Whiggism - Across The Empire

Across The Empire

Whiggism took different forms in England and Scotland, even though from 1707 the two nations shared a single parliament. While English whiggism had at its heart the power of parliament, creating for that purpose a constitutional monarchy and a permanently Protestant succession to the throne, Scottish Whigs gave a higher priority to using power for religious purposes, including maintaining the authority of the Church of Scotland, justifying the Protestant Reformation, and emulating the Covenanters.

There were also Whigs in the North American colonies, and while whiggism there had much in common with that in Great Britain, it too had its own priorities. In the unfolding of the American Revolution such whiggism became known as republicanism.

In India, Prashad (1966) argues that the profound influence of the ideas of Edmund Burke introduced Whiggism into the mainstream of Indian political thought. The Indians adopted the basic assumptions of Whiggism, especially the natural leadership of an elite, the political incapacity of the masses, the great partnership of the civil society, and the best methods of achieving social progress, analyzing the nature of society and the nation, and depicting the character of the ideal state.