Theme 5: Conservative Reactions Bought Time but Not Permanence

The Congress of Vienna, the suppression of the 1848 revolutions, and the resistance to nationalism all delayed change. None prevented it. The political logic the Enlightenment had introduced (legitimacy through consent, equality before law, popular sovereignty) gradually colonized European political thinking even where revolutions failed. By 1900 most European states had constitutions and parliaments, even if power remained concentrated in monarchical or aristocratic hands.