Congress of Vienna

The essential question from class was, What should people in power do when their power is threatened?  In class we broke into groups and discussed and predicted what we thought Metternich's decisions were, and they we posted it on Padlet.  We then discussed what really happened, and what the impact of the Congress of Vienna was.

One of the concepts was the Holy Alliance.  Metternich and the other leaders used this to eliminate a lot of the threats of revolution.  The Holy Alliance was initiated by Czar Alexander of Russia and it stated, Monarchs had the divine right to rule from god.  If anyone opposed this then they were considered to be committing treason to not only their country, but also defying the word of God.  All of the major powers in Europe who took part in the Holy Alliance, were allowed to send in troops into other countries in order to thwart any and all revolutions.  Except England did not take part in any of this.  They refused to use this concept to keep their power.

I think that maybe instead of using Holy Alliance to try and keep all of their power and not give many rights to the citizens, I think that they could have sacrificed some of their power.  They could have given more rights to the people so then they were more loyal and wouldn't revolt anyway.  Other than that I think that they did an adequate job at the Congress of Vienna.

Interactive Map 

Ideology Throw Down

The three main ideologies of the 19th century were Liberalism, Conservatism and Nationalism.  These three ideologies effected most of Europe after Napoleons conquering of most of it.  In class we were assigned into six groups and there were two groups that had the same ideology and we each had to come up with a one minute presentation to describe their ideology.  We then voted on the best one of the pair of presentations.

Conservatism Video

Our presentation describes how Conservatives didn't want change and they wanted to keep the same, old, ways of living. Also it shows how the kings and monarchs supported Conservatism and didn't want to lose their jobs.  

Liberalism is the support of meritocracy and Liberals wanted change to the current government, they promoted individual liberty and they wanted rights that weren't based of social class or social status.  Conservatism was the opposite of Liberalism.  The Conservatives believed in keeping everything the same way, not changing anything.  This was very important back then because the monarchs would lose all of their power if things changed so they supported Conservatism.  Finally, the Nationalists were connected to the Liberals.  They believed in the bringing together of a nation with language, customs, and history.  They thought that the nation would be a lot stronger if everyone was united.  This was important in the 19th centuries because Italy and Germany realized that since they weren't united nations, and all separate states, Napoleon was able to easily conquer them.

Napoleon's Influence

Napoleon Bonaparte was an amazing military leader and general, and won many victories.  Some found him to be a hero while others thought he was horrible.  Napoleon had a lot of influence on, not only France, but most of Europe also.  Napoleon had a large impact on the social, economic, and political systems of Europe.  Napoleon managed to establish the social policy, meritocracy.  This was really good, especially to the citizens, because they were now awarded based off of skill and not just your social class.  He also allowed citizens to have more rights to education and property.  There were mixed feelings about this because the old nobility were losing their benefits and becoming more equal to the lower class and they didn't like this at all.  However, all of the citizens were very happy at all of the social policy changes.  Napoleon also made changes to the economic systems of Europe.  For example, he encouraged new industry, built more roads and canals, and he also improved the sharing of ideas and new economic systems.  His changes to the political were both positive and negative however.  He overthrew the directory, which was positive for the citizens of France because they were a bad and corrupt government.  But this was also negative because he became an emperor and limited the leader's power.  There is a lot of debate over weather Napoleon was as a great of a leader as he's made out to be, but according to Madame de Stael's and Marshal Michel Ney's accounts of Napoleon, it is mostly biased depending on what your social class, or background is.

The Lost Voices of Napoleonic Historians

Capitalism, Socialism, Communism

In class the other day we played a game where the teacher distributed 3 pieces of candy to most students but to a couple she gave 10 pieces to.  This represented the majority of the people living in poverty and the small percentage of the wealthy.  Then we had to play rock, paper, scissors with people in the class, and if you won, you got to take a piece of their candy.  We did this for a while and a lot of people complained about always losing but a couple people got a lot more candy than when they started off with.  Next, the teacher collected all of the candy and redistributed it all equally.  This was unfair to the people who had a lot of candy, but the people who had little or none at all were happy about this.  This represented socialism and how the government, the teacher, controlled the economy and brought economic equality to everyone.  Then we had a choice to play rock, paper, scissors again and this represented communism because people agreed to have an equal amount of candy.  I thought that this activity was really fun, especially because we got to eat the candy afterwards.

Marx's theory of Capitalism, Socialism and Communism was meant to help the poor because if everyone agreed to have the same amount of money and not stand for people having a lot more, communism, then everyone would have the same amount of money and hopefully not be in poverty.  Also with his idea of Socialism, the government would control the economy and try to make it so that everyone had the same amount of money.  Smith's theory of the "invisible hand" states that the government would allow people to buy and sell goods as they please and then the consumers would look for the highest quality and lowest priced thing and buy that.  This way the economy would eventually equal itself out because people would increase the quality of their goods but lower the price, further helping the poor who could now afford to buy the goods.

I think the Smith's theory of the "invisible hand" is the best idea because that way, the market prices would go down because the manufacturers would have to compete with the lowest prices.  This way more people could afford the goods and this would help out the economy with more cash flow going around.  More money in peoples hands due to the drop in prices would then allow for people to buy more items and then the economy would eventually stabilize itself.  True, it might take a while, but this could be fixed with the government helping it along a little.

The Invisible Hand

US & GB Option 1

The working conditions were not very good in either country, however America seemed to have it a bit better.  For example, American mills let their workers have breakfast and longer breaks.  Also American workers had break for supper while in Great Britain they had to eat while they worked.  This is coming from the schedules of William Cooper in Great Britain, and Emily Nutter in Lowell, MA.  The workers in America got more breaks and more free time than the ones in Great Britain and this led to difficult working conditions in Britain.  Also, Charles Dickens write from Document A, "I solemnly declare I cannot recall... one young face that gave me a painful impression; not one young girl... I would have removed from those works if I had had the power."  He is saying that all of the workers look happy unlike the workers back in England.  A lot of the bad working conditions in the mills had to do with safety, especially in Great Britain.  There was a lot more peasants in Britain who needed work so workers were considered expendable, and because of this they didn't really try to increase the safety of the machines.  A lot of accidents would happen, for example peoples hair would get caught in the belts and they would get scalped, or their limbs would get stuck and crushed in a machine.  In the "Factory Accidents" reading it said that a lot of times the muscle and skin would be stripped down to the bone or fingers or limbs were lost.  There were safety issues in America too, but the fact that Britain saw the workers as expendable made it worse there.