Liberalism

Liberalism stressed individual freedom, equality under law, and freedom of thought and religion. Both the Declaration of the Rights of man and the American Bill of Rights stressed these ideals. Liberals were mainly members of the rising middle class. They were bankers, merchants, lawyers, journalists, university students, and intellectuals. They wanted written constitutions, parliamentary government, and the protection of natural rights. I think that liberalism is better then most other types of government. Liberalism gives …

…in Europe and in the United States. Europeans considered the United States an exemplar of liberalism because of its popular culture, emphasis on equality, and wide suffrage. However, most 19th-century liberals feared mass participation in politics, believing that the so-called lower classes were indifferent to freedom and hostile to the expression of diversity. As suffrage expanded, many liberals became concerned with preserving the individual values that they identified with an aristocratic social and political order.