The economic ambitions of nineteenth-century liberals also separated them from the working class.

Following Adam Smith's Enlightenment ideas, the manufacturers of Great Britain, the landed and manufacturing middle classes of France, and the commercial interests of Germany and Italy sought to abolish the economic restraints associated with mercantilism or the regulated economies of enlightened absolutists.

They desired the freedom to make and sell items. To that purpose, they advocated for the elimination of international tariffs as well as internal trade restrictions. Economic liberals were opposed to the previous paternalistic legislation that set salaries and work practices through government control or guild privileges. They regarded labor as just another commodity that could be freely bought and sold.

Liberals desired an economic framework in which people were free to utilize their abilities and possessions to prosper themselves. They believed that such a system would create more goods and services for everyone at reduced rates, laying the groundwork for material growth.

Because the socioeconomic and political situations of different nations vary, the precise programs of liberals differed as well. The monarchy was already restricted in the United Kingdom, and most individual freedoms had been secured. Parliament, with reform, might deliver more representative government.

There were connections between land, trade, and industry. France already had many of the systems that liberals desired. The Napoleonic Code established a contemporary judicial system in France.

French liberals may be able to defend requests for greater rights.

In France, like in England, representatives of various economic interests had collaborated. The issue for liberals in both nations was how to maintain civil rights, define the roles of the monarch and the elected legislature, and moderately grow the electorate while avoiding democracy. (See also "Benjamin Constant on Modern Liberty.")

The complicated political situation in German-speaking Europe differed from that in France or Britain, and German liberalism diverged correspondingly from that of France and Britain.

Monarchs and aristocracy in Germany and Austria were more hostile to liberal principles, limiting German liberals' access to direct political power. The aristocratic landowning classes, who staffed the bureaucracy and officer corps, were separated from the tiny middleclass business and industrial groups by a severe social gap.

Benjamin Constant (1767–1830), a French liberal theorist, offered lectures on the nature of ancient and contemporary liberty in 1819. He underlines the intimate link between modern liberty and economic freedom and a free private life in this chapter. The demand for a free private life is thus linked to the need for a representative government, according to him.

People did not have enough time in modern life to make the political commitment that the ancient Greek polis needed. As a result, modern individuals have delegated most of their political interest and engagement to politicians. Constant elucidated nineteenth-century liberals' goal to increase private freedom while minimizing areas of life in which the government may intrude. His reasoning also lays the groundwork for rejecting direct

Nationalism was not always, or even rationally, associated with liberalism. Indeed, nationalism could and sometimes was diametrically antithetical to liberal political principles. Some nationalists desired that their own ethnic group rule minority national or ethnic groups within a certain territory.

This was true for the Magyars, who desired political authority over non-Magyar peoples residing inside Hungary's ancient borders. Nationalists frequently defined their own national group in contrast to other national groupings they saw as cultural inferiors or historical foes. This darker side of nationalism would manifest itself forcefully in the second half of the nineteenth century, poisoning European political life throughout most of the twentieth.

Furthermore, conservative nationalists may demand political independence for their own ethnic group.

The conservative classes' more theoretical political and theological ideals were connected with philosophers such as Edmund Burke (see Chapter 18) and Friedrich Hegel (see Chapter 19). Other, less formal sentiments shaped by the revolutionary experience were held by conservatives.

The assassination of Louis XVI by radical democrats convinced most monarchs that they could only trust aristocratic regimes or administrations of aristocrats in partnership with the wealthiest middle-class and professional individuals. The European aristocracies thought that no kind of truly representative government could safeguard their property and authority. All conservatives opposed the concept of a written constitution unless they could draft it themselves.

Even even then, some people were skeptical of the idea.

Except for their own revivals, the churches were similarly skeptical of popular movements. Throughout the Continent, ecclesiastical leaders saw themselves as charged with the educational job of sustaining the social and political status quo. They also loathed and despised most Enlightenment ideas, because those rational notions and reformer texts instilled the critical spirit and threatened revealed faith.

Conservative aristocracy kept their old attitude, but not their old privileges or confidence. They felt themselves as surrounded by foes, always on the defense against forces of liberalism, nationalism, and popular sovereignty.

They were well aware that political forces opposed to them may destabilize them. They also recognized that a revolution in one country may spread to another.