The Emergence of the Sovereign State:

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The Emergence of the Sovereign State
Monarchy answered the need of the 16th century.
Years of civil war and religious warfare led many
politicians to look again at Machiavellis
treatise on political science. A king must try to
be honest, just and good, but he had better be
feared. The good king must analyze the political
circumstances and then do whatever is necessary
to preserve the stability of the state.
Elizabeth IPainted by John Bettes the
YoungerHever Castle, Kent
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Contest of Political Systems Absolutism vs.
Constitutionalism
To secure stability at home and to raise the
money required to project power around the world,
a new form of government was needed. In England,
a constitutional state emerged at the end of the
17th century which centralized power but also
protected the rights of the taxpayer. In France,
an absolutist state emerged which centralized
power in the hands of the King. These two states
would compete for domination of world trade and
emerge as imperial powers.
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The Contest for World Trade
KEERE, Pieter van den. Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis
Geographica Ac Hydrographica Tabula. Oxford Jan
Jansson à Waesberg Sons, Moses Pitt and Stephen
Swart, 1680.
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James I Absolutism Divine Right Monarchy

• Ruled England 1603-1625
• Trew Law of Free Monarchy
• The ideological justification for absolute rule
  the King answers only to God.
• The Divine Heirarchy
• The King is a god to his subjects.
• The King is a father to his family.
• The King is the head to a natural body.
• The King established the conception of the
  kings two bodies and the right of
  primogeniture.

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Parliament Sovereignty of the People
During the 17th century, Parliament achieved a
breakthrough with new terminology. Sovereignty
was the ultimate authority in civil
society. Parliament claimed to possess the power
of the people. They moved towards a showdown with
the king.
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Charles I The Divine Right of Kings
The drive for absolute power was at the center
of the effort of the kings to gather the funds to
modernize their military power. Would that James
son Charles had better understood the nuances of
Machiavellian virtu. His regal poise and air of
absolute authority did not prevent his Puritan
opponents from beheading him.
Anthony Van Dyck, Charles I Dismounted, ca. 1635.
Louvre, Paris.
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The Glorious Revolution
England resolved the struggle between the King
and Parliament by forming a government which
shared power between king and parliament. William
of Orange was invited to be King. However, he
served in a government whose sovereign power
belonged to the people. In the English
Constitution of 1688, John Locke redefined the
social contract between king and subject to
protect the natural rights of the individual
life, liberty and property. This form of
government would serve as the model for liberal
government in the centuries to come.
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Absolutism The Kings Two Bodies
In other European countries, a different path
towards securing the sovereignty of the modern
state was pursued absolutism. Theorists reached
back to the medieval concept of the divine
hierarchy to justify concentrating power in the
hands of one man. They reasoned that while the
King as a man may be fallible, as King he is not.
The sovereign source of power is unquestionable
and invested by God himself. To avoid civil was,
primogeniture was established to provide an
orderly succession of power. An abstract
convention supplants physical force. (see Macbeth)
Velazquez, DiegoPhilip IV in Brown and Silverc.
1631-32 OilNational Gallery, London
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The Political Value of Pageantry
The Kings court became the central playing field
of politics. Ritual not only impresses the
populace, but it also reaffirms the traditional
obligations to the nobility and the church which
the King must recognize and preserve.
Velazquez, DiegoMaria Teresa of Spain ("with two
watches")Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
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The Development of Absolutism in France
France had a tradition of political freedom in
the feudal sense, ie a background of feudal
liberties for nobles the Estates General,
Provincial Estates with powers over taxations,
parlements (supreme courts for different regions
which could stand up to the kings decree).
Different towns had negotiated liberties with the
king. Internal tariffs were levied by different
provinces. The kings taxes fell more heavily on
some provinces than on others. France was a
bundle of territories held together by allegiance
to the King. (Palmer 178)
Hyacinthe Rigaud, Louis XIV, 1701. Oil, approx.
9' 2" x 6' 3". Louvre, Paris.
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Louis XIV Letat cest moi.
With the reign of Louis XIV the state in its
modern form took a long step forward. The idea
that law and force should be monopolized by the
lawful king was the essence of the 17th c.
doctrine of absolutism. Bishop Bousset, Louis
principle political theorist, argued that royal
power was absolute but not arbitrary not
arbitrary because it must be reasonable and just
like the will of God it reflected absolute in
that it was free from dictation from parlements,
estates, or other subordinate elements within the
country.
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The Practical Application of Power Arms and
Bureaucracy
The most fundamental step taken by Louis XIV was
to assure himself of control of the army. Armed
forces had formerly been a private enterprise.
Mercenary specialists, they worked for
governments more or less as they chose. Louis XIV
made war an activity of the state. He saw to it
that all armed persons in France worked only for
him. These changes were made possible by the
creation of a large civilian administration.
Versailles was created to overawe the country
with Louis wealth and power. To this center
nobles swarmed to obtain positions in Louis
bureaucracy. And once there, Louis could exert
control over the aristocracy.
Charles Le Brun. "Louis XIV." Oil on
canvas. Ca. 1600.
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Versailles
Aerial view of palace at Versailles, France,
begun 1669, and a portion of the gardens and
surrounding area.
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The New Nobility
For positions in government, as distinguished
from his personal entourage, Louis preferred to
use men whose upper-class status was recent.
These men could not aspire to independent
political influence of their own. Louis never
called the Estates General, he temporarily
destroyed the influence of the parlements,
stifled the old liberties, and created a strong
system of administrative coordination under
intendants throughout the country. These royal
governors supervised tax collection and
recruitment of soldiers, kept an eye on the local
nobility, controlled hereditary officeholders,
and enforced the law.
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Economic and Financial Policies
To support the reorganized army, the
administrative center at Versailles, and his
growing civil administration, Louis needed money
and lots of it. Remember that the primary reason
why the sovereign modern state came into
existence was to provide a country with a tax
collecting machine of such size that the state
could project armed force in the competition for
world trade. In France only the unprivileged
classes paid taxes, and those taxes were
collected by many different intermediaries, all
of whom took their cut. Louis and his ministers
were able to reform this process and force a
larger cut for the king, but they were never able
to force the wealthy to pay taxes.
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Colberts Reforms
Colbert used tariff laws to support French
businesses in a mercantilist policy designed to
make the country into a self sufficient economic
unit. He promulgated a Commercial code which
eliminated local laws he built roads and canals
to encourage trade he gave subsidies to
encourage the development of manufactured goods
for export. He helped to found colonies and built
up the army and navy. Government contracts to
equip the armed forces became major deals for
business. He also tried to eliminate the
middlemen in the tax process. Colbert succeeded
in creating a large tariff union in central
France which the King could control, but the more
peripheral provinces proved too strong. And
Colbert was never able to force the aristocracy
to pay its fair share. So the lives of the poor
during the 17th century became even more
miserable.
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The Contest for Continental Supremacy
Europe in 1700
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The Contest for Economic Supremacy Triangular
Trade
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The Slave-ship Brookes (1788)
Alaudah Equiano
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The Origins of Race and the Rise of Nations
During the late 16th century Europeans began to
change the notion of their origins. Rather than
thinking of themselves as the sons and daughters
of the ancient Romans, the idea of different
races replaced that of a single common lineage.
Race serves political purposes it both unites
and separates We and They Race added the secular
idea of inborn difference to the theological one
of infidel and Christian. (Barzun, 108)
A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of
Virginia . . . (1590)
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A Sugar Plantation in 1823
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War of the Spanish Succession1702-1713
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The Treaty of Utrecht1713
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Robert Walpole and The South Sea Bubble
The wars had been financed by private companies
given a monopoly in colonial trade. These
companies lent the government the huge funds
needed to finance war. In England, speculation in
the stock of the South Sea Company sent share
prices sky rocketing. Similarly, in France, the
Compagine dOccident saw its shares as well go
way up after the war. However, these companies
potential for profit rested on unrealized
business projects, and when public confidence in
them wavered, the bubble burst people pulled
out, share values collapsed, and the governments
were threatened with insolvency. In France, much
of the war debt was repudiated, and from then on,
financiers were unwilling to lend the government
money. Ironically, because the absolute monarch
had no check on his power to make policy yet
could not collect taxes from the richest property
owners, the king could obtain little credit. In
England, none of the debt was repudiated. The
government, under Finance Minister Robert
Walpole, set aside funds to pay interest and
gradually to reduce the principal of its
obligations. The credit of the British government
remained firm. In England because of the
parliamentary system, the debt was considered a
national responsibility. The political freedom of
England gave it economic strength. (Palmer,
261-63)
Robert Walpole, Englands first Prime Minister
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The Great Wars of the Mid-eighteenth Century
The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740-1748
The Seven Years War,
1756-1763 The wars involved the same two
principle issues the duel between Britain and
France for colonies, trade, and sea power, and
the duel between Prussia and Austria for
territory and military power in central Europe.
Battles would be fought in Central Europe, in
India, and in the New World. This was truly the
first world war. Again France was at a
disadvantage from the outset, forced to support a
huge continental army as well as a navy able to
compete with the British for colonial prizes.
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The War of the Austrian Succession, 1740-48
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The Seven Years War in Europe
Shockwave Map
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The Seven Years War in America
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The Peace of Paris
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The Seven Years Warin India
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The Peace of Paris 1763