Home > Revolutions of 1848

Society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy, and those who had anything united in common terror.

— Alexis de Tocqueville, Recollections

The European Revolutions of 1848, in some countries known as the Spring of Nations, were the bloody consequences of a variety of changes that had been taking place in Europe in the first half of the 19th century. In politics, both bourgeois reformers and radical politicians were seeking change in their nations' governments. In society, technological change was creating new ways of life for the working classes, a popular press extended political awareness, and new values and ideas such as nationalism and socialism began to spring up. The tinder that lit the fire was a series of economic downturns and crop failure s that left many of the poor starving.

The result was a wave of revolution sweeping across Europe and raising hopes of liberal reform as far away as BrazilThis article is about Brazil, the country. For other article subjects named Brazil see Brazil (disambiguation). The Federative Republic of Brazil Republica Federativa do Brasil in Portuguese) is the largest and most populous country in South America., where the rhetoric surrounding the Praieira revoltIn Brazil, the Praieira" revolt was a movement in Pernambuco that lasted from 1848 to 1852, linked to the unresolved conflicts remaining from the period of the Regency and local resistance to the consolidation of the Brazilian Empire that had been proclai took many cues from European events, as did its thorough repression. Only the United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a state in Western Europe, usually known simply as the United Kingdom the UK Britain or less accurately as Great Britain . The UK was formed by a series of Acts of Union which united the formerly and RussiaThe Russian Federation ( Russian: , transliteration: Rossiyskaya Federatsiya or Rossijskaja Federacija , or Russia (Russian: , transliteration: Rossiya or Rossija , is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. With were missing: Russia had not yet a real bourgeois or proletarian class to initiate a revolution. In the United Kingdom, the middle classes had been pacified by general enfranchisement in the Reform Act of 1832The British Reform Act of 1832 (also referred to as as the Great Reform Act introduced the first changes to electoral franchise legislation in almost one hundred and fifty years. It met strong opposition from the Tories, who had defeated earlier bills, an, with the consequent agitations, violence, and petitions of the Chartist movementA movement for social and political reform in the United Kingdom during the mid- 19th century, Chartism gains its name from the People's Charter of 1838, which set out the main aims of the movement. Chartism is thought to originate from the passing of the that came to a head with the petition to Parliament of 1848. The repeal of the protectionist agricultural tariffs called the " Corn LawsThe Corn Laws in force between 1815 and 1846, were import tariffs ostensibly designed to "protect" British farmers and landowners, against competition from cheap foreign grain imports. It should be noted that British usage of the term corn included all gr" in 1846 had defused some proletarian fervor. The United States remained profoundly isolated, increasingly involved in its own expansion and social ills; there, after a summer of European revolutions, the Free Soil Party in the November presidential election sufficed only to divide Democrats and bring the apolitical slave-holding career soldier General Zachary Taylor into office.

Although the revolutions were put down quickly, in their span there was horrific violence on all sides. Thousands were killed.

Although the immediate effects of the revolutions were short-term, there were lasting legacies.