Theses and Dissertations

Advisor

Hay, William Anthony

Committee Member

Hui, Alexandra

Committee Member

Lang, Andrew

Committee Member

Barbier, Mary Kathryn

Date of Degree

8-13-2024

Original embargo terms

Visible MSU Only 6 months

Document Type

Dissertation - Campus Access Only

Major

History

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of History

Abstract

Between 1790 and 1830 the Whig party in Britain championed the rights of continental European peoples to determine their governments free of outside interference. The universal right to national self-determination became an important part of their own domestic, partisan effort to oppose the ministries of William Pitt the younger and his acolytes—ministries which they believed were undermining the independency of the House of Commons by allying Britain with the despotic governments of the continent in their war against the French Revolution. By casting the wars against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France as an attack against the right to national self-determination, the Whigs were better able to maintain their party’s cohesion and unity. But as a result of their decision to interpret the revolutionary conflicts of this era as a struggle for national liberty, the Whigs faced unique challenges when continental events failed to fit the predictions of the national model. Instead of abandoning their interpretational archetype, the Whigs broadened their definition of who could rightfully claim to participate in the struggle for national liberty. The study that follows demonstrates how these broadened definitions were instrumental in enabling the Whig party to pass Parliamentary Reform in 1832.

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