Dutch Ships | Creation of the Netherlands | Colonial Empire | Johan de Witt Speech
The Dutch Republic was a confederation of seven provinces, which had their own governments and were very independent, and a number of so-called Generality Lands. These latter were governed directly by the States-General (Staten-Generaal in Dutch), the federal government. The States-General were seated in The Hague and consisted of representatives of each of the seven provinces.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_government_of_the_Dutch_Republic
Although the state was small and contained only around 1.5 million inhabitants, it controlled a worldwide network of seafaring trade routes. Through its trading companies, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Dutch West India Company (GWC), it established a Dutch colonial empire. The income from this trade allowed the Dutch Republic to compete militarily against much larger countries. It amassed a huge fleet of 2,000 ships, initially larger than the fleets of England and France combined.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Republic
https://www.britannica.com/place/Dutch-Republic
Quora Comments - in Respons to the Question - Was the Dutch Republic a democracy or form of democracy, and if it was, did it influence the United States’ democratic form of government?
(Ruud Zwart) - Works at The Hague, South-Holland, Netherlands (2010–present)
It was an oligarchy. It may have influenced the U.S. form of government because the dutch provinces had a high degree of independence and a relatively weak central government. The declaration by which the northern Netherlands separated from Spain (plakkaat can verlatinghe" certainly was the - blueprint for the American declaration of independence.
(Jaap Folmer) - No, it was not a democracy, but yes, it was a republic and that has influenced the US a lot, because there were very few other republics around that they could study.
The Dutch republic was an oddball, because most other countries were monarchies and usually absolute monarchies, like France, Russia, Austria, Prussia etc. Exceptions were the Swiss confederation (Confoederatio Helvetica) and to some extent Britain. It did have a monarchy but it was not absolute.
The Swiss example seems to have had little influence on the Founding Fathers but the Dutch one was subject to quite a bit of scrutiny, because John Adams established the first embassy on foreign soil in The Hague and got the Dutch ‘Regents’, the members of the ruling billionaires class as you would call it today in the US to come up with the finances for the the War of Independence.
The Republic was a oligarchy, but it did have a Parliament, and it was a pretty loose federation. The federal authorities and the States General, its parliament had gradually lost power to the provincial States, particularly the parliament of the province of Holland. By the end of the 18th century the States General did nothing if the handful of billionaires (the colonial merchants) did not want it. And they usually did not want it, so it mostly did nothing. Least of all tax the billionaires or spend money that they considered theirs.
So - the Founding Fathers learned from that - that having a Congress or Parliament was not enough, it would not necessarily represent the people or even take decisions that would be in the national interest. Not if these bodies would be dominated by people pursuing their personal or special interests. This is why they came up with elections, checks and balances, emolument clauses and the whole rest.
Sounds familiar? The kind of things Trump and the GOP are trying to get rid of?
For a Dutchman it is pretty recognizable what they want. We call it the pruikentijd. The time of wigs.
Dutch people do not have good memories of those days. They ended in great, great misery.
(Jaap Folmer) - How much truth is there to the claim that the Dutch Republic had a much greater influence on the development of contemporary systems of democratic/republican government than is commonly acknowledged ?
There is a fair bit of truth to it. The Republic was kind of the big exception in the 17th and 18th centuries. Europe was full of (would be) absolutist monarchies where the sole monarch had taken over and eliminated all other sources of power and influence and where the monarchy wielded unfettered power over the economy.
In the Republic, by contrast, it was the merchant class who had made their fortunes the capitalist way, who called the shots. The king had been abjured, the nobility had little say and - there were things like the freedom of the press, not seen in other places.
Britain was an odd hybrid, but that had everything to do with what is called the Glorious Revolution that brought a Dutchman on the throne. Parliament thought that they had curbed his power a lot. He thought that he was getting so much power, far more than he had ever had as Stadholder. The Dutch had abjured their would be absolute monarch in 1581. In England it took till 1689 until the monarchs stopped their attempts to amass all power in their own hands.
When America revolted and started its bid for independence, the Republic was their favorite guinea pig. John Adams, later the second president, established the first American embassy on foreign soil there and persuaded the merchant elite to invest in American independence. Adams carefully analyzed the goings on in the Republic and wrote home about it. His son Quincy grew up there and spoke Dutch fluently. Adams found a lot of things he liked, but even more that he thought were things to improve upon or even downright errors to be avoided. E.g. there was a fair bit of religious tolerance . Jews and Catholics could live there safely as long as they were not too ostentatious about their beliefs. But they did not have the same rights as the dominant Calvinists in their various denominations.
And a democracy the Republic was not. The power rested with a relatively small oligarchy of rich people who had become very complacent and risk avoiding. They actually stifled all progress, all change, because they were quite comfortable, thank you. The Republic was - a libertarian dream come true: small government at the beck and call of the “important” people - Adams basically wrote home how not to be a republic.
The interaction with the new republic overseas had huge consequences for the Republic.
- It led to the Fourth Anglo-Dutch war that was a real disaster for the country and caused a lot of dissatisfaction among the more progressive members of society who had been exposed to American idea(l)s. They even called themselves the Patriots and after the war ended in 1784 they rebelled.
- From 1785 to 1787 there was basically a democratic experiment inspired by the fledgling USA. It was crushed by the Stadholder Willem V calling upon his brother-in-law the king of Prussia to ‘set things straight’.
- The Patriots fled mostly to France where soon the Revolution broke out. In 1795 they came back at the head of a French army that helped them replacing the old Republic by a new one, the Batavian Republic that instituted a lot of (necessary) reforms. There were no guillotines but the country did become a French vassal state and would eventually be annexed by Napoleon.
(Pieter) - Was the Dutch Republic an Actual Republic?
They called themselves a republic and one of the ‘founding documents’ does refer to the provinces as a Republic after they had declared independence...
Technically it was a federation or confederacy of seven provinces that jointly dealt with foreign policy, defence and managed the common lands.
The common lands or Generaliteitslanden... were predominantly Catholic regions conquered during the 80 years war. They serve as a buffer or punching bag for the other seven provinces which were all represented in a common assembly called the Staten-Generaal.
All the provinces in turn had their own provincial assembly or parliament where the representatives of its chief cities, nobles and clergy met. The fact that many of the cities had far reaching autonomy led some foreign visitors to conclude that these were themselves mini-republics with Montesquieu stating that the Republic of Seven United Netherlands was in fact a confederacy of 56 or so city republics and the rural nobility. Because unanimous votes were required for some important decisions Montesquieu also considered the union a democratic one, although the oligarchic character of political class would hardly remind you of a democratic government per say...
(John Amabile) - Was the Dutch Republic the first modern country?
That’s an interesting question. I would say there are two ways in which they were.
1. The first modern stock market. It seems the Romans, Chinese and Sumerians May have had a stock market, but we’re not sure. We know the Dutch had one because everyone on earth today copied there’s, or copied someone else who copied it. Some philosophers even contend that the standard of a country being free is whether it has a stock market or not.
2. The first real republic. While the Romans came up with Republican government (its their word) the Dutch were the first modern powerful state to be a republic. On many occasions they defeated the kings of England and France, not to mention Spain. Of course being a republic and having a real stock market are related ideas but people always separate economics and politics. Venice gets an honorable mention but they stopped free elections for most of their history.
"True Freedom" and the Dutch Tradition of Republicanism - Catherine Secretan
https://arcade.stanford.edu/rofl/true-freedom-and-dutch-tradition-republicanism
-5e5809e00214e.jpg)
Ancient Pluralism and Modern Democracy
If on the one hand ‘True Freedom’ in the Netherlands predated both the American and French Revolution, while on the other modern state formation and democratic institutions came rather late and owed much to foreign example or even imposition, we clearly face a complex problem if we wish to link ancient Republican pluralism with the advent of modern democracy in the Netherlands.
The issue is complicated because among Dutch historians one finds at least (two substantially different interpretations);
1. A Whig or Conciliatory Interpretation
In what their antagonists have dubbed a ‘Whig interpretation’ of Dutch history10. there are immediate and straight links between the traditional liberties of the Dutch Republic and the coming of responsible and democratic government in the Netherlands in the 19th and 20th century. In such an interpretation the following features of the Dutch Republic are singled out as particularly important: the break in the development of what in the 15th and 16th century had seemed to become a modern absolutist state under a Burgundian-Habsburg dynasty; hence, the weakness of central institutions and the virtual absence of anything like an autochthonous military or a central bureaucracy in the ensuing United Provinces; the early, prominent role of a mercantile bourgeoisie; the emphasis on the right to resistance against unlawful actions of any sovereign and the derivation - at least in theory - of authority from the people; the persistent particularism which required constant accommodation between many actors with inherent rights; the toleration, in practice, of different religions (the privileged position of the Dutch Reformed Church notwithstanding); and the jealous maintenance of rights and privileges which in a cyclical view of history (what else after all did revolution mean) could inspire new freedoms.
A whiggish, gradualist view of history sees a natural continuity between these traditions and the later development of modern democracy...
2. The Radical Reading of the Record
The ‘Radical’ reading of Dutch history is substantially different from the preceding ‘whiggery’. First of all, ‘Radical’ Historians emphasize the oligarchical nature of the Republic which soon after the initial successes of the Revolt excluded all but the most narrow circles from any effective role in government, for all its references to burghers or the people.
The pluralism and conflicts of the Republic were mainly expressions of factional strife, in which lower strata were either manipulated from above by rival regent groups or burst out in short-term violence that was rigorously suppressed.14. Such ‘democracy’ as there was could only come out in the open with the radical wing of the Patriot Movement in the late 18th century which indeed might have carried ofï a Dutch revolution, were it not for the tweespalt (dissension) caused by the betrayal of the democratic cause by those aristocratic, oppositional regents whose radicalism in 1784 was little more than an expression of antagonism towards the Orange princes, and by the repression by Prussian arms.
In the ‘Radical’ interpretation real progress was only ensured by the intervention of radical innovators after 1795 who against the intransigent resistance of ‘federalists’ and so-called moderaten enforced a unitary state and were behind the adoption of the first real constitution in Dutch history, that of 1798, which received massive support in a referendum, and which contained many of the properties that a constitution in a modern democracy would demand. In that view the promises which such a constitution contained were foiled by counter-revolutionary forces which in a series of counter-coups in July 1798 and 1801 forced a return to earlier oligarchical politics...
Chapter Twelve | Ancient pluralism and modern democracy in the netherlands:
The 1989 Erasmus Lectures at Harvard University
https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/daal024stat01_01/daal024stat01_01_0015.php
The Dutch Political System
The decentralised organisation of the Dutch Calvinist churches matched the political make-up of the state. Before the Revolt, the Provinces had been independent until they were swallowed up by the mighty Habsburg Empire. After 1581, sovereignty devolved again to the provincial assemblies, although matters of foreign policy were delegated to the States General. In practice, foreign policy was discussed by a special committee headed by the Grand Pensionary, officially a mere secretary. Still, real power rested in the provinces and in the cities, and the Grand Pensionary always needed to build consensus.
In practice, the province of Holland had most power, based upon an economy that was larger than that of the other six provinces combined. Within Holland, the city of Amsterdam was dominant. Provinces and cities often maintained their own ties with foreign partners. Moreover, the Princes of Orange, who were stadtholders (stewards) in most provinces, as well as military and naval commanders-in-chief, kept their own informal diplomatic service. Officially, the stadtholders were executives and answerable to the States, but in fact they often behaved as quasi-sovereigns, and were regarded as such abroad...
The complex constitution never entirely crystallised, and was to be swept away after the French Revolution. The intricate system baffled and often enraged foreign diplomats. Jonathan Swift once remarked that the Dutch Republic was 'crazily instituted'.
The Dutch Republic thus maintained a complicated system of foreign relations, one that was not always successful because of its lack of coherence. Still, the system had its advantages. For one, the multitude of formal and informal, political and commercial, agents created a network of information that was unsurpassed, making the Dutch Republic a centre for news in Europe, buoyed by an extensive information infrastructure of newspapers and pamphlets that were difficult for a decentralised government to censure. According to Secretary of State, Robert Harley, 'The Hague is the centre of all business and intelligence'...
Economic Relations. Almost inevitably, overwhelming economic success put the Dutch on a collision course with England, an upcoming global power...
https://www.gale.com/intl/essays/david-onnekink-dutch-republic
The Rise of Three Types of Civil Societies in the Spanish Netherlands and the Dutch Republic:
The three types of civil society are identified which developed through time and built a cumulative tradition of civil society. These are the;
medieval craft guilds (liberal civil society),
the early modern civic militia (republican civil society) and
the modern Enlightenment sociability (deliberative civil society).
These three forms of sociability will be connected to the rise of modern democracy. Current definitions of modern democracy are taken as starting point. Political theorists usually discern two fundamental dimensions of democracy:
(1) actual democratic rules - the procedural dimension of modern democracy.
It covers the actual accountability of government and the openness towards
citizens
(2) allocation of political rights and liberties - refers to the
institutional and legal background of democracy, which protects citizens and
attributes them with political rights. Habermas calls this liberal
democracy.
Following Habermas, it is considered feasible to divide this dimension in two different aspects: republican and deliberative democracy. The republican element emphasizes the participation of citizens in political life, while the deliberative dimension of democracy refers to the circulation of public arguments and opinions...
The present paper wants to historicise these three forms of civil society in the context of the Low Countries, and as such aims at enlarging our understanding of the genesis of modern public spheres, civil societies and democratic practices (see figure 1). We will show that different types of civil society developed since the late medieval period and formed together a dynamic and diverse civil society
Civil Society or Democracy? A Dutch Paradox
Abstract - Since the 1990s, research has been carried out worldwide into the relationship between 'civil society' (an organised, self-aware society) and the formation of democracy... This article makes a case for the relevance of Dutch history to the debate on civil society in relation to three points.
Firstly, where civil society is a phenomenon of the eighteenth and above all the nineteenth centuries, the society of the Republic demonstrates that a corporatist order can show characteristics of a civil society.
Secondly, the factor of religion can be an important element in the promotion of social commitment.
Thirdly, Dutch history flags up a paradox: it seems that a highly developed, civil society can rather limit than promote the need for political democracy and the recognition of an independent political sphere.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254888830_Civil_Society_or_Democracy_A_Dutch_Paradox
The emergence of the Netherlands as a ‘democratic’ country - Henk te Velde
...the history of Dutch ‘democracy’ has been characterized by an emphasis on freedom, self-government by a broadly defined elite and a strong civil society, rather than by participation of the population at large. Democracy only became really popular after the Second World War when it could be defined as protection against dictatorship. The Dutch case shows that we should be careful about equating a strong civil society or even the rule of law with democracy in the sense of the power of the people at large. Democracy was definitely accepted as a label to characterize the Netherlands after it had been redefined as in essence the opposite of dictatorship instead of the opposite of aristocracy. The Dutch case also shows that a highly developed, civil society can even confine rather than promote the need for political democracy and for a vibrant independent political sphere...
With his international best-seller The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1856), American historian John Lothrop Motley firmly established the place of the Dutch Revolt in the prehistory of the American struggle for independence and democracy. Motley was a patrician Protestant New Englander, an American Whig who loathed populist democracy, and who was perhaps even attracted to the oligarchic side of Dutch self-government. He presented the Dutch struggle for liberty as a history of proper democracy, that is to say, of a relatively limited form of democracy...
A couple of decades later, at the end of the Second World War, democracy had become an irresistible label all over the world. Everybody wanted to be called a democrat, almost regardless of the particular regime one wanted to defend, and it now became interesting to know exactly when a people had, in fact, started to call themselves democrats. Again the Netherlands played an important part in the story...
Although it is clear that the Netherlands are no longer the historical example of democracy that some people considered them to be in the 19th century, the assumption still seems to be that the Dutch were not only a frontrunner in democratic practices but also in self-defining as a democratic country. But is this true?
In this contribution, I will try to sketch the emergence of democratic self-definitions from the end of the 18th century until the post-war period, when it had become commonplace to define the Netherlands as a democratic country. I will argue that this history has been characterized by an emphasis on freedom, self-government by a broadly defined elite and a strong civil society, rather than by participation of the population at large. Democracy only became really popular after the Second World War when it could be defined as protection against dictatorship.
The Dutch case shows that we should be careful about equating a strong civil society or even the rule of law with democracy in the sense of the power of the people at large. It appears that a highly developed civil society can even confine rather than promote the need for political democracy and for a vibrant independent political sphere...
The 19th century
Democracy was once again only acceptable as part of a mixed constitution, and mitigated by representation. The Netherlands Restoration was quite successful in swiping away all political radicalism: in contrast to the revolutionary constitution of 1798 (the first written modern Dutch constitution), the constitutions of 1814 and 1815 did not contain popular sovereignty, nor was popular sovereignty ever introduced into the constitution afterwards. The Netherlands constitution has never contained the terms democracy or democratic, either.
The Restoration re-installed the old ways of quiet negotiating in the inner circle of councils of the state and the provinces, and this time even without the pressure of the (lower) middle classes on the local government that had been quite normal during the Republic. Political life was dormant. It would be hard to picture the Netherlands of that period as an example of democracy, although many cultural societies existed...
The doctrinaire liberal Johan Rudolf Thorbecke, definitely did not want democracy. He indignantly rejected the accusation of being a supporter of ‘democracy’. He was in favour of representative government, which to his mind was the opposite of (direct) democracy. The connotations of the word democracy came close to the connotations of the term populism today.
The connotations of anarchy, lawlessness and mob rule or even despotism were so strong, that ‘democracy’ was not used very often, not even to say that it was not desirable. Arguably, the lack of the word democracy demonstrates the conservative nature of Dutch politics. The strength of conservative attitudes and elites was illustrated by the weakness of democratic movements that did not succeed in putting ‘democracy’ on the political agenda. In 1848, the French Republic described itself as ‘democratic’, and ‘democratic’ groups developed everywhere in Europe. The tiny and short-lived Dutch ‘Democratische Vereeniging’ was part of this international movement, but it made hardly any impression at all, certainly not in the long run. The unrest caused by the international revolutions of 1848 was channelled into a liberal, not a democratic constitution...
Could it be argued that the democratic nature of the Netherlands was weakened rather than strengthened when the localized and fragmented Republic was replaced by a modern unitary state? There is much to be said for this interpretation, as both the autonomy of local government and the means common people had to influence (local) government disappeared under an at first authoritarian Kingdom. However, this is not the whole story. When we look closely at Erskine May’s argument, his interpretation of democracy turns out to be rather specific.
‘The history of the Netherlands presents illustrations of democracy under two distinct aspects’, Erskine May writes. ‘The first exhibits the growth and political power of municipal institutions; the second, the assertion of civil and religious liberty’. Obviously, this has more to do with freedom than with democracy, and Erskine May concludes his chapter about the Netherlands with the remark that in their struggle for ‘their traditional franchises the people had never been moved by the principles and aims of democracy’. ‘Their liberties are now far greater than any to which they aspired in former times. They have retained their municipal franchises, while the people have acquired the political rights of citizens, and a share in the sovereignty of a free State. Their past struggles have fitted them for the temperate exercise of popular privileges, and their institutions are in harmony with their traditional sentiments and predilections’.
Erskine May’s book was almost completely ignored in the Netherlands – even today, only a couple of Dutch libraries stock his book and at the time, there were no reviews to speak of – and that is not hard to understand. He made an early attempt at domesticating democracy by, on the one hand, arguing that democracy was about freedom and not about mob rule, and on the other hand, suggesting that all kinds of historical developments were related to ‘democracy’, even if the historical actors had neither thought about democracy nor used the term.
This strategy would work perfectly well when democracy had been accepted as a good thing in the 20th century, but in 1877, it was too early for that in the Netherlands. Until the end of the 19th century, the Dutch parliament did not even debate democracy. The first real advocate of democracy only entered parliament in the late 1880s. Until the 1890s, even the word democracy was only used about a hundred times in the Dutch lower house and then another hundred times until the end of the century.
In the 20th century examples of its use proliferated rapidly. Newspapers used the term more frequently (already at the end of the 19th century), but were at first often referring to other countries. More significantly, historians also began to use the term in their description of the national history. However, this was done either in order to warn against the detrimental effect of unchained and unleashed democracy, or as a descriptive concept for the self-government of towns in the Middle Ages.
Robert Fruin was the doyen of the Dutch historians, occupying the first chair in (Dutch) history in the Netherlands (in Leiden, from 1860). He wrote of ‘restraining an uncontrollable (tempestuous) democracy’, and thought that the Athenian democracy had degenerated into mob rule, although he also used the term in a more neutral way.
His preferred pupil and successor, Petrus Johannes Blok, used the term more often and more free from values judgements. In his multi-volume History of the People of the Netherlands (1892–1908; English edition 1899–1912; third revised edition 1923–1926), the word democracy appears quite often, to indicate local self-government by the lower and middle classes, among other things. It is certainly not the central concept..
Dutch historians have never really framed this story as a fight for democracy.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1611894419835747
Radical Republicans and Early-Modern Democrats:
Notes on Palmer’s “Dutch Case” – Age of Revolutions
...R.R. Palmer singled out the Dutch Republic in his The Age of Democratic Revolution as one of the primary democratic hotbeds in continental Europe before the French Revolution. Whereas Dutch historians were generally reluctant to pay much attention to the late-eighteenth-century political events, Palmer did not hesitate to consider them a part of the revolutionary wave that marked the rise of democracy.
It is clear to anyone who reads one of the many pamphlets of the time, that the political vocabulary of the Dutch Patriot Movement (c. 1780-1787) was steeped in enlightened political thought. The works of French philosophes and Scottish enlightenment thinkers were endlessly discussed. Above all, the American Revolution was watched with great interest from across the Atlantic. Not only did many Dutchmen sympathize with the revolt against the British – the nemesis of the Dutch Republic – the American fight against despotic rule reminded the Dutch of their own revolt against the Spanish king (1568-1648), the foundational moment of the Republic.
At the same time, however, the Dutch could look back on a tradition of active civic republicanism. Urban militias existed in most towns and cities, the press was relatively free, and petitioning was common practice. Dutch citizens were generally aware of their political rights and apt in asserting them. Moreover, the patriots seemed to be certain that the solutions for current problems could be found by delving into the Dutch past and by studying the “old constitutions.” They argued that the country had once been a free republic indeed, but throughout the centuries the ancient laws had been corrupted.
Due to the Patriots’ concern with ancient laws, some historians have argued that the Patriots never really outgrew the political structure and the republican culture of the ancien régime...
The Dutch Patriot Movement of the 1780s: The Revolution That Failed
For two centuries, the Dutch exercised economic and military power all out of proportion to the nation's size. They sailed to every comer of the earth on a relentless search for commercial profit, making the nation proud, wealthy, and envied. These feats were accomplished mainly as a result of an attitude, derived from Calvinism, that is well expressed by the motto of Rotterdam: "It is necessary to sail, not to live." By the later 18th century, however, this "golden age" of the Netherlands was rapidly tarnishing, as the emerging giants of England and France began to squeeze the United Netherlands down closer to its actual size. The Dutch were no more willing to accept their decline than any nation would be, especially since poverty and weakness were so visibly replacing the prosperity of earlier times. Predictably, the frustration and anger of many people became focused on a symbol of everything that no longer worked, of everything that had gone wrong -- the Stadholder. Indeed, the recognized qualities of William V made him an impeccable scapegoat. In 1781 he actually declared: "I wish I were dead, that my father had never been a Stadholder . . . I feel I have no ability to be at the head of so many affairs." The way was clear for those determined to restore Dutch glory, the Patriots. The corrupt Stadholder would be removed and new leadership would be infused into the stifling regent class, making the nation vital and powerful again. The Patriots were prepared to do what many nations do when threatened with a fall: revolt. Of course, they did this in a uniquely Dutch way.
Elie Luzac (an Orangist) summed up the Dutch economy by saying that "the primary objects of our interests lies in that which is connected to the getting and bringing back and forth: in the manufactures, fisheries, shipping and commerce . . . we must do business." Unfortunately, by the 1780s Dutch industries and her fishing fleets were technologically backward and uncompetitive, while the staple goods market that had made Holland the middle-man of Europe was being preempted by the more innovative British and French. As a result, the forever cautious Dutch investors began putting their money into banking, which was more profitable since it financed British and French ventures rather that sagging Dutch companies. In fact, 40% of the British national debt in 1777 was owed to Dutch banks. Thus, Dutch investors helped finance the phenomenal growth of Britain and France that steadily drove Dutch commerce into penury. Naturally enough, the regents and big bankers with much accumulated capital prospered in this market, while the small bankers, merchants, and industrialists (the burghers) who depended upon the home market suffered. These were the people who filled the Patriot ranks. It was the lower and working classes who suffered most, though. The number of poor increased dramatically in the years before the revolt, while the government, in an era of declining revenues (a familiar theme) could no more provide sufficient relief than it could finance revitalization. But unlike the burghers, the working classes looked, as they always had, to the House of Orange for relief...
Ironically, the Patriot movement began with a group of anti-Orange, anti-British regents from the larger cities who wanted to limit the Prince's power and British influence, mainly to enhance their commercial interests. This faction was soon joined by a large number of small town leaders -- burghers -- from the lands provinces of the interior. These groups formed the "democratic wing" of the regent party, a rather loose coalition of anti-Orange interests. It was a coalition destined to fail since the burgher Patriots ultimately wanted to replace the regents (as well as deposing the Stadholder), thereby giving power to a broader segment of society -- a position no doubt influenced by contemporary events in America.
Despite the many parallels with France and America, the irrepressible Dutch character insured that their revolution would be quite different...
The democratic ideals of the Patriots appear to have been derived mainly from the historical experience of the common Dutch people, unlike in other countries where "democracy" was an intellectual product of a small intelligentsia. the concepts of Christian brotherhood and equality with everyone having a stake in government were, and remain, persistent themes in Dutch history. This historical legacy explains why the Patriots insisted on reform rather than reformation of the nation's traditions and institutions. Thus, taking control of one's own town was generally considered acceptable by the Patriots, while attempts to spread the revolt elsewhere were considered excessive since that would mean violating the long cherished federalism. Likewise, the Patriots were determined to work through the States-General in consolidating their national power, which meant that the regents, through their prerogatives, could often thwart the spread of reforms." Even worse, these policies allowed the regents and Stadholder to remain visible, active political forces and therefore a ready alternative to the Patriots. As "conservative" burghers the Patriots were seriously weakened by the fact that they faced domestic rivals with undeniable claims to the nation's political heritage. It is always easier to brand an external adversary as tyrannical than a domestic rival. Thus, the middle-class Patriots in America benefited from the country being rule from overseas, while in the United Netherlands just the opposite was true.
http://people.loyno.edu/~history/journal/1986-7/botticelli.htm
The Netherlands
http://www.theworldeconomy.org/impact/The_Netherlands_from_1600_to_the_1820s.html
