ABSTRACT

Like many other developments in Western history, the extremely influential current of political thought known as liberalism had its origins in the eighteenth-century industrial revolution. Since the greatest danger of interference in the lives of individuals came from governments, liberalism emphasized political liberty as the essential prerequisite for liberty in all its phases. In the aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleon, British liberalism had an important influence on the continent, but the French revolutionary tradition remained robust and made many converts in Europe as well. Embodied in the Declaration of Independence, the French element permeated American liberalism along with the British. The British, active in Spain and all along the anti-French front, denounced military aggression and pressed the English limited monarchy as a constitutional model. In 1794 he met Madame de Stael, who encouraged him to come to Paris, where he entered politics and became a naturalized French citizen.