The Growth of Nationalism

• The Thirteen American Colonies had their own elected colonial assemblies that passed local laws.
• However, the British Parliament sitting in London had not a single American representative representing colonial interests.
• When the British Parliament passed the Stamp Act of 1765 and Townshend taxes on paper, glass, and tea, the colonists vehemently argued that according to ancient British constitutional law (Magna Carta), a government has no legal or moral right to tax citizens who have no voting representation in that governing legislature.
• The slogan became the defiant battle cry of the American Revolution against King George III.

• First Estate (Clergy): Owned $10\%$ of prime land; completely exempt from state taxes; collected ecclesiastical tax (tithe).
• Second Estate (Nobility): Held all senior military and governmental offices; owned $25\%$ of land; completely exempt from state taxes; extracted feudal labor from peasants.
• Third Estate ($98\%$ of population): Composed of educated wealthy Bourgeoisie (lawyers, doctors, merchants), urban working artisans, and impoverished rural peasants.
• Why Resentful?
The Third Estate paid ALL the heavy direct and indirect taxes (Taille, Gabelle) that funded the extravagant royal lifestyle of Versailles, while being totally denied political representation and social equality.

• The Bastille was a formidable medieval fortress-prison in Paris, used by French Bourbon kings to imprison political dissidents without trial.
• On July 14, 1789, starving Parisian citizens and the National Guard stormed the fortress, killed the governor, released prisoners, and seized gunpowder.
• Historical Significance:
1. It symbolized the violent overthrow of royal despotism and absolute autocracy.
2. It marked the entry of common masses as the driving force of the revolution.
3. It is celebrated to this day as France's National Day (Bastille Day).

1. Giuseppe Mazzini ("The Soul"): Founded the revolutionary nationalist society Young Italy in 1831; infused the youth with idealistic passion for a free, united, democratic Italian republic.
   2. Count Camillo de Cavour ("The Brain"): The pragmatic Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia; used brilliant international diplomacy, modern economic reforms, and strategic military alliances with France to defeat Austrian forces in the north.
   3. Giuseppe Garibaldi ("The Sword"): A daring guerrilla military commander; led his legendary volunteer army of "Red Shirts" (Expedition of the Thousand) to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the south and generously handed it over to King Victor Emmanuel II to unify Italy.

• Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898): The Prime Minister ("Iron Chancellor") of Prussia.
• Policy of "Blood and Iron" (Blut und Eisen):
Bismarck famously proclaimed: "The great questions of the day will not be settled by speeches and majority decisions... but by iron and blood."
He believed German unification could only be achieved through uncompromising militarism and military war rather than democratic consensus.
• Execution: Bismarck modernized the Prussian army and engineered three short, decisive wars against Denmark (1864), Austria (1866), and France (Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71), crushing all opposition and proclaiming the United German Empire in 1871.

• The Slogan: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" (Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité).
• Meanings:
1. Liberty (Liberté): Freedom from autocratic royal tyranny, freedom of speech, press, and religion, and the right to individual self-determination.
2. Equality (Égalité): Equality of all citizens before the law; abolition of all feudal privileges and tax exemptions based on birth or nobility.
3. Fraternity (Fraternité): Mutual brotherhood, unity, and solidarity among all citizens binding them together as members of one sovereign nation.

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau: In his monumental work The Social Contract (1762), Rousseau wrote: "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." He argued that legitimate political authority comes not from the "divine right of kings" but from the General Will of the people (popular sovereignty), asserting that citizens have the right to overthrow an unjust ruler.
• Montesquieu: In The Spirit of the Laws (1748), Montesquieu argued against absolute royal monarchy and proposed the Separation of Powers into three independent branches: the Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary, preventing any single tyrant from wielding absolute unchecked power.

• The Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773):
In protest against the British Tea Act of 1773 (which gave the British East India Company a monopoly on tea and imposed tea duties), a group of Boston patriots calling themselves the Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams and disguised as Mohawk Native Americans, boarded three British tea ships in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 chests of tea into the ocean.
• Immediate Consequence:
King George III was outraged and passed the punitive "Intolerable Acts" (Coercive Acts), closing Boston Harbor to all trade and revoking the Massachusetts colonial charter.
This united all thirteen colonies, leading directly to the First Continental Congress and the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775.