Gladstonian Liberalism was not the same as Victorian Liberalism. It was in many ways unique to Gladstone and was a creed applicable to no one else. A fact that would cause great difficulties for the Liberal Party in the late 19th century — eventually leading to its split in 1886. Gladstone’s defection from the “stern and unbending” Tory party to the Liberals is often conceived as marking a change in his political theory. Yet, the conventional wisdom that Gladstone moved from the political right to the political left over the course of his career simply does not do justice to the nuance and complex intellectual framework that Gladstone constructed throughout his life. A great many of his Conservative convictions that he had formed at Oxford and as an MP in the 1830/40s remained part of his political theory even after he crossed the floor to join the Liberal Party. He was a classic Burkean, holding strongly onto his Conservative principles but flexible in the methods of how he could best serve them. This flexibility, present in his thought even as an undergraduate, meant Gladstone was never a full “stern and unbending” Tory. He may have hated “gratuitous change” but not when it was warranted and necessary. Similarly, many of the Liberal causes he championed later in his life were arrived at through reasoning different to that of his Liberal colleagues. Gladstonian Liberalism was thus the amalgamation of newer, more Liberal, influences upon his older, but still foundational, Conservative beliefs. Gladstone’s political theory cannot be understood without a deep appreciation for his life long study of theology and classical philosophy. Therefore, a discussion of Gladstone’s intellectual journey is pivotal when looking to trace how he went from a steadfast, illiberal, defender of the ancien regime at Oxford to the “People’s William” and advocate for franchise reform.
Although Gladstone was certainly of a Cannigite Conservative disposition in the 1820s a more articulated and principled Conservatism arose during his time as an undergraduate at Oxford in the early years of the 1830s. This Conservatism was constructed in response to the Reform Crisis of 1830–31 and the revolution in France. Indeed, he saw the Reform Bill being pushed through the house as, not reforming, but “revolutionary” in its implications. In his passionate denouncement of the Bill at the Oxford Union in 1831 he warned that it threatened to destroy the existing balance of the constitutional forces and condemned the arousal of the “popular will” by the press as an assault on the power of the “qualified elite” and the “dictates of natural law.” The Reform Bill to Gladstone, however, was merely a microcosm of a greater intellectual debate that was emerging in Victorian society. It was centered on the concepts and definitions of State, Church and Society. Previously unquestionable values were starting to be questioned and deconstructed. His entrance into public life was seen more as a duty than as a choice. A duty to stop this “new philosophy” from attacking the Established Church, which he saw as the wall separating the innate barbarity of humanity from civil society. It was clear to Gladstone that the Whig reforming tendencies were markedly different to the Liberal Tory financial and administrative reforms of the preceding decade. Institutional reform, including that of the Established Church in places like Ireland, was at the forefront of their agenda. However, the battle was not only constrained to the legislature. It existed and needed to be fought in the realm of the intellect and ideas. Gladstone invested a huge amount of intellectual capital throughout the 1830s into the study of Theological and Classical philosophy in an attempt to connect politics to the “great purpose of being.” His early thought was abstract and concentrated on finding the axioms upon which the existence of the State and Church lay. Practical politics was, thus, secondary to intellectual endeavours: something that was to change later in his political career under the influence of Peel. Gladstone rejected contractarian philosophy and ideas of governmenance through the “will of the people.” The legitimacy of government did not lie within the great body of the people. Instead, it was something that was granted by divine Providence. In contrast, to the “levelling” ideas of many contemporaries, Gladstone believed that whether looking at the “ultimate” or “original” state of man, an ordered hierarchy with natural inequalities would be an enduring feature. The subordination of one man to another would remain and so to would the State. The State in Gladstone’s eyes was paternalistic and organic in nature. Citizens within a community had duties and obligations to one and other. The concepts of individualism and liberty to Gladstone evoked notions of selfishness and greed. Notions that were never quite discarded by Gladstone even after he began to champion liberty and individualism as a Liberal MP. Liberty to Gladstone was a morally neutral concept, and was seen as something that should not be sought as an end in itself. It was able to be invoked for both good and bad purposes. Gladstone believed that it was essential for the government to “not give as much political liberty to the subjects as can be conceded compatible with the maintenance of public order, but as little.” Restraint was only undesirable when it interfered in the obedience of the people to God’s framework of law. Although Gladstone later admitted that “(He) was brought up to hate Liberty and fear Liberty,” and later “came to love it,” his concept of it was never abstracted from religion and a communal context. Indeed, it was never abstract. Pure negative Liberty which classical individualism espoused led to the decay of societal obligation. Gladstone’s later conception of Liberty was still deeply grounded and tied to a Conservative sense of duty and community within an organic state.
Gladstone’s belief in obligation to the State and community was not only predicated on theological grounds. Classical philosophers, particularly Aristotle, had a similarly disproportionate influence on the intellectual makeup of the younger Gladstone. Gladstone committed a huge potion of his life attempting to unify Aristotlian and theological ideas together. Although Aristotle was not a Christian, his thought can be viewed as the naturalistic embodiment of later theological doctrine. Aristotle’s conceptions of natural laws was seen by Gladstone as the description of what the Providential in Christianity provided. It was almost as if Aristotle was able to describe and analyse the workings of the grand Christian cosmic pattern, without being aware of its existence. Perhaps of greatest intellectual significance to Gladstone was the conception of the Greek Polis. To aristotle man was a “political animal” and believed that his place in society lay not in isolation of other men but within the wider community. Human existence had an innate social dimension which led into the idea that “Civil government was not a matter of option but of nature.” Indeed, this sentiment is expressed by Gladstone in 1833: “the mass has a character distinct from the aggregate formed by the addition together of the characters of its parts.” Society was more than just an amalgamation of its individual constituents, it was an organic whole. This helps to explain Gladstone’s reverence for the Aristocratic classes and the Established Church. The former being a class that was disinterested and of “requisite qualification” for governance and the latter being an institution that could transcend class divisions, bind societal bonds together and ensure that the “common good” was pursued. If the “rule of the few” was accepted and if the community was tied to the Established Church, balance and stability within the wider community would be achieved.
However, whilst Gladstone’s intellectual framework was inherently Conservative there was also early on a subtle liberal strand that existed within it. His essay “Of Concession” ,written as an undergraduate, invokes the Aristotlian idea that constitutional arrangements needed to find harmony with contemporary social conditions. In essence, for an Aristocratic constitution to survive, it necessarily depended on the involvement of “the people.” Gladstone’s later reading of De Toquivelle awakened him to the role of public opinion to make sure the ruling classes were governing in a virtuous manor. Gladstone was able to acknowledge that whilst the State was divinely ordained, it was still only an ideal and one which had yet to be realised. Both modification and change were clearly necessary to prevent its collapse. The underpinnings of Gladstone’s later liberal thinking had already emerged. Flexibility was needed so that the balance of the constitution was not undermined.
The evolution in Gladstone’s political thought occurred primarily in the decade of the 1840s. It was in this period that he suffered both a public and private crisis. Gladstone had entered into politics with the aim of upholding the established status of the Church of England. He saw religion as essential and “directly necessary to the right employment of the energies of the State as a State.” If the State was an organic whole with a real conscience, it needed to have an objective ethical standard with clearly formulated concepts of right and wrong. The Established Church provided this. Indeed, for Gladstone the preservation of the national Church was paramount as it helped create and nurture the moral fabric of the nation state. Nation being italicised because Gladstone’s aim was to achieve a uniquely english form of ethical progress with a “moral state and a cleansed church.” In this synthesis the Tory party and the Church would serve as institutional leaders to guide the moral progress of individuals and to prevent the move “away from religion and toward infidelity.” However, the political situation of the 1840s highlighted the impracticalities of his abstract and highly idealised vision that he had laid out in his 1838 book “State and its Relations with the Church.” The death knell was the Maynooth Grant Bill of 1845. Gladstone voted in favour of it but resigned immediately after. In principle it was wrong but “good government demanded it.” There was a growing realisation that the practical could not be formulated from the theoretical. Indeed, the Peelite doctrine of executive efficiency left a lasting mark on Gladstone’s thought. A political leader once appraised of the facts had the duty to make policy in the interests of the nation and it was the role of lesser politicians to fall into line in the attainment of such policy. This “executive arrogance” was a characteristic that Gladstone acquired and never abandoned — perhaps to the detriment of the Liberal party in 1886. However, the Maynooth Grant Bill was not a moment of intellectual transition. His theoretical conceptions embodied in his books and writings were not cast away. They were certainly understood to be impractical but not wrong. Therefore, Gladstone’s synthesis of the 1830s may have collapsed but his overall goal had not — the furthering of progress in Christian morality. Indeed, the Liberal policies he came to support were predicated on their usefulness toward this religious goal. Gladstonian liberalism was an attempt to reach a new, less elevated, synthesis.
Gladstonian Liberalism embraced and espoused the clear hallmarks of the Manchester School school of thought: Liberty, free-trade, Laissez-faire political economy, self help, minimal government. However, Gladstone’s presuppositions behind these concepts were markedly different to those of other contemporary Liberals. They were balanced with deeply Conservative and religious values. Gladstone, himself, admitted that the one major change in his thinking was on the concept of Liberty. And yes, there is an element of truth to this. In contrast to his anti-Liberty discourses in the context of Parliamentary Reform in the 1830s, he did clearly speak the language of Liberty later in his political career. However, the concept of Liberty, as Berlin in the 20th century argues, was not only negative in definition. Liberty was not marked solely by an “absence of constraints” but also by the fulfilment of one’s true capacities. In 1891 Gladstone iterated something along these lines: that the legislation of the 19th century helped in “setting men free, removing artificial obstacles to the full development of their powers.” Liberty was not only freedom from constraints but also freedom to achieve and pursue willed goals. My reason for emphasising this distinction is that Gladstone never became a true classical liberal. Liberty was never an end in itself nor was the individual ever cut off from the State or community. Freedom could only be exercised to its greatest degree in a community of individuals who had obligations and responsibilities to one and other as well as a correct moral code. Gladstone essentially sought to combine the virtues of “reverence” with “independence.” It is clear that he still held his old Conservative convictions. Indeed, he even stated that “modern Conservatives seem to have lost their old reverence for authority and antiquity.” As Bebbington points out, this mode of thinking was very different to other perhaps more truly, Liberal thinkers like Mill. Mill wanted to abandon the past and instead refashion age old institutions with the use of present reason. Gladstone did not. Even though he was outside of the Conservative party he was still very much as Conervative.
A similar argument can be constructed around Gladstone’s support for free trade and minimal government. During his time as President at the Board of Trade in Peels government he had begun to accept the mainstream teaching of political economy. Government intervention hindered the clearing of the free market and led to distortions in the supply and price of goods in the market. However, his chief motivation in reducing the size of the State and its level of interference in the economy was that a large State was only sustainable through high taxation. Gladstone viewed high levels of taxation as being synonymous with State corruption and thus, societal instability. His support for the Corn Laws, unlike the League, was not to challenge the power of one class interest with another. Instead, it was predicated on its integrative outcome: it helped create a sense of balance and cohesion in an organic State. With the collapse of his political and ecclesisatic system in the 1840s, Gladstone sought to substitute the Established Church with free trade as the vehicle for furthering the ethical, social and moral progress of the nation. Matthews states that Gladstone’s Aristotlian notion of “a balanced society based on obligation and duty” collapsed after 1845. However, I would most certainly disagree. The 1853 budget should be seen as the construction of a new synthesis — one still anchored in the creation of a balanced society. Take, for example, Gladstone’s fiscal policy. As Chancellor of the Exchequer it was of chief concern to find a balance in the reduction of direct and indirect taxation. The budget laid out a seven year extension in the income tax, rather than just three, and widened the tax base to include those earning £100 and above per annum. The latter income being seen as the dividing point between the franchised and the unfranchised sections of the population. This increased the base and yield of the tax and was also accepted by those who wanted income tax abolition because the budget had created a planned redundancy for it by 1860. In-direct taxation, disproportionately falling on the working classes, was thus able to be reduced via the remission of duties on various staple consumer goods. Gladstone, saw the task as one which required “adjusting the relations of classes” so that they were “brought into the nicest competition with one and another.” Concerned with countering the centrifugal forces of the classes — a minimal state, with pinpointed and low taxation would not create conflict but rather reconciliation and harmony.
Another great shift in Gladstone’s thinking occurred in relation to the nature of democracy. The industrial revolution coupled with the unleashing of economic enterprise saw the emergence of an extremely wealthy financial class; or as Gladstone called it — the “plutocracy.” He saw the individuals in this class as unprincipled, selfish and concerned only with material value. More alarmingly to Gladstone, they were infiltrating the old landed Aristocracy and stripping them of their moral virtue. Prior to this unprecedented economic expansion, religion had fostered an “other worldly” attitude. The economic plight and suffering in the human world was only a precursor to a better life in the afterworld so long as one lived religiously and morally throughout their time on Earth. However, the new wealth of the country created a sense of “worldliness.” There was an immediate want for wealth, progress and money that was leading to a decay in religion and moral impetus. The cultivation of the “people’s William” was Gladstone’s answer. “The People” were not affected by wealth in the same way as the plutocracy. They remained religious and lived relatively simple lives. Gladstone even started to view the working man as more virtuous than many members of the upper classes. Aristotle had viewed the concept of virtue as being key if the Aristocracy were to rule well over the mass of the population. With the growing decadence of the landed classes in light of this new wealth, Gladstone sought to integrate into the constitution a role for public opinion and “the People” to check the excesses of the social elites. To prevent the corruption of the Aristocracy, Gladstone sought to construct a “self-questioning, evangelical and ever alert political society.” Balance within the constitution, again, was central to Gladstone’s support for franchise extension. Democracy, thus, was not about the attainment of abstract human rights, rather it needed to be furthered because it was a moral Christian good.
However, Gladstone realised that “the People” were far too uneducated and numerous to ever run the country themselves. The “popular will” could exert great influence but never make the important decisions in running the country. His Aristotlian and Conservative belief in the “rule of the few” remained. Yet, Gladstone thought that a man was needed to direct and mould public opinion. Naturally, Gladstone fulfilled this role. Un-corrupted, he viewed himself as the perfect person to harness popular opinion toward Christian ends. Yet, his “anti-popular” sentiments of the 1830s still remained. The exceptions were only those members of the working and lower middle classes whose views were congruent with his own and who were attached to his economic order. Gladstone cultivated for himself an image of a popular politician. He gave numerous extra-parliamentary speeches, travelled extensively across the country, and was generously written about in the provincial press as a man possessing an “otherworldly” aura. Parry emphasises that this style of politics was characterically illiberal. A moderate and open debate behind closed doors in parliament did not resonate with Gladstone’s mode of politicking. Indeed, in a certain sense he managed to detach Liberalism from parliamentary politics and hand it to an unstable coalition of interests in the wider population. Parry even goes as far to state that the unpredictable nature of Gladstone and his zealous campaigns against misgovernment through the arousal of popular opinion were the main causes for the “strange death of Liberal England.”
The presentation of Gladstone as a hotheaded, irrational and opportunistic politician is a disservice to the decades of quiet thought and study that he committed himself to throughout his life. The tracing of Gladstone’s changing intellectual framework and the exposition of his political theory has shown not only why he moved from the Tory to the Liberal party but also why many of his Liberal policies were articulated within an Conservative and theological discourse. A moment in Gladstone life that encapsulates his Conservative-Liberalism perfectly was the personal crisis that he went through in 1850–51. The latter led him to associate his own personal struggle with that of Christ’s against temptation. It connected Gladstone to Christ’s human side. If Christ arrived on Earth and strove for greater human perfection and if Christ was the “mould and model of the human race” then it was the people’s destiny to follow the same moral path. The most liberal element of Gladstone thought was this new appreciation of humanity. It was one which emphasised the immense scope for change and progress whilst understanding that human nature was fixed and universal. Like human nature Gladstone’s Conservativism remained a fixed part of his politics but a greater understanding of progress and humanity allowed an integration of more dynamic and Liberal elements into his beliefs.
