Intolerant majorities: the breakthrough of ‘the meeting’ in Belgium, 1860s

ABSTRACT

According to Charles Tilly, nineteenth-century public meetings were both composed and cosmopolitan affairs in which citizens tried to sublimate parliamentary proceedings as best as they could. Through a case study of political meetings in the city of Antwerp in the years of the censitary suffrage system (1872–93), this article argues that in the port city this was not the case. On the contrary, meetings were quite boisterous affairs with a very local horizon. This article investigates the role and dynamics of mass political meetings in nineteenth-century Antwerp, Belgium, with a focus on the events leading up to the parliamentary elections of 1863. Challenging the conventional view of these gatherings as mere reflections of parliamentary proceedings or training grounds for parliamentary etiquette, the article argues that these meetings operated under distinct rules and codes. Rather than serving as a mimicry of parliamentary norms, the meetings were seen as a necessary correction to what was perceived as an elitist and exclusive parliamentary democracy. The article explores the complex relationship between the parliamentary institution and mass meetings, with a specific examination of the tensions surrounding the inaugural mass meetings in Antwerp in 1862. It contends that these gatherings did not aim to refine or sublimate parliamentary proceedings; instead, they presented a counter-image of parliament characterized by a louder, more intense, and sometimes xenophobic discourse.

KEYWORDS:

• Meetings
• political history
• Belgium
• nineteenth century
• parliamentary history

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Wat is Eene Meeting’, De Grondwet, 5 June 1863.

2 For the history of the Meeting Party: P.J. Backx, De Antwerpsche Meeting, of: Vijf en twintig jaren uit de geschiedenis van Antwerpen, 1861–1886 (Antwerp, 1887). L. Wils, Het ontstaan van de Meetingpartij te Antwerpen en haar invloed op de Belgische politiek (Antwerp, 1963). L. Hancké, De Antwerpse Burgemeesters van 1831 tot 2000 (Antwerp, 2000). M. Beyen, L. Duerloo, H. van Goethem and C. van Loon, ‘Het Calimerocomplex van de stad. Een politieke cultuur van klagen en vernieuwen’, in M. Beyen, I. Bertels, H. van Goethem and B. De Munck (eds), Antwerpen. Biografie van een stad (Antwerp, 2010), pp. 67–108.

3 ‘Eene meeting is eene vergaedering waer ‘t volk komt om te zeggen wat het wenscht. In eene meeting is niemand bars, de meerderheid der aenwezigen geeft er de wet’.

4 ‘Waarin de verschillige meeningen des volks zich vereenigen om er tot een geheel zaemgesmolten te worden’. Wat is eene meeting’, De Grondwet, 5 June 1863.

5 P. Cossart, Le meeting politique. De la délibération à la manifestation (1868–1939) (Rennes, 2010).

6 J. Lawrence, ‘The Transformation of British Public Politics after the First World War’, Past & Present 190, (2006), p. 188.

7 On the meetings, see: J. Lawrence, Electing Our Masters. The Hustings in British Politics from Hogarth to Blair (Oxford, 2009). J. Lawrence, Speaking for the People. Party, Language and Popular Politics in England, 1867–1914 (Cambridge, 1998).

8 For Tilly’s ideas on meetings, see: C. Tilly, Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758–1834 (London, 2005). C. Tilly, Contentious Performances (Cambridge, 2006). C. Tilly, ‘The Rise of the Public Meeting in Great Britain, 1758–1834’, Social Science History 34, (2010), pp. 291–9.

9 On this dynamic, see Tilly, Contention in Britain; Lawrence, Electing Our Masters; Cossart, Le Meeting Politique.

10 The Belgian Constitution, 7 February 1831, Article 19. For a juridical analysis, see also Pandectes belges Volume 64 (Brussel, 1899), pp. 558–9.

11 See one of the few, but rather outdated overviews on Belgian meetings, W. Geldolf, ‘Het begrip “Meeting”. Schets van een historische evolutie’, De Vlaamse Gids 37, (1953), pp. 107–13.

12 See on Kats; G. Deneckere, ‘The Democratic Framing of Protest in the Age of Revolution: The Language of Civil Rights and the Organization of Petitions and Demonstrations in Belgium, 1830–1848’, in M. Janse and H. te Velde (eds), Organizing Democracy: Reflections on the Rise of Political Organizations in the Nineteenth Century (Cham, 2017), pp. 127–43.

13 M. Van Dijck, De wetenschap van de wetgever. De klassieke politieke economie en het Belgische landbouwbeleid 1830–1884 (Leuven, 2008).

14 ‘Er geen bijzondere belanghebbenden in deze kwestie [zijn]’: ‘iedereen, wie het ook zij, moet zich deze zaek aantrekken en zich solidair maken voor diegenen, welke op eene zo willekeurige wijze in hunnen regten getroffen worden’. ‘Meeting op 10 Maart’, Het Handelsblad van Antwerpen, 7 March 1862.

15 See Backx, De Antwerpsche Meeting; Wils, De Meetinpartij; Hancké, De Antwerpse burgemeesters.

16 ‘De kommissie heeft stellig geen besef van ‘t geen eene meeting wezen moet. Heeft men de boeren en eigenaers doen van buiten komen, uren ver, om eene lange, ysselyk vervelende lange petitie te hooren aflezen?’

17 ‘Wy weten inderdaed niet wat het meest te bewonderen was, ofwel de lankmoedigheid der peitite of wel het geduld der boeren die ze moesten aenhoren?’, ‘Meeting in de cité’, De Grondwet, 26 November 1861.

18 See the reports ‘Meeting van 10 meert’ in Handelsblad van Antwerpen and De Grondwet, 11 March 1862.

19 C. Tilly, Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758–1834 (London, 2005). C. Tilly, Contentious Performances (Cambridge, 2006). C. Tilly, ‘The Rise of the Public Meeting in Great Britain, 1758–1834’, Social Science History 34, (2010), pp. 291–9.

20 Wils, De Meetingpartij, p. 290; Beyen et al., ‘Het Calimerocomplex’, pp. 81–3, p. 106.

21 P. Lefèvre, ‘De Liberale Partij als organisatie van 1846 tot 1914’, in A. Verhulst and H. Hasquin (eds), Het liberalisme in België: tweehonderd jaar geschiedenis (Brussels, 1989), p. 80. For the importance of pre-electoral public assemblies, see also J.L. Soete, Structures et organisations de base du parti catholique en Belgique, 1863–1884 (Leuven, 1996), p. 576. The comments of the French political scientist Joseph Barthélemy about Belgium also remain pertinent, L’organisation du suffrage et l’expérience belge (Paris, 1912), p. 232. For a further discussion of meetings in the period 1884–1963, see my doctoral thesis: M. Schoups, Meesters van de straat. Collectieve actie en de strijd om de publieke ruimte: Antwerpen (1884–1936) (University of Ghent, PhD thesis, 2022).

22 See the discussion in March 1862: Parliamentary Acts Chamber (PAC), 1861–1862: 12 March to 18 March 1863. The discussion at the entrance of the ‘Meetingists’ in the Chamber is also enlightening PAC, 1863–1864, p. 22, 24 December 1863 and 6 January 1864. See also Wils, De Meetingpartij, pp. 175–6.

23 See also the comments of Tilly, Popular Contention, p. 360.

24 PAC, 1861–1862, 12 March 1862, p. 902.

25 See among others G. Deneckere, Sire, het volk mort: sociaal protest in België (1831–1918) (Ghent, 1997); G. Deneckere, Geuzengeweld. Antiklerikaal straatrumoer in de politieke geschiedenis van België, 1831–1914 (Brussels, 1998).

26 PAC, 1863–1864, 24 December 1863, p. 166.

27 See reports in Handelsblad and Grondwet, 10 March 1862.

28 See among others the extensive interpellation of De Fré, PAC, 1863–1864, 22 December 1863, pp. 147–150. Further: PAC, 1862–1862, Vervoort, 15 March 1862, p. 929; De Gottal, p. 936.

29 PHK, 1861–1862, 18 March 1862, p. 944.

30 See also the following passages in PAC, 1863–1864, 24 December 1864, Coomans, pp. 166–7; Jacobs, p. 173; 6 January 1864, d’Hane-Steenhuyse, p. 194.

31 PAC, 1863–1864, 6 January 1864, p. 195.

32 G. Le Bon, Psychologie des foules (Paris, 1895). On the influence of Le Bonian mass psychology, see S. Reicher and C. Stott, ‘Becoming the Subjects of History: An Outline of the Psychology of the Crowds’, in M. Reiss (ed.), The Street as Stage: Protest Marches and Public Rallies Since the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 2007), pp. 25–40.

33 See PAC, 1863–1864, 6 January 1864, d’Hane-Steenhuyse, p. 194; Delaet, p. 201.

34 Cossart, Le Meeting Politique.

35 Lawrence, Electing Our Masters, pp. 51–7. For Belgium, R. Van Eenoo, ‘De evolutie van de kieswetgeving in België van 1830 tot 1919’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 92 (1979), pp. 333–52; D. Weber, ‘“La marche des opérations électorales”. Bepalingen rond kiesverrichtingen in de Belgische kieswetgeving, 1830–1940’, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis 81, (2003), pp. 311–42.

36 On popular sovereignty and the meeting, see also the comments of Lawrence, Electing our masters, pp. 38–9; Janse and te Velde, ‘Introduction’, 4 and Reeve Huston, ‘Can “The People” Speak? Popular Meetings and the Ambiguities of Popular Sovereignty in the United States, 1816–1828’, in Janse and Te Velde (eds), Organizing Democracy, pp. 63–84.

37 On the subject of the meeting as a ritual of social levelling, see Lawrence, Electing Our Masters and Speaking for the People. Party, Language and Popular Politics in England, 1867–1914, pp. 178–88.

38 For a folkloric description of this event, see E. Poffé, Plezante mannen in een plezante stad. Antwerpen tusschen 1830 & ‘80 (Antwerp, 1913).

39 See Lawrence, Electing Our Masters; Lawrence, Speaking for the People, pp. 178–88.

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Martin Schoups

Martin Schoups holds a doctorate in history from the University of Ghent (2022). He specializes in the history of street protest and social movements in the nineteenth century. In 2018 he published a monograph on the Belgian ex-soldiers of the First World War with Professor Dr. Antoon Vrints, De overlevenden. De Belgische oud-strijders tijdens het interbellum (Antwerpen, 2018), translated into French in 2022.