Founded 1848 (1848) Headquarters Paris, France | Dissolved 1870 (1870) | |
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Leaders Alphonse de Lamartine
François Arago
Louis-Eugène Cavaignac
Émile Ollivier Newspaper Le National
L'Avenir national Ideology Republicanism
Liberalism
Parliamentarism | ||
The Moderate Republicans were a large political group active from the birth of the French Second Republic (1848) to the collapse of the Second French Empire (1870).
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During the Second Republic
Originally, the Moderate Republicans was a group of politicians, writers and journalists close to the newspaper Le National. After the February Revolution of 1848, they became the official majority group in the Provisional Government, led by Louis-Eugène Cavaignac, François Arago and Dupont de l'Eure, that became the official head of the government. Reputed the probably winners of the 1848 Constituent Assembly election, the Moderate Republicans were strategically allied to The Mountain, the left-wing group, against the monarchists.
During this time, the Moderate Republicans were also divided in two groups: the "Sleeping Republicans", actives until the February Revolution, and the "Morning after Republicans", that opportunistically endorsed the new regime. These last were the legitimists who hated the Orléanist "July Monarchy", and the Catholics who suffered until the Louis Philippe I's restrictions. After the 1848 election, the Moderate Republicans became the majority in the National Assembly, but this group was composed mainly of "Morning-after Republicans", with a temporary union.
The formation of the Executive Commission was de facto dominated by the Moderate Republicans, with few concessions to the socialists. However, after the "June Days Uprising", the opportunist group led by Adolphe Thiers started a hard politics against the socialists. The problems convinced the General Louis-Eugène Cavaignac, strong republican, to take over the Moderate Republicans, who was also the favourite candidate for the incumbent presidential election.
However, the internal conflict in the Moderate Republicans caused a division on the official candidate between Cavaignac and Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. However, at the end chose to support Cavaignac. The election of 1848 signed the end of the Moderate Republicans government for the Party of Order led by Bonaparte. The elections of 1849 breng at the Moderate Republicans' isolation: they obtained only 75 seats. The disown was massive.
Under the Second Empire
After 1849, the main opponents of the now commonly named Republicans was the Catholic Church, for his counter-revolutionary and reactionary ideas. However, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was a strong supporter of clericalism and the Concordat of 1801. In this time, the Republicans and the Bonapartists started a hard rivalry, and after the coup d'état of 1851 and the proclamation of the Second French Empire, Napoleon III (the official title of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) repressed the Republicans: 239 was imprisoned to Cayenne, 6,000 of 10,000 people were interned in military camps in Algeria, some were guillotined or sentenced to house arrest in France. At the end, around 1,500 republicans, like Victor Hugo, were exiled from France. Despite the amnesty of 15 August 1859, some exiled Republicans never returned to France (like Hugo, former Montagnard Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc and Armand Barbès). Hugo coined the expression "When the liberty return, I return".
With the weakening of the Empire, the Republicans returned in the political scene, and took advantage of the liberal laws of 1868 and some diplomatic difficulties, became the official opposition group with the Léon Gambetta's Belleville Agenda of 1869, based on radical, progressive, laicist and reformist goals. In the final years of the Empire, the Republicans were divided in three factions:
The Republicans officially ended with the Paris Commune of 1871 and the consolidation of the French Third Republic, when its leaders started three different groups: the Opportunist Republicans, called "Moderates", and the Republican Union.