radicalism of the Jacobins and Napoleon, while continuing to adhere to the Enlightenment ideals that had developed in the later eighteenth century. From the 1820s onwards, this was a self-conscious and recognisable body of ideas, movements and campaigns. The ideas were often formed and clarified by the campaigns as much as inspiring them. This kind of politics appeared all over the world as the nineteenth century passed and should be seen as one of the dominant responses to modernity, borrowing from earlier forms in places such as Europe while drawing on indigenous traditions. At the end of the nineteenth century there was a bifurcation of liberalism with the appearance of ‘revisionist’ or social liberalism, which saw a larger role for government in economics. Classical liberalism now became the label for people who, while still clearly liberal, rejected this move. In that sense it signifies a continuing and developing intellectual tradition.
