The Sadler Commission

Excerpt from The Victorian Web:

In 1832 Michael Sadler secured a parliamentary investigation of conditions in the textile factories and he sat as chairman on the committee. The evidence printed here is taken from the large body published in the committee's report and is representative rather than exceptional. It will be observed that the questions are frequently leading; this reflects Sadler's knowledge of the sort of information that the committee were to hear and his purpose of bringing it out. This report stands out as one of three great reports on the life of the industrial class — the two others being that of the Ashley Commission on the mines and 's report on sanitary problems. The immediate effect of the investigation and the report was the passage of the Act of 1833 limiting hours of employment for women and children in textile work.

The Sadler Commission evoked some change in the attention paid to child labor in 19th century Britain and although the testimony was damning in some respects, the British government was not quite ready to address all the problems caused by classical liberalism. Read the rest of the excerpt taken from The Victorian Web and comment on the testimony of the children called into the hearings.

Here's the link

Jacques-Louis David and the Revolution

The art historian Simon Schama did a series a few years ago called, The Power of Art where he looked at the impact of a number of influential artists in Western History. One of the men he discusses is Jacques-Louis David, the man who painted many famous works, among them "The Death of Socrates", "The Oath of Horatii", "The Oath of the Tennis Court", "Napoleon Crossing the Alps", and "The Death of Marat". Schama's discusses all these works but it is "The Death of Marat" that he is most focused on. David's painting showing the radical, Jean Paul Marat, dead in his bathtub is controversial because Marat is depicted as a victim, not the bloodthirsty friend to Robespierre and the man most responsible for the thousands of arbitrary deaths during the Terror.

So, the question is why would David paint Marat as a victim? I have included the video for you to watch. Please comment on David and how he represents the dilemma historians face understanding the true meaning of the French Revolution.

Part I is below; the other parts are linked here

Conservative Reaction to the Revolution

Edmund Burke welcomed revolutions but despised the one in France. To him, it was a murderous, bloodbath that displayed the ugliness of man. In his writing, "Reflections on The Revolution in France, 1791", Burke is scathing in his attack of the leaders of the Revolution by calling them highwaymen and murderers and provides us with a contrary view of the Revolution's importance; all before the real terror consumed France from 1792-1794.

In the Burke excerpt from Perry (154-155) comment on what he accuses the French citizens of acting as. What are his criticisms?

In "Reactionary Prophet", Christopher Hitchens, in his piece on Burke writes, "Edmund Burke understood before anyone else that revolutions devour their young—and turn into their opposites."

What does Hitchens mean by this? Comment please

Finally,

Burke writes," By following those false lights, France has bought undisguised calamities at a higher price than any nation has purchased the most unequivocal blessings! France has bought poverty by crime! France has not sacrificed her virtue to her interest, but she has abandoned her interest, that she might prostitute her virtue. All other nations have begun the fabric of a new government, or the reformation of an old, by establishing originally, or by enforcing with greater exactness some rites or other of religion. All other people have laid the foundations of civil freedom in severer manners, and a system of a more austere and masculine morality. France, when she let loose the reins of regal authority, doubled the license of a ferocious dissoluteness in manners, and of an insolent irreligion in opinions and practices; and has extended through all ranks of life, as if she were communicating some privilege, or laying open some secluded benefit, all the unhappy corruptions that usually were the disease of weal"

What does Burke mean by this? Why did Burke find the Revolution so appalling and destructive? Please comment.

Robespierre's Virtue as Terror

During his reign, Maximilien Robespierre not only changed the course of the French Revolution but he also changed the meaning of the Revolution. In his speech of February 5,1794, Robespierre discusses the importance of terror as an integral part of what the Revolution should mean. The figures behind this speech indicate that in the five months from September, 1793, to February 5, 1794, the revolutionary tribunal in Paris convicted and executed 238 men and 31 women and acquitted 190 persons, and that on February 5 (the date of this speech) there were 5,434 individuals in the prisons in Paris awaiting trial(http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/robespierre-terror.html.

On 8 Thermidor Year II (July 27, 1794), Robespierre was overthrown; he was guillotined the next day. Estimates have the total number of Terror victims at 30,000 to 40,000 persons, including Robespierre.

The question, however, is how should we view Robespierre? His egalitarian vision of the Republicanism was obviously a noble attempt to completely destroy the Old Regime and the inequities that were put in place by the moderate Girondins but his methods of terror and his willingness to equate terror to virtue places him in a special category within Western history. As Colin Jones writes in "At the Heart of the Terror" (required reading for you) "He (Robespierre) evidently believed that he was still acting out of principles and he retained his perennial penchant for self-righteousness".

In his own words, Robespierre writes,

"If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most urgent needs."

I would like each of you to comment on the impact of Robespierre on the Revolution, especially the above comment as it pertains to terror and virtue. What does terror as virtue mean for the direction of the Revolution. Consider all of the readings from the bulletin.