AHC: Earliest plausible stable middle-class suffrage in Western Europe, earliest declaration of rights of man?

[raharris1973]

OK, this is more of a group of challenges, but other ideas in a related vein are welcome - but I think I owe concrete examples and outcomes I'm look for:

1. How early could the franchise for British parliamentary elections been made about as wide as it was by 1832 Great Reform Bill, and stayed at least that wide ever after? Could some kind of PoD dating to the English Civil War get you there?

2. When is the earliest the French experiment with universal male suffrage could have been plausibily implemented, and set in concrete, not to be rolled back? How could this have been made to stabilize earlier, even if the first try isn't any earlier?

3. When could we have had the first European revolution where the revolutionaries made a universal declaration of the rights of man like the French one? To my knowledge, the French were the first to do this. If I am wrong and somebody else did, well nobody paid much attention for some reason.

 

[stevep]

OK, this is more of a group of challenges, but other ideas in a related vein are welcome - but I think I owe concrete examples and outcomes I'm look for:

1. How early could the franchise for British parliamentary elections been made about as wide as it was by 1832 Great Reform Bill, and stayed at least that wide ever after? Could some kind of PoD dating to the English Civil War get you there?

2. When is the earliest the French experiment with universal male suffrage could have been plausibily implemented, and set in concrete, not to be rolled back? How could this have been made to stabilize earlier, even if the first try isn't any earlier?

3. When could we have had the first European revolution where the revolutionaries made a universal declaration of the rights of man like the French one? To my knowledge, the French were the first to do this. If I am wrong and somebody else did, well nobody paid much attention for some reason.

The obvious possibility to me as a Brit is possibly The Levellers. If they had succeeded in winning out in the turmoil during the civil wars and assuming it hadn't descended into an autocratic chaos like France [1789 onward] or Russia [1917 onward] you might have seen much of that happening then.

Of course their likely to be seen as utterly repugnant to most of the ruling elites of Europe, both religious and secular. On the other hand, given that the continent is in the last stages of the bloodbath if the 30 year's war such ideas could prove attractive to many on the continent.

Other possibilities might be a more successful Dutch revolt that keeps the southern Netherlands and doesn't become a monarchy, or one with strict limits, or possibly an expanded Swiss confederation?

 

[S'task]

3. When could we have had the first European revolution where the revolutionaries made a universal declaration of the rights of man like the French one? To my knowledge, the French were the first to do this. If I am wrong and somebody else did, well nobody paid much attention for some reason.

Err... lists of protected rights predate the French declaration by quite a few decades at least. You had the 1689 English Bill of Rights, as well as the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights (which is still in effect as part of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia to this day), and you also had the Natural Rights sections of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. And, of course, concurrent with the French the US adopted it's Bill of Rights, which is much in the same vein.

All of these are quite influential documents in their own right, and have had considerable influence on things. In point of fact, the Virginia Declaration of Rights likely had direct influence upon the French declaration, as noted by Wikipedia the French document was written by the Marquis de Lafayette, in consultation with Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson, who was from Virginia and governor of the State under the very state Constitution which incorporated the Virginia Declaration of Rights as Article 1.

Finally, of course, you have the discussion of the natural rights in the US Declaration of Independence, also in large part written by Jefferson, and still quite remembered and influential.

As to why these documents aren't as remembered? Well, I think that depends on which world you live in. In the English speaking world, the French Declaration is actually almost never talked about outside of it being one of the era's many documents regarding natural rights. Especially in the United States, it's basically a footnote since, as I've shown here, we had a long history of documents that outline the various natural rights and discuss their place and relation to government. This of course makes sense, since the very concept of Natural Rights is very much tied to the English legal tradition and goes all the way back to the Magna Carta in 1215 with a constantly evolving, maturing and expanding understanding of the concept. However when it comes to Continental politics, that is, European centric viewpoints, the Universal Declaration is a major milestone in that it represents the first time a major continental power put forward the idea of Natural Rights in such a strong manner. They didn't have this long history of writings and philosophy regarding Natural Rights, and most of the major documents and such had been developed by those backwater English colonies that had broken away, so weren't paid much attention to among the European elites (outside of some silly German secret society), and so Europe kinda sees the Universal Declaration as a big watershed moment.

In fact, the French Revolution in general is seen as a much bigger deal by Europeans than by Americans. To American, the French Revolution was really derivative of our own, they basically took all our ideas, turned them up to elven, and then proceeded to make a mockery of them via The Terror, and failed to even make a stable Republic due to that Napoleon guy. Meanwhile I've encountered people who think the French revolution predated or inspired the American one, or that it was the French Revolution that pushed the ideas of natural rights and such that the American Revolution then adopted, not realizing the American Revolution predated the French by some ten years and that it was the American Revolution and thinkers who influenced the French.

Or, TLDR, the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizens is only considered to be so important by Eurocentrics whom like to ignore the actual history of ideas and write off things that originated not from the continent as unimportant and not influential.

 

[raharris1973]

In fact, the French Revolution in general is seen as a much bigger deal by Europeans than by Americans. To American, the French Revolution was really derivative of our own, they basically took all our ideas, turned them up to elven, and then proceeded to make a mockery of them via The Terror, and failed to even make a stable Republic due to that Napoleon guy. Meanwhile I've encountered people who think the French revolution predated or inspired the American one, or that it was the French Revolution that pushed the ideas of natural rights and such that the American Revolution then adopted, not realizing the American Revolution predated the French by some ten years and that it was the American Revolution and thinkers who influenced the French.

Or, TLDR, the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizens is only considered to be so important by Eurocentrics whom like to ignore the actual history of ideas and write off things that originated not from the continent as unimportant and not influential.

Edmund Burke seemed to think the French declaration was a big deal, and scary incitement, because it seemed more missionary/weird coming France than English-speakers, and well, because Anglo-chauvinism, the French hadn't gone through all the right historical steps, and no shortbread for you frogs! (or is it wogs? heck, is there really any difference?)

....and most feudal societies had something that looked like the Magna Carta.

I don't think there was any kind of path-dependence set up by 1215 CE foreordaining a parliamentary England in 1600s and 1700s alongside absolutist France and Spains and autocratic Russia.

 

[stevep]

Edmund Burke seemed to think the French declaration was a big deal, and scary incitement, because it seemed more missionary/weird coming France than English-speakers, and well, because Anglo-chauvinism, the French hadn't gone through all the right historical steps, and no shortbread for you frogs! (or is it wogs? heck, is there really any difference?)

....and most feudal societies had something that looked like the Magna Carta.

I don't think there was any kind of path-dependence set up by 1215 CE foreordaining a parliamentary England in 1600s and 1700s alongside absolutist France and Spains and autocratic Russia.

Would agree. The Magna Carta was largely for the assorted nobles to check royal power and they possibly got away with it in part because John had also pissed off the church which normally opposed such checks on the power of anointed monarchs. It didn't stop a lot of autocratic rule in England, let alone the rest of what became the UK in later centuries under various monarchs. [Henry VIII probably being the most notorious example]. Possibly the key factor was that Parliament was able to increasingly control taxation and hence limit what a king could do.

Also while the American revolution preceded the French one they, along with radicalism in England were definitely influenced by the French Philosophes of the 17thC and 18thC. They ended up having limited impact in France as more extreme elements gained control during the revolution but were definitely there. Would agree with Burke that revolution was less likely to result - at least in the short/medium term - to establish a stable civil society in France as it lacked most of the history of gradual development of precursors that England especially had.

Of course most of the assorted 'rights' mentioned are limited to privileged groups of the times they were written. That's one reason I mentioned the levelers as they seem to have excluded income or status limits and also included sexual equality, at least to some degree and rejected religious bigotry, which would have been a huge step anywhere in the 1640's European world. Whether they would have been able to maintain those principles if they had somehow come to power of course would be another issues I fear.

Steve

 

[raharris1973]

The obvious possibility to me as a Brit is possibly The Levellers. If they had succeeded in winning out in the turmoil during the civil wars and assuming it hadn't descended into an autocratic chaos like France [1789 onward] or Russia [1917 onward] you might have seen much of that happening then.

Very interesting scenario. So, theoretically, they could have gotten an English (or British?) Republic going with a wide manhood suffrage going consistently from the mid-to-late 1600s? That makes for quite a different world. If they are a more or less democratic republic for the century ahead, from 1650 on, how will they relate to Europe, the American colonies, and places further afield like India? Would they remain committed to chattel slavery of Africans through the whole 18th century? Were the Levellers inherently anti-monarchical and Republican, are just in favor of such principles that no self-respecting monarch would likely put up with?

Even if the Levellers go *bad* from a 'bourgeois democratic' point of view, it makes for an interesting scenario, jumping into autocratic chaos a la Jacobin or Boleshevik, or leading to a Protectorate led by someone who has more Imperial conqueror type aspirations, a la Napoleon. Could it happen - I wonder how?

Other possibilities might be a more successful Dutch revolt that keeps the southern Netherlands and doesn't become a monarchy

Hmm - Also interesting - how could the Dutch have somehow won the whole territory? How wide was their franchise?

possibly an expanded Swiss confederation

...and I wonder if the Swiss franchise was pretty wide, it may be ignored in favor of mainstream historiography focusing so much on Britain and France.

(outside of some silly German secret society),

An illuminati republic or two would be quite cute to see!

 

[stevep]

Very interesting scenario. So, theoretically, they could have gotten an English (or British?) Republic going with a wide manhood suffrage going consistently from the mid-to-late 1600s? That makes for quite a different world. If they are a more or less democratic republic for the century ahead, from 1650 on, how will they relate to Europe, the American colonies, and places further afield like India? Would they remain committed to chattel slavery of Africans through the whole 18th century? Were the Levellers inherently anti-monarchical and Republican, are just in favor of such principles that no self-respecting monarch would likely put up with?

Even if the Levellers go *bad* from a 'bourgeois democratic' point of view, it makes for an interesting scenario, jumping into autocratic chaos a la Jacobin or Boleshevik, or leading to a Protectorate led by someone who has more Imperial conqueror type aspirations, a la Napoleon. Could it happen - I wonder how?



Hmm - Also interesting - how could the Dutch have somehow won the whole territory? How wide was their franchise?



...and I wonder if the Swiss franchise was pretty wide, it may be ignored in favor of mainstream historiography focusing so much on Britain and France.



An illuminati republic or two would be quite cute to see!

Well a lot of course depends on how able they are to get their full manifesto so to speak into government and then avoiding corruption, either in terms of things like accumulations of wealth leading to say some sort of plutocracy or going full scale hard line republican like in France and possibly leading to a Napoleon like dictator.

A lesser corruption might see, possibly in response to cultural pressure say some reduction in the franchise - say for women, Catholics or other groups being denied full rights.

In terms of the Dutch I'm less aware of their political system when the monarchy was weak but they came close at times to maintaining control of much of what eventually became Belgium which, provided it didn't attract too much attention, possibly from the French, would have given them a much bigger resource base.

 

[ATP]

Poland had "Neminem captivabimus" about 1430/nobody could be imprisoned without trial/
And it was both for gentry and townspeople/nobody cared about peasants/
In OTL cities never used it,becouse mayors liked their law to imptison anybody in town who offended them without trial.And towns become weaker and weaker.
But let assume,that townspeople really get that right/some King needing money or something like that/ ,and remained powerfull.
We could have something like you want about,let say,1530.

 

[Atarlost]

The Romans had middle class suffrage. Anything that preserves Rome and preserves the Tribunes of the Plebs as elected offices with any actual political power would lead to earlier plausible stable middle class suffrage than anything else as OTL the Roman Republic only potentially fails that on stability.

A city state preserving the Roman model of government might also qualify as stable middle class suffrage. For example the Serene Republic of Venice copying the Roman office of Tribune of the Plebs in addition to copying its Senate would I think qualify.

An early declaration of the rights of man is trickier, but it might be possible for a declaration of human rights to be enacted to the purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation if one side of a civil war thought being able to arm their own slaves and cause their rivals to suffer slave revolts now was worth having to deal with major economic dislocations in the near future.

 

[ATP]

The Romans had middle class suffrage. Anything that preserves Rome and preserves the Tribunes of the Plebs as elected offices with any actual political power would lead to earlier plausible stable middle class suffrage than anything else as OTL the Roman Republic only potentially fails that on stability.

A city state preserving the Roman model of government might also qualify as stable middle class suffrage. For example the Serene Republic of Venice copying the Roman office of Tribune of the Plebs in addition to copying its Senate would I think qualify.

An early declaration of the rights of man is trickier, but it might be possible for a declaration of human rights to be enacted to the purpose of the Emancipation Proclamation if one side of a civil war thought being able to arm their own slaves and cause their rivals to suffer slave revolts now was worth having to deal with major economic dislocations in the near future.

In theory yes,in practice - impossible.Cheap slaves destroyed their farmers,and without farmers there was no army.You must remove slavery first.Impossible.