Gustave de Beaumont’s Ireland and the Anxieties about Corruption and Forms of Empire

Abstract

In the last few years there has been a surge of interest in early nineteenth century views on empire, including those of Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont. Yet despite this important development, I beleive there is a significant gap in the historiography of liberal conceptions of empire. This lacuna results from a neglect of the connection between democracy, moral corruption, and empire. In this essay I will contend that Beaumont’s liberalism harbours a deep anxiety about how modern democracy brought about what might be described as a form of moral corruption. I will argue that this disquiet must be understood against the larger backdrop of liberal anxieties about how democracy corrupted both self and society, worries articulated especially clearly by the French Doctrinaires. It was this disquiet that marked Beaumont’s analysis of what he, Tocqueville, and many other Frenchman considered to be an ‘aristocratical’ tyranny in Ireland.