AP European History

## Learning Outcomes

- Understand the main political principles of nineteenth-century **liberalism**
- Explain why liberals stressed **popular sovereignty**, **individual rights**, and **constitutionalism**
- Identify how liberalism challenged conservatism and hereditary privilege after 1815
- Distinguish liberalism from democracy, nationalism, and socialism
- Recall key examples including the **Great Reform Act of 1832**, the **July Revolution of 1830**, and the **Revolutions of 1848**
- Explain how industrialization strengthened middle-class liberal demands
- Use specific evidence in SAQs, LEQs, and DBQs on nineteenth-century political change

## AP European History Syllabus

For the AP European History, you are expected to understand how liberals emphasized sovereignty and rights in nineteenth-century Europe, with a focus on the following syllabus points:

- Know that liberals argued political authority should rest on the people rather than divine-right monarchy
- Identify the central liberal goals of constitutional government, civil liberties, equality before the law, and protection of property
- Explain the difference between liberalism and full democracy, especially over voting rights
- Understand how liberalism drew on Enlightenment thought and the early French Revolution
- Know how economic liberalism included **laissez-faire**, free trade, and private property
- Identify the significance of the **Great Reform Act (1832)** as limited liberal reform in Britain
- Explain how the **Revolutions of 1848** expressed liberal demands across Europe
- Understand how the **Frankfurt Parliament** linked liberalism with nationalism in the German states

## Test Your Knowledge

_Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, look more closely at that area during your revision._

1. What did liberals mean by **popular sovereignty**?
2. How did nineteenth-century liberalism differ from full democracy?
3. Why did liberals support constitutions and representative assemblies?
4. How does the **Great Reform Act of 1832** show both the strength and the limits of liberal reform?
5. Why did liberalism and nationalism often work together in **1848**, but not always?

## Introduction

In nineteenth-century Europe, **liberalism** was one of the major ideologies of political change. Liberals wanted to break the power of absolutist rulers, hereditary privilege, and arbitrary government. In their place, they argued for government based on law, constitutions, civil liberties, and the rights of individuals.

This topic matters because AP European History questions often ask you to explain what liberals believed, how they differed from conservatives and socialists, and how those beliefs shaped events such as the revolutions of **1830** and **1848**. A strong answer needs more than a definition. You need to show how liberal ideas worked in practice, who supported them, and where they stopped short.

> **Key Term: liberalism**
> A nineteenth-century political ideology that favored individual rights, constitutional government, representative institutions, equality before the law, and usually economic freedom based on private property and free markets.

### The core beliefs of liberalism: sovereignty, rights, and limited government

Liberalism grew out of the **Enlightenment** and the early phases of the **French Revolution**. Thinkers such as **John Locke** had already argued that government existed to protect rights, not simply to command obedience. The French Revolution then made these ideas politically explosive by claiming that sovereignty belonged to the nation.

> **Key Term: popular sovereignty**
> The principle that legitimate political authority comes from the people, not from divine-right monarchy or inherited dynastic rule.

For liberals, this idea had major consequences. If power came from the people, then rulers could not govern purely by tradition, force, or birth. They needed legal limits and public consent. That is why liberals favored constitutions, elected assemblies, and rule by law rather than personal rule by monarchs.

> **Key Term: constitutionalism**
> The idea that government should be limited by laws and usually by a constitution, with powers defined and restrained.

Liberals also stressed **individual rights**. These included freedom of speech, freedom of the press, religious liberty, freedom of assembly, equality before the law, and security of property. These were not just abstract ideas. They were direct attacks on censorship, arbitrary arrest, special noble privileges, and state churches that excluded dissenters.

> **Key Term: individual rights**
> Rights belonging to persons as citizens, including civil liberties such as speech, press, religion, property, and equality before the law.

The phrase the College Board often uses is that liberals emphasized **popular sovereignty, individual rights, and enlightened self-interest**. That last phrase points to a liberal belief that when rational individuals pursue their own welfare under fair laws, society as a whole can also prosper.

This helps explain why liberalism was both political and economic. Political liberty and economic liberty were linked in the liberal mind. If the state could not arbitrarily silence you, it also should not arbitrarily control your business, property, or trade.

> **Test Tip:** In an SAQ or MCQ, do not reduce liberalism to just “freedom.” AP examiners want specific freedoms: press, religion, assembly, property, and equality before the law.

### Liberalism in practice: who supported it and what reforms they wanted

Liberalism was strongest among the **bourgeoisie**: merchants, professionals, manufacturers, lawyers, journalists, and educated middle-class groups. This social base matters. Liberals were challenging aristocratic privilege from below, but they were not usually trying to create social equality for all.

Industrialization strengthened liberal demands in an indirect way. As towns, trade, banking, and manufacturing expanded, middle-class groups gained wealth and influence. Yet in many countries political systems still favored nobles, monarchs, and old landed elites. Liberalism became the political language of this mismatch: new social power demanding new political rights.

This is why the **Great Reform Act of 1832** in Britain is such a good example. It expanded representation and reduced some rotten boroughs, but it mainly benefited propertied middle-class men. It showed that liberal reform could weaken old privilege, but it also showed liberal caution.

> **Key Term: Great Reform Act (1832)**
> A British reform law that redistributed parliamentary seats and expanded voting rights mainly to propertied middle-class men, while stopping far short of full democracy.

The Act mattered because it proved reform was possible without revolution. But it also angered working-class groups, who saw that the middle class had been included while they remained excluded. That disappointment helped fuel **Chartism** later in the decade.

This gets to one of the most tested distinctions: liberals were not necessarily democrats. Many liberals supported representation, but only for those they considered independent and responsible, usually property-owning men. They feared that universal male suffrage might produce disorder, mob politics, or attacks on property.

So if a question asks whether liberalism was democratic, the best answer is: partly, but with clear limits. Liberals wanted broader participation than conservatives accepted, but narrower participation than radicals and democrats demanded.

A second useful example is the **July Revolution of 1830** in France. When **Charles X** issued the **July Ordinances**, dissolving the assembly, restricting the franchise, and increasing censorship, liberals saw this as an attack on constitutional rule and civil liberty. They supported his overthrow, but many preferred a constitutional monarchy under **Louis-Philippe** rather than a more radical republic.

That tells you something essential: liberals often wanted change, but controlled change. They opposed arbitrary monarchy, not all monarchy. If a monarch accepted a constitution and representative institutions, many liberals were willing to accept him.

### Liberalism compared with conservatism, democracy, and socialism

AP questions often reward clear comparison. Liberalism becomes much easier to understand when you place it beside rival ideologies.

Liberals vs conservatives:
Conservatives valued tradition, hierarchy, monarchy, and social order. Liberals opposed absolutism, legal privilege, and inherited political authority. Conservatives asked, “How do we preserve order?” Liberals asked, “How do we restrain power?”

Liberals vs democrats:
Democrats generally pushed for much wider suffrage, often universal male suffrage. Liberals often stopped at voting rights for propertied men. Both wanted representation, but liberals were usually more cautious.

Liberals vs socialists:
Socialists focused on economic inequality and the conditions of workers. Liberals defended **private property**, markets, and usually **laissez-faire** economics.

> **Key Term: laissez-faire**
> The liberal economic principle that government should interfere as little as possible in the economy, allowing free markets, competition, and private enterprise.

This is why liberalism was often called **middle-class liberalism** or **bourgeois liberalism**. It advanced civil liberty and legal equality, but it did not aim to abolish class differences. In fact, many liberals believed property itself was a right that must be protected.

**John Stuart Mill** is useful here because he shows both the strengths and the tensions within liberalism. In **On Liberty** (**1859**), he defended freedom of thought, expression, and individuality. He feared not only kings, but also what he called the danger of majority pressure in democratic societies.

> **Key Term: tyranny of the majority**
> The idea, developed by liberal thinkers such as John Stuart Mill, that a majority in a democracy can still suppress individual liberty and minority rights.

Mill’s work helps explain why liberals valued rights so strongly. For them, freedom was not just about choosing rulers. It was also about protecting individuals from rulers, crowds, churches, and even public opinion.

Mill also moved liberal thought in a more reform-minded direction by supporting greater rights for women and some state action to improve social conditions. But he still remained within a liberal framework, not a socialist one.

> **Test Tip:** A strong comparison paragraph often uses this pattern: liberals supported constitutions and rights; conservatives stressed order and tradition; socialists focused on class inequality. That earns clearer analysis than describing each ideology separately.

### Liberalism and the revolutions of 1848: strength, limits, and alliance with nationalism

The **Revolutions of 1848** are the clearest example of liberalism in action across Europe. In France, the German states, the Austrian Empire, and parts of Italy, liberals demanded constitutions, representative assemblies, civil liberties, and rule of law.

But **1848** also shows why liberalism had limits.

In the German states, the **Frankfurt Parliament** tried to build a united Germany on liberal principles. Delegates were mostly middle-class liberals and nationalists. They wanted a constitution, national representation, and legal guarantees of freedom.

> **Key Term: Frankfurt Parliament**
> The assembly that met in 1848 to try to unify the German states under a liberal constitutional framework.

This is one of the best cases for showing how liberalism and nationalism could support each other. Nationalists wanted a unified nation-state. Liberals wanted that new state to be constitutional and representative. So both groups could work together.

However, the alliance was unstable. In multiethnic empires such as Austria, one group’s nationalism could threaten another group’s liberty. Germans, Magyars, Czechs, Italians, and others often wanted self-rule, but not always for everyone else. Liberal commitments to universal rights could weaken when national ambitions took priority.

The failure of the Frankfurt Parliament also reveals a frequent liberal weakness: liberals were good at drafting constitutions and debating principles, but often lacked military force. They still depended on princes and armies. When **Frederick William IV of Prussia** refused the imperial crown, the whole project collapsed.

The same pattern appeared elsewhere in 1848. Liberals could inspire revolts, but they often split from workers and radicals once social demands became stronger. In France, liberal demands for constitutional and political reform did not fully satisfy workers seeking economic change. That division weakened the revolution.

This is why one textbook summary says the revolutions of **1830** and **1848** were major expressions of liberalism, but later nationalism often separated from liberalism. In the decades after 1848, some nationalist leaders were willing to sacrifice liberal freedoms if national unity could be achieved.

That shift matters for AP essays. If asked about continuity and change, you can argue:

- **Continuity:** liberals kept supporting constitutional rule, rights, and representation.
- **Change:** after 1848, nationalism often became less tied to liberal liberty and more tied to state power and unification.

### How to use this topic in AP exam answers

For an **SAQ**, define the ideology directly and give one example. For instance: liberals believed in popular sovereignty and individual rights, as seen in the **Great Reform Act of 1832**, which expanded representation but remained limited to propertied men.

For an **LEQ or DBQ**, build a line of reasoning. One good structure is:

1. **Origins and beliefs** — Enlightenment roots, rights, constitutions, sovereignty
2. **Practical reforms** — 1830 France, 1832 Britain
3. **Limits and tensions** — restricted suffrage, conflict with democracy and socialism, failure in 1848

A high-scoring answer usually does not say “liberals believed in freedom” and stop there. It explains what kind of freedom, for whom, and with what limits.

A useful judgement sentence might sound like this: nineteenth-century liberals were major opponents of absolutism and defenders of constitutional rights, but they often limited political participation to propertied men and hesitated to support broader democratic or social equality.

That kind of sentence shows complexity, which AP essays reward.

## Key Point Checklist

_This article has covered the following key knowledge points:_

- Liberalism grew from Enlightenment ideas and the early French Revolution
- Liberals believed in popular sovereignty rather than divine-right monarchy
- Liberalism stressed constitutionalism, rule of law, and representative institutions
- Individual rights for liberals included speech, press, religion, assembly, property, and equality before the law
- Nineteenth-century liberals usually supported private property and laissez-faire economics
- Liberalism was strongest among the bourgeoisie and educated middle classes
- Liberals differed from democrats because many supported only limited suffrage for propertied men
- The Great Reform Act of 1832 was a major liberal reform, but not full democracy
- The July Revolution of 1830 defended constitutional rule and civil liberties in France
- The Revolutions of 1848 expressed liberal demands across Europe
- The Frankfurt Parliament linked liberalism with nationalism in the German states
- After 1848, nationalism often became less closely tied to liberal freedoms

## Key Terms and Concepts

- liberalism
- popular sovereignty
- constitutionalism
- individual rights
- Great Reform Act (1832)
- laissez-faire
- tyranny of the majority
- Frankfurt Parliament


Ideologies of Change and Reform Movements - Liberals emphasized sovereignty and rights