The Liberal Magazine and the development of the Liberal tradition.

A worshop celebrating the bicentennial of The Liberal estabilished in Pisa on the 7th July 1822.

Prof. Edmund Amann (University of Leiden)
Liberal ideas and their legacy in Latin America: from independence to the struggle for democratic modernization
This paper explores the complex and enduring impacts of liberal political and economic
thought in Latin America from the early 19th Century until the present day. Beginning with
the transition to independence, the paper examinesthe way in which European liberal ideas
diffused throughout Latin America, helping to shape the political conditions that presaged
rupture and severance from Iberian control. The politiesthatsubsequently emerged proved
only partially capable of internalizing into political practice the liberal ideas that had
spurred their formation. While some countries achieved a degree of success in sustaining
stable democracies, in others episodes of authoritarian repression punctuated an uneven
development trajectory. As the epoch of independence receded, attenuation of liberal
influences became more apparent. This partly stemmed from the rise of populism and the
cementation in place of oligarchical elites. In the field of economic progress, the liberal
international ordersupplanted the mercantilistregime of colonialtimes, but would fall prey to developmental economic nationalism in the mid-20th century. Despite all of this, liberal
political and economic thought continues to exercise an important influence throughout
the region and this current legacy forms the focal point of the final part of the paper.

Dr. David Craig (University of Durham)
The Liberality of Liberalism: Aspects of the evolution of a Concept

Despite a plethora of studies of nineteenth-century liberalism, historians still rarely pay
attention to the way liberal language was actually used. This paper draws on my research

on the evolution of the language of liberalism. It begins by looking at the reaction to Byron
and Shelley’s The Liberal in Britain in the early 1820s, showing that it fuelled the hostile
reaction of Tories, who interpreted ‘liberalism’ in light of the 1820 Revolutions as reheated

Jacobinism. More tolerant readers, however, interpreted ‘liberal’ as ‘liberality’ – being open-
minded in their political sympathies. The second part of the paper turns to the early 1860s

– by this time ‘liberalism’ was a well-established word, though it is striking how few thinkers
offered explicit definitions (J.S. Mill, for instance, used the term sparingly). The liberal
Catholic historian John Acton made a very strong contrast between the statist ‘liberalism’
of the European continent – of which he was very critical – and the ‘liberalism’ of Britain,
while James Fitzjames Stephen used historic associations with ‘liberality’ to define
liberalism against the rising tide of democracy.

Dr. Ian Macgregor Morris (University of Salzburg)
The Demigods of Liberal Worship: the ideological background to "liberal virtù".

Whenever we see the mind of man exhibiting powers of its own, and at the same time
helping to carry on the best interests of human nature ... there we recognise the demigods of liberal worship;– there we bow down, and own ourlords and masters;– there we hope forthe passing away of all obscene worships ... of all monstrous sacrifices of the many to the few.

Leigh Hunt, The Liberal, October 1822.

Leigh Hunt's fervent idealism was infectious, as Shelley and Byron would well attest; but it was also laced with a wry humour. Indeed, it was the latter whom upon first meeting Hunt in Surrey County Gaol dubbed him "the wit in the dungeon". Hunt envisioned a cultural

project that was utterly radical in spirit, and yet somewhat affable in form: a vision of
revolution that was all the more dangerous because it did not pretend to have all the
answers. The "Pisan Circle" spurned the sombre fanaticism of the Jacobins - to whom the
Tory press often compared them - in favour of a Shaftesburyean politeness laced with
libertine wit. They drew on a variety of political and cultural traditions, melding the genteel
debauchery of the Dilettanti to the Enlightenment principle that political change must originate first and foremost with the "manners" or "spirit" of the people. In this talk I will
consider the forebears of the Hunt-Shelley-Byron circle, figures who prefigured their passionate cosmopolitanism and transgressive habits; how these legacies and traditions formed both the project of The Liberal and the responses to it; and the centralrole that Italy, ancient and modern, played in the development of their notion of a "liberal virtu".

Dr. James Moore (University of Leicester)
The Liberal, the Pisan rebels and the making of early-nineteenth-century Liberalism Writing in 1862.

William Thackeray attributed the wide currency of the terms liberal and
liberalism to The Liberal periodical begun by the Pisan triumvirate of Hunt, Shelley and
Byron. As early as 1830 the term Liberal had become a distinctive political term and was a
name adopted by many mainstream reformist parties in Britain and overseas. In Britain it
was the movement of the rising urban middle class who embraced political and religious
nonconformity and forged modern liberal democracy. This paper will re-evaluate the
historical significance of The Liberal periodical, including the nature of its most important
content and its remarkable critical reception. It will look at the role of the journal in wider
radical political networks on the early 1820s and offer reasons why such a short-lived

publication had such an apparently totemic impact on political discourse. The paper will
suggest that the controversy around the first issue of The Liberal shaped a new political and
cultural constituency that sought to escape the constraints of contemporary British society
and challenge the hypocrisy and vanity of the Tory establishment. Byron’s attack on the
recently deceased Lord Castlereagh and his ‘The Vision of Judgment’, satirising Southey’s
tribute to George III, provoked a reaction amongst the Tory press that ensured the
periodical became widely known and the focus of political discussion. The decision of the
Constitutional Association to prosecute its publisher on the grounds of its perceived libel of
the deceased king served to both prolong the controversy and create a debate about British
libel laws and freedom of expression that resonated down the century. Yet far from shying
from controversy, The Liberal’s second issue included a contribution from William Hazlitt
attacking the abuses of monarchy and making the case for reform. The significance of the
publication, however, went beyond its political content; it made a case for what were to
become known as the Liberal arts and for freedom of creative thinking. It was a rebellious
attack on an established order and a manifesto that marked out the beginning of new social
and political tendencies emerging in European cities. These disparate ideas would
eventually come together in the Liberal and reformist movement that would ultimately
reshape the politics of both Britain and the wider world in the early nineteenth century.

Enquiries: ian.macgregormorris@plus.ac.at