Napoleon I

Napoleon I
I INTRODUCTION
Napoleon I (1769-1821), emperor of the French, who consolidated and institutionalized many reforms of the French Revolution. One of the greatest military commanders of all time, he conquered the larger part of Europe and did much to modernize the nations he ruled.
Napoleon was born on August 15, 1769, in Ajaccio, Corsica, and was given the name Napoleone (in French his name became Napoleon Bonaparte). He was the second of eight children of Carlo (Charles) Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino Buonaparte, both of the Corsican-Italian gentry. No Buonaparte had ever been a professional soldier. Carlo was a lawyer who had fought for Corsican independence, but after the French occupied the island in 1768, he served as a prosecutor and judge and entered the French aristocracy as a count. Through his father’s influence, Napoleon was educated at the expense of King Louis XVI, at Brienne and the École Militaire, in Paris. Napoleon graduated in 1785, at the age of 16, and joined the artillery as a second lieutenant.
After the Revolution began, he became a lieutenant colonel (1791) in the Corsican National Guard. In 1793, however, Corsica declared independence, and Bonaparte, a French patriot and a Republican, fled to France with his family. He was assigned, as a captain, to an army besieging Toulon, a naval base that, aided by a British fleet, was in revolt against the republic. Replacing a wounded artillery general, he seized ground where his guns could drive the British fleet from the harbor, and Toulon fell. As a result Bonaparte was promoted to brigadier general at the age of 24. In 1795 he saved the revolutionary government by dispersing an insurgent mob in Paris. In 1796 he married Joséphine de Beauharnais, the widow of an aristocrat guillotined in the Revolution and the mother of two children.
II EARLY CAMPAIGNS
Also in 1796, Bonaparte was made commander of the French army in Italy. He defeated four Austrian generals in succession, each with superior numbers, and forced Austria and its allies to make peace. The Treaty of Campo Formio provided that France keep most of its conquests. In northern Italy he founded the Cisalpine (Italian) Republic (later known as the kingdom of Italy) and strengthened his position in France by sending millions of francs worth of treasure to the government. In 1798, to strike at British trade with the East, he led an expedition to Ottoman-ruled Egypt, which he conquered. His fleet, however, was destroyed by the British admiral Horatio Nelson, leaving him stranded. Undaunted, he reformed the Egyptian government and law, abolishing serfdom and feudalism and guaranteeing basic rights. The French scholars he had brought with him began the scientific study of ancient Egyptian history. In 1799 he failed to capture Syria, but he won a smashing victory over the Ottomans at Abū Qīr (Abukir). France, meanwhile, faced a new coalition; Austria, Russia, and lesser powers had allied with Britain.
III NAPOLEONIC RULE IN FRANCE
Bonaparte, no modest soul, decided to leave his army and return to save France. In Paris, he joined a conspiracy against the government. In the coup d’etat of November 9-10, 1799 (18-19 Brumaire), he and his colleagues seized power and established a new regime—the Consulate. Under its constitution, Bonaparte, as first consul, had almost dictatorial powers. The constitution was revised in 1802 to make Bonaparte consul for life and in 1804 to create him emperor. Each change received the overwhelming assent of the electorate. In 1800, he assured his power by crossing the Alps and defeating the Austrians at Marengo. He then negotiated a general European peace that established the Rhine River as the eastern border of France. He also concluded an agreement with the pope (the Concordat of 1801), which contributed to French domestic tranquillity by ending the quarrel with the Roman Catholic church that had arisen during the Revolution. In France the administration was reorganized, the court system was simplified, and all schools were put under centralized control. French law was standardized in the Code Napoléon, or civil code, and six other codes. They guaranteed the rights and liberties won in the Revolution, including equality before the law and freedom of religion.
IV WARS OF CONQUEST
In April 1803 Britain, provoked by Napoleon’s aggressive behavior, resumed war with France on the seas; two years later Russia and Austria joined the British in a new coalition. Napoleon then abandoned plans to invade England and turned his armies against the Austro-Russian forces, defeating them at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805. In 1806 he seized the kingdom of Naples and made his elder brother Joseph king, converted the Dutch Republic into the kingdom of Holland for his brother Louis, and established the Confederation of the Rhine (most of the German states) of which he was protector. Prussia then allied itself with Russia and attacked the confederation. Napoleon destroyed the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstädt (1806) and the Russian army at Friedland. At Tilsit (July 1807), Napoleon made an ally of Tsar Alexander I and greatly reduced the size of Prussia (see Tilsit, Treaty of). He also added new states to the empire: the kingdom of Westphalia, under his brother Jerome, the duchy of Warsaw, and others.
Napoleon had meanwhile established the Continental System, a French-imposed blockade of Europe against British goods, designed to bankrupt what he called the “nation of shopkeepers.” In 1807 Napoleon seized Portugal. In 1808, he made his brother Joseph king of Spain, awarding Naples to his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat. Joseph’s arrival in Spain touched off a rebellion there, which became known as the Peninsular War. Napoleon appeared briefly and scored victories, but after his departure the fighting continued for five years, with the British backing Spanish armies and guerrillas. The Peninsular War cost France 300,000 casualties and untold sums of money and contributed to the eventual weakening of the Napoleonic empire.
In 1809 Napoleon beat the Austrians again at Wagram, annexed the Illyrian Provinces (now part of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro), and abolished the Papal States. He also divorced Joséphine, and in 1810 he married the Habsburg archduchess Marie Louise, daughter of the Austrian emperor. By thus linking his dynasty with the oldest ruling house in Europe, he hoped that his son, who was born in 1811, would be more readily accepted by established monarchs. In 1810 also, the empire reached its widest extension with the annexation of Bremen, Lübeck, and other parts of north Germany, together with the entire kingdom of Holland, following the forced abdication of Louis Bonaparte.
V NAPOLEONIC RULE IN EUROPE
In all the new kingdoms created by the emperor, the Code Napoléon was established as law. Feudalism and serfdom were abolished, and freedom of religion established (except in Spain). Each state was granted a constitution, providing for universal male suffrage and a parliament and containing a bill of rights. French-style administrative and judicial systems were required. Schools were put under centralized administration, and free public schools were envisioned. Higher education was opened to all who qualified, regardless of class or religion. Every state had an academy or institute for the promotion of the arts and sciences. Incomes were provided for eminent scholars, especially scientists. Constitutional government remained only a promise, but progress and increased efficiency were widely realized. Not until after Napoleon’s fall did the common people of Europe, alienated from his governments by war taxes and military conscription, fully appreciate the benefits he had given them.
VI NAPOLEON’S DOWNFALL
In 1812 Napoleon, whose alliance with Alexander I had disintegrated, launched an invasion of Russia that ended in a disastrous retreat from Moscow. Thereafter all Europe united against him, and although he fought on, and brilliantly, the odds were impossible. In April 1814, his marshals refused to continue the struggle. After the allies had rejected his stepping down in favor of his son, Napoleon abdicated unconditionally and was exiled to the Mediterranean island of Elba. Marie Louise and his son were put in the custody of her father, the emperor of Austria. Napoleon never saw either of them again. Napoleon himself, however, soon made a dramatic comeback. In March 1815, he escaped from Elba, reached France, and marched on Paris, winning over the troops sent to capture him. In Paris, he promulgated a new and more democratic constitution, and veterans of his old campaigns flocked to his support. Napoleon asked peace of the allies, but they outlawed him, and he decided to strike first. The result was a campaign into Belgium, which ended in defeat at the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815. In Paris, crowds begged him to fight on, but the politicians withdrew their support. Napoleon fled to Rochefort, where he surrendered to the captain of the British battleship Bellerophon. He was then exiled to Saint Helena, a remote island in the south Atlantic Ocean, where he remained until his death on May 5, 1821.
VII THE NAPOLEONIC LEGEND
The cult of Napoleon as the “man of destiny” began during his lifetime. In fact, he had begun to cultivate it during his first Italian campaign by systematically publicizing his victories. As first consul and emperor, he had engaged the best writers and artists of France and Europe to glorify his deeds and had contributed to the cult himself by the elaborate ceremonies with which he celebrated his rule, picturing himself as the architect of France’s greatest glory. He maintained that he had preserved the achievements of the Revolution in France and offered their benefits to Europe. His goal, he said, was to found a European state—a “federation of free peoples.” Whatever the truth of this, he became the arch-hero of the French and a martyr to the world. In 1840 his remains were returned to Paris at the request of King Louis-Philippe and interred with great pomp and ceremony in the Invalides, where they still lie.
VIII EVALUATION
Napoleon’s influence is evident in France even today. Reminders of him dot Paris—the most obvious being the Arc de Triomphe, the centerpiece of the city, which was built to commemorate his victories. His spirit pervades the constitution of the Fifth Republic; the country’s basic law is still the Code Napoléon, and the administrative and judicial systems are essentially Napoleonic. A uniform state-regulated system of education persists. Napoleon’s radical reforms in all parts of Europe cultivated the ground for the revolutions of the 19th century. Today, the impact of the Code Napoléon is apparent in the law of all European countries.
Napoleon was a driven man, never secure, never satisfied. “Power is my mistress,” he said. His life was work-centered; even his social activities had a purpose. He could bear amusements or vacations only briefly. His tastes were for coarse food, bad wine, cheap snuff. He could be charming—hypnotically so—for a purpose. He had intense loyalties—to his family and old associates. Nothing and no one, however, were allowed to interfere with his work.
Napoleon was sometimes a tyrant and always an authoritarian, but one who believed in ruling by mandate of the people, expressed in plebiscites. He was also a great enlightened monarch—a civil executive of enormous capacity who changed French institutions and tried to reform the institutions of Europe and give the Continent a common law. Few deny that he was a military genius. At Saint Helena, he said, “Waterloo will erase the memory of all my victories.” He was wrong; for better or worse, he is best remembered as a general, not for his enlightened government, but the latter must be counted if he is justly to be called Napoleon the Great.
See French Revolution; Napoleonic Wars. See also separate articles on individual battles mentioned.

Peter the Great

Peter the Great
I INTRODUCTION
Peter the Great or Peter I (1672-1725), tsar and, later, emperor of Russia (1682-1725), who is linked with the Westernization of Russia and its rise as a great power.
II EARLY LIFE
Peter was born in Moscow of the second marriage of his father, Alexis I, who ruled Russia from 1645 to 1676. Alexis’s first marriage, to Maria Miloslavsky, had produced 13 children, but only two of the sons, Fyodor and Ivan, both of them sickly, survived their father. After Maria died in 1669 Alexis married Natalia Naryshkin in 1671, and Peter, a strong and healthy child, was born the next year. Fyodor III succeeded his father as tsar, but died without an heir in 1682. A bitter struggle for the throne between the two families, the Miloslavskys and the Naryshkins, ensued. The Naryshkins gained an early victory: Supported by the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, a majority in the boyar duma (Russia’s council of nobles), and a gathering of the gentry (untitled landowners), nine-year-old Peter was proclaimed tsar in April of 1682. Because of his youth, his mother became regent, while her relatives and friends secured leading positions in the state. However, as early as May, the Miloslavsky party, led by Alexis's able and strong-willed daughter Sofia, Peter's half-sister, inspired a rebellion of the streltsy, musketeers who made up Russia’s top military corps. The streltsy in Moscow murdered leading members of the Naryshkin clique—Peter witnessed some of these murders—and the Miloslavskys seized power. At the request of the streltsy, the boyar duma declared Ivan senior tsar and allowed Peter to be junior tsar. A little later, Sofia was made regent with the justification that the sickly and feeble-minded Ivan was unable to rule.
From 1682 to 1689 Sofia and her associates governed Muscovy, as the Russian state was then known, with Peter I, together with the Naryshkin party, kept away from state affairs at the village of Preobrazhenskoye. Prince Vasily Golitsyn, the regent's favorite, played a particularly important role in Sofia’s government. An enlightened and humane person who spoke several languages and arranged his own home and life in a Western manner, Golitsyn cherished vast projects of improvement and reform, including the abolition of serfdom (a system that bound agricultural laborers to the land they worked) and the development of education on a large scale. He did liberalize the Muscovite penal code, even if he failed to implement his more ambitious schemes. But two disastrous campaigns against the Crimean Tatars, in 1687 and 1689, together with other accumulated tensions, proved to be his and Sofia's downfall.
III ACCESSION TO THE THRONE AND EARLY REIGN
A new rebellion of the streltsy, this time against Sofia’s regency, inspired a final confrontation between the Miloslavsky and Naryshkin parties in August 1689. The rally in support of Peter was such that Sofia capitulated to her brother. There were a few executions, Sofia was sent to live in a convent, and Golitsyn and some of his associates suffered exile. Peter, who had spent his early teen years away from the capital playing at soldiering and learning about boatbuilding, was acknowledged as the real ruler of Russia, although Ivan retained his position as co-tsar. Still, at 17, Peter left state affairs to his mother and her rather reactionary clique. Natalia Naryshkin's death in 1694 marked the true beginning of Peter's reign. In 1696 Ivan V died, and Peter formally became the sole occupant of the Muscovite throne.
Very tall, tremendously strong, fantastically energetic, and an intellectually precocious child, Peter received no extensive systematic education, barely being taught to read and write. Instead, from an early age he began to absorb information on his own and to pursue a variety of interests. The quarter for foreigners in Moscow became his favorite locale. There he learned from a variety of specialists what he wanted to know most about military and naval matters, geometry, and the erection of fortifications. There too, in a busy, informal, and unrestrained atmosphere, the tsar apparently felt much more at ease than in the conservative, tradition-bound palace environment, which he never accepted as his own. The smoking, drinking, lovemaking, rough good humor, and conglomeration of languages that he first discovered in the foreign quarter in Moscow became an enduring part of Peter's life. He would always judge people not by their background, but by what they knew and what they were able to do. As a result, throughout his reign his assistants constituted a remarkably diverse group, ranging socially from the old, established Russian aristocracy to able newcomers from lower classes and including a great variety of foreigners.
The war games of Peter's childhood developed over a period of years into a serious military undertaking. He had formed two disciplined regiments of soldiers, known as the guards, from among his friends while at Preobrazhenskoye. The guards would later become the elite core of a new, modernized army. Similarly, the young tsar began building small vessels on a nearby body of water, and as early as 1694 he had established a dockyard in Arkhangel’sk and personally constructed a large ship there. A Russian navy was being created literally from scratch. The determined attempt of Peter's mother to make him change his ways in a more conventional direction by marrying him to Eudoxia Lopukhina in 1689 failed completely.
The first years of Peter's effective rule brought more military surprises. Peter declared war against the Ottoman Empire in 1695. After failing to capture the key fortress of Azov near the mouth of the Don River by land, Peter built in one winter a fleet at Voronezh, a settlement up the Don. Working indefatigably himself and ruthlessly driving everyone around him, from foreign experts to Russian peasants, he managed to bring 30 seagoing vessels and about 1000 transport barges to Azov in May 1696. Besieged by sea as well as by land, the Ottomans surrendered Azov in July.
IV THE GRAND EMBASSY
Next, Peter organized a large delegation—the so-called Grand Embassy—to visit a number of European countries. He was spurred by the desire to form a mighty coalition against the Ottoman Empire, but also by his intense interest in the West. In a most unusual act for a Muscovite ruler, Peter traveled with the Grand Embassy himself. The party of approximately 250 men set out in March 1697. It was headed by Peter’s close Swiss friend and associate, Franz Lefort, while the tsar himself journeyed incognito under the name of Peter Mikhailov. His identity, however, was easy to discover, and it remained no secret to the rulers and officials of the countries he visited or even to the crowds that frequently gathered around him. The tsar engaged in a number of important talks on diplomatic and other state matters.
Above all Peter tried to learn as much as possible from the West. He seemed most concerned with navigation, but he also tried to absorb other technical skills and crafts, together with the ways, manners, and entire way of life of Europe as he saw it. As the Grand Embassy progressed across the continent Peter also took trips of his own, most notably to the British Isles, and obtained firsthand knowledge of Prussia, Holland, England, the Habsburg Empire, and the Baltic provinces of Sweden. From Vienna the tsar intended to go to Italy, but instead he rushed back to Moscow in the fall of 1698 at news of a rebellion of the streltsy. During his 18-month trip abroad, Peter recruited more than 750 foreigners, especially Dutchmen, to serve in Russia. Experts in their fields, these artisans, doctors, and soldiers continued their careers while training the Russians.
The streltsy, who had made a bid to depose Peter in favor of Sofia, were defeated before Peter's return, but the tsar acted with exceptional violence and severity. After investigation and torture, more than 1000 streltsy were executed, with Peter himself performing as one of the executioners. Their mangled bodies were displayed publicly as a salutary lesson, and the streltsy were disbanded. Sofia was forced to become a nun, as was Peter's wife, Eudoxia, who had sympathized with the rebels. Also, after returning home the tsar demanded that courtiers, officials, and the military conform to Western standards of appearance, ordering them to cut their beards and wear Western-style clothing. With the beginning of the new century, Peter changed the old Russian calendar to the Julian calendar used in the West; henceforth years were to be counted from the birth of Christ, not the creation of the world, and they were to commence on the first of January, not the first of September.
V LATER REIGN
Before long, however, these and other reform measures had to cede center stage to the prosecution of the Great Northern War (1700-1721) against Sweden. Peter’s journey west did not result in a great alliance against the Ottomans, but it led to one against Sweden. Russia fought together with Denmark and the union of Poland and Saxony against Sweden to win the Baltic coastline, the "window into Europe," and to break Swedish dominance over the northern part of the continent. At the time, Sweden was considered to have the best army in Europe and was led by the most famous commander, the youthful King Charles XII. Thus, the war required utmost exertion from backward Russia. It has been described both as the reason for Peter’s reforms and as their main burden and limitation.
Crushed by the Swedes at Narva in 1700, Peter modernized and transformed the Russian army, and the tide turned in the war. By 1703 the Russians had scored important victories against Sweden, and Peter founded Saint Petersburg at the site of a former Swedish fortress on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Finland. Russia destroyed invading Swedish forces at Poltava on July 8, 1709, and, although the war lasted many more years, the Swedes could not reverse its course. By 1714 Russian troops occupied most of Finland, then a Swedish duchy. The new Russian Baltic navy, under Peter's direct command, joined the army to defeat the Swedish fleet off Hangö and to carry the war into Sweden itself. The Treaty of Nystad, concluded on August 30, 1721, gave Russia Livonia, Estonia, Latvia, Ingria, part of Karelia, and certain islands, although Russia returned the bulk of Finland and paid 2 million Swedish rix-dollars. Russia obtained the Finnish borderlands located strategically next to Saint Petersburg as well. At a solemn celebration of the peace settlement, the Senate, which had been recently created to assist the tsar in governing the country, prevailed upon Peter to accept the titles of Great, Father of the Fatherland, and Emperor. His acceptance of the last title marked the official inauguration of the Russian Empire.
During the Great Northern War, Peter also mounted a rash campaign against the Ottoman Empire near the Prut River in 1711. He was fortunate to make peace and extricate himself and his army at the cost of abandoning Azov, some other southern gains, and his southern fleet to the Ottomans.
VI REFORMS UNDER PETER
Internal reforms under Peter were generally enacted under the pressure of war, usually in an ad hoc, disjointed manner. Often the confusion they were designed to fix was made worse. Still, Peter's reforming of Russia was by no means limited to hectic measures to bolster the war efforts. Rather, he wanted to Westernize and modernize the entire Russian government, society, and culture. Peter literally moved the capital west, from Moscow to Saint Petersburg, in 1712. Even if he failed to overhaul all of Russia, changes pointed more and more away from backward Muscovy and toward borrowing from the West. Peter the Great was not a theoretician, but he had the makings of a visionary.
Of the reforms, the modernization of the army and the creation of the navy were among the most successful. In 1711, before leaving on the Ottoman campaign, Peter created a Senate of 10 (later 11) members to supervise all judicial, financial, and administrative affairs in his absence. Upon his return it became a permanent institution, with a special high official, the ober-procurator, serving as the link between the Senate and the monarch, or, in Peter’s own words, as "the sovereign's eye."
In 1717 and the years immediately following, Peter replaced Muscovy’s numerous and unwieldy governmental departments with new agencies, called colleges. Originally nine in number, the colleges were councils that served as the main agencies of the newly structured government, dealing with such matters as foreign affairs, justice, and commerce. The group leadership of each agency was meant to provide a variety of opinion and to deter corruption. Town government also underwent major reform. In 1699 control of the cities was shifted from appointed governors to locally elected officials. Intended to stimulate the initiative and activity of the townspeople, the reform failed in practice because of local inertia and ignorance. An even greater failure was provincial reform, again very progressive and ambitious but totally unrealistic. Peter divided the country into 50 gubernias (provinces), for which he established a vast bureaucracy. A governor headed each gubernia and answered to the Senate. The system provided more uniformity, but corruption and confusion thrived within the new bureaucracy.
Peter was more effective at changing the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church. His reforms were influenced especially by church-state arrangements in the Lutheran states of Northern Europe. In 1721 a Holy Synod, or religious college, of 10, and later 12, clerics replaced the patriarch at the head of the Orthodox Church. A secular official, the ober-procurator, was appointed to supervise the synod for the ruler. Although the emperor acquired no authority on questions of faith, the reform enabled the government to exercise control over church organization, possessions, and policies.
On the whole Peter had to accept Russian society as it was, with serfdom and the economic and social dominance of the gentry; he did not produce any revolutionary changes in the Russian economy. However, Peter’s tremendous effort to make that society and economy serve his purposes brought some lasting social results. To fund the wars and the building of Saint Petersburg, taxation became extremely oppressive, with new taxes of every conceivable kind proliferating. After a census was ordered in the early 1720s, a head, or poll, tax replaced the household tax and the tax on cultivated land. Serfs and eventually even vagrants—individuals who had previously escaped taxation because they did not own land or were not part of a household—were subject to the new tax.
Under Peter, members of the service gentry, landowners who held property in return for their service to the state, were divided into classes. In 1722, Peter promulgated a system of ranks that classified the gentry according to their level of service. This system, called the Table of Ranks, listed in hierarchic order the 14 ranks to be attained in the military, civil, and imperial court service. Promotion now depended on ability and service to the state, not birth, which historically determined how far one rose in Russian society. The Table of Ranks served as the foundation of the imperial Russian bureaucracy and lasted, with modification, until 1917.
Peter’s war endeavors provided a strong stimulus to the Russian economy, from mining and metallurgy, which supplied armaments and ships for the army and navy, to the new textile industry. But perhaps his most significant impact was in the broad field of education and culture, where the Western orientation could never again be reversed. This orientation began before Peter’s reforms, but it was Peter who made it state policy and thus transformed an optional and slow process into a compulsory official drive. In a sense, the Academy of Sciences, planned by the emperor and inaugurated shortly after his death, remained his most appropriate monument.
Peter died in February 1725 after a brief illness, without using a new law, issued in 1722, giving him the right to appoint a successor. His only son to grow to maturity, Alexis, had died in 1718 in prison in tragic and unclear circumstances after having been condemned to death for treason against his father, whose views he never shared. The reformer's semiliterate second wife ascended the throne as Empress Catherine I, sponsored especially by Peter's most prominent assistant, Aleksandr Menshikov, and the guards.
VII EVALUATION
Peter the Great was virtually unconditionally admired, almost worshiped, in his native country by the educated public during the Age of Enlightenment, which followed after his death and which he had done so much to introduce. He then became a subject of argument in the first half of the 19th century among such ideologists as the Westernizers, who applauded Peter’s accomplishments, and the Slavophiles, who claimed he had betrayed his country’s traditions with his reforms.
While historical studies provided a more realistic context for understanding Peter the Great and his significance, his figure remained immense in Russian literature and culture. Even Soviet Marxist writing after the Russian Revolution of 1917 applauded the emperor. Soviet historians de-emphasized the role of personality in history and stressed the oppressive feudal nature of Peter’s reign, but they glorified his creation of the navy, his military reform and victories, and the emergence of Russia as a great world power. All Soviet schoolchildren were brought up on that dual, even contradictory, interpretation. With the collapse of the Soviet state in 1991, Peter the Great again became a magnet for a variety of different evaluations.

Plato

Plato
I INTRODUCTION
Plato (428?-347 BC), Greek philosopher, one of the most creative and influential thinkers in Western philosophy.
II LIFE
Plato was born to an aristocratic family in Athens. His father, Ariston, was believed to have descended from the early kings of Athens. Perictione, his mother, was distantly related to the 6th-century BC lawmaker Solon. When Plato was a child, his father died, and his mother married Pyrilampes, who was an associate of the statesman Pericles.
As a young man Plato had political ambitions, but he became disillusioned by the political leadership in Athens. He eventually became a disciple of Socrates, accepting his basic philosophy and dialectical style of debate: the pursuit of truth through questions, answers, and additional questions. Plato witnessed the death of Socrates at the hands of the Athenian democracy in 399 BC. Perhaps fearing for his own safety, he left Athens temporarily and traveled to Italy, Sicily, and Egypt.
In 387 Plato founded the Academy in Athens, the institution often described as the first European university. It provided a comprehensive curriculum, including such subjects as astronomy, biology, mathematics, political theory, and philosophy. Aristotle was the Academy's most prominent student.
Pursuing an opportunity to combine philosophy and practical politics, Plato went to Sicily in 367 to tutor the new ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius the Younger, in the art of philosophical rule. The experiment failed. Plato made another trip to Syracuse in 361, but again his engagement in Sicilian affairs met with little success. The concluding years of his life were spent lecturing at the Academy and writing. He died at about the age of 80 in Athens in 348 or 347 BC.
III WORKS
Plato's writings were in dialogue form; philosophical ideas were advanced, discussed, and criticized in the context of a conversation or debate involving two or more persons. The earliest collection of Plato's work includes 35 dialogues and 13 letters. The authenticity of a few of the dialogues and most of the letters has been disputed.
A Early Dialogues
The dialogues may be divided into early, middle, and later periods of composition. The earliest represent Plato's attempt to communicate the philosophy and dialectical style of Socrates. Several of these dialogues take the same form. Socrates, encountering someone who claims to know much, professes to be ignorant and seeks assistance from the one who knows. As Socrates begins to raise questions, however, it becomes clear that the one reputed to be wise really does not know what he claims to know, and Socrates emerges as the wiser one because he at least knows that he does not know. Such knowledge, of course, is the beginning of wisdom. Included in this group of dialogues are Charmides (an attempt to define temperance), Lysis (a discussion of friendship), Laches (a pursuit of the meaning of courage), Protagoras (a defense of the thesis that virtue is knowledge and can be taught), Euthyphro (a consideration of the nature of piety), and Book I of the Republic (a discussion of justice).
B Middle and Late Dialogues
The dialogues of the middle and later periods of Plato's life reflect his own philosophical development. The ideas in these works are attributed by most scholars to Plato himself, although Socrates continues to be the main character in many of the dialogues. The writings of the middle period include Gorgias (a consideration of several ethical questions), Meno (a discussion of the nature of knowledge), the Apology (Socrates' defense of himself at his trial against the charges of atheism and corrupting Athenian youth), Crito (Socrates' defense of obedience to the laws of the state), Phaedo (the death scene of Socrates, in which he discusses the theory of Forms, the nature of the soul, and the question of immortality), the Symposium (Plato's outstanding dramatic achievement, which contains several speeches on beauty and love), the Republic (Plato's supreme philosophical achievement, which is a detailed discussion of the nature of justice).
The works of the later period include the Theaetetus (a denial that knowledge is to be identified with sense perception), Parmenides (a critical evaluation of the theory of Forms), Sophist (further consideration of the theory of Ideas, or Forms), Philebus (a discussion of the relationship between pleasure and the good), Timaeus (Plato's views on natural science and cosmology), and the Laws (a more practical analysis of political and social issues).
IV THEORY OF FORMS
At the heart of Plato's philosophy is his theory of Forms, or Ideas. Ultimately, his view of knowledge, his ethical theory, his psychology, his concept of the state, and his perspective on art must be understood in terms of this theory.
A Theory of Knowledge
Plato's theory of Forms and his theory of knowledge are so interrelated that they must be discussed together. Influenced by Socrates, Plato was convinced that knowledge is attainable. He was also convinced of two essential characteristics of knowledge. First, knowledge must be certain and infallible. Second, knowledge must have as its object that which is genuinely real as contrasted with that which is an appearance only. Because that which is fully real must, for Plato, be fixed, permanent, and unchanging, he identified the real with the ideal realm of being as opposed to the physical world of becoming. One consequence of this view was Plato's rejection of empiricism, the claim that knowledge is derived from sense experience. He thought that propositions derived from sense experience have, at most, a degree of probability. They are not certain. Furthermore, the objects of sense experience are changeable phenomena of the physical world. Hence, objects of sense experience are not proper objects of knowledge.
Plato's own theory of knowledge is found in the Republic, particularly in his discussion of the image of the divided line and the myth of the cave. In the former, Plato distinguishes between two levels of awareness: opinion and knowledge. Claims or assertions about the physical or visible world, including both commonsense observations and the propositions of science, are opinions only. Some of these opinions are well founded; some are not; but none of them counts as genuine knowledge. The higher level of awareness is knowledge, because there reason, rather than sense experience, is involved. Reason, properly used, results in intellectual insights that are certain, and the objects of these rational insights are the abiding universals, the eternal Forms or substances that constitute the real world.
The myth of the cave describes individuals chained deep within the recesses of a cave. Bound so that vision is restricted, they cannot see one another. The only thing visible is the wall of the cave upon which appear shadows cast by models or statues of animals and objects that are passed before a brightly burning fire. Breaking free, one of the individuals escapes from the cave into the light of day. With the aid of the sun, that person sees for the first time the real world and returns to the cave with the message that the only things they have seen heretofore are shadows and appearances and that the real world awaits them if they are willing to struggle free of their bonds. The shadowy environment of the cave symbolizes for Plato the physical world of appearances. Escape into the sun-filled setting outside the cave symbolizes the transition to the real world, the world of full and perfect being, the world of Forms, which is the proper object of knowledge.
B Nature of Forms
The theory of Forms may best be understood in terms of mathematical entities. A circle, for instance, is defined as a plane figure composed of a series of points, all of which are equidistant from a given point. No one has ever actually seen such a figure, however.
What people have actually seen are drawn figures that are more or less close approximations of the ideal circle. In fact, when mathematicians define a circle, the points referred to are not spatial points at all; they are logical points. They do not occupy space. Nevertheless, although the Form of a circle has never been seen—indeed, could never be seen—mathematicians and others do in fact know what a circle is. That they can define a circle is evidence that they know what it is. For Plato, therefore, the Form “circularity” exists, but not in the physical world of space and time. It exists as a changeless object in the world of Forms or Ideas, which can be known only by reason. Forms have greater reality than objects in the physical world both because of their perfection and stability and because they are models, resemblance to which gives ordinary physical objects whatever reality they have. Circularity, squareness, and triangularity are excellent examples, then, of what Plato meant by Forms. An object existing in the physical world may be called a circle or a square or a triangle only to the extent that it resembles (“participates in” is Plato's phrase) the Form “circularity” or “squareness” or “triangularity.”
Plato extended his theory beyond the realm of mathematics. Indeed, he was most interested in its application in the field of social ethics. The theory was his way of explaining how the same universal term can refer to so many particular things or events. The word justice, for example, can be applied to hundreds of particular acts because these acts have something in common, namely, their resemblance to, or participation in, the Form “justice.” An individual is human to the extent that he or she resembles or participates in the Form “humanness.” If “humanness” is defined in terms of being a rational animal, then an individual is human to the extent that he or she is rational. A particular act is courageous or cowardly to the extent that it participates in its Form. An object is beautiful to the extent that it participates in the Idea, or Form, of beauty. Everything in the world of space and time is what it is by virtue of its resemblance to, or participation in, its universal Form. The ability to define the universal term is evidence that one has grasped the Form to which that universal refers.
Plato conceived the Forms as arranged hierarchically; the supreme Form is the Form of the Good, which, like the sun in the myth of the cave, illuminates all the other Ideas. There is a sense in which the Form of the Good represents Plato's movement in the direction of an ultimate principle of explanation. Ultimately, the theory of Forms is intended to explain how one comes to know and also how things have come to be as they are. In philosophical language, Plato's theory of Forms is both an epistemological (theory of knowledge) and an ontological (theory of being) thesis.
V POLITICAL THEORY
The Republic, Plato's major political work, is concerned with the question of justice and therefore with the questions “what is a just state” and “who is a just individual?”
The ideal state, according to Plato, is composed of three classes. The economic structure of the state is maintained by the merchant class. Security needs are met by the military class, and political leadership is provided by the philosopher-kings. A particular person's class is determined by an educational process that begins at birth and proceeds until that person has reached the maximum level of education compatible with interest and ability. Those who complete the entire educational process become philosopher-kings. They are the ones whose minds have been so developed that they are able to grasp the Forms and, therefore, to make the wisest decisions. Indeed, Plato's ideal educational system is primarily structured so as to produce philosopher-kings.
Plato associates the traditional Greek virtues with the class structure of the ideal state. Temperance is the unique virtue of the artisan class; courage is the virtue peculiar to the military class; and wisdom characterizes the rulers. Justice, the fourth virtue, characterizes society as a whole. The just state is one in which each class performs its own function well without infringing on the activities of the other classes.
Plato divides the human soul into three parts: the rational part, the will, and the appetites. The just person is the one in whom the rational element, supported by the will, controls the appetites. An obvious analogy exists here with the threefold class structure of the state, in which the enlightened philosopher-kings, supported by the soldiers, govern the rest of society.
VI ETHICS
Plato's ethical theory rests on the assumption that virtue is knowledge and can be taught, which has to be understood in terms of his theory of Forms. As indicated previously, the ultimate Form for Plato is the Form of the Good, and knowledge of this Form is the source of guidance in moral decision making. Plato also argued that to know the good is to do the good. The corollary of this is that anyone who behaves immorally does so out of ignorance. This conclusion follows from Plato's conviction that the moral person is the truly happy person, and because individuals always desire their own happiness, they always desire to do that which is moral.
VII ART
Plato had an essentially antagonistic view of art and the artist, although he approved of certain religious and moralistic kinds of art. Again, his approach is related to his theory of Forms. A beautiful flower, for example, is a copy or imitation of the universal Forms “flowerness” and “beauty.” The physical flower is one step removed from reality, that is, the Forms. A picture of the flower is, therefore, two steps removed from reality. This also meant that the artist is two steps removed from knowledge, and, indeed, Plato's frequent criticism of the artists is that they lack genuine knowledge of what they are doing. Artistic creation, Plato observed, seems to be rooted in a kind of inspired madness.
VIII INFLUENCE
Plato's influence throughout the history of philosophy has been monumental. When he died, Speusippus became head of the Academy. The school continued in existence until AD 529, when it was closed by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, who objected to its pagan teachings. Plato's impact on Jewish thought is apparent in the work of the 1st-century Alexandrian philosopher Philo Judaeus. Neoplatonism, founded by the 3rd-century philosopher Plotinus, was an important later development of Platonism. The theologians Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and St. Augustine were early Christian exponents of a Platonic perspective. Platonic ideas have had a crucial role in the development of Christian theology and also in medieval Islamic thought (see Islam).
During the Renaissance, the primary focus of Platonic influence was the Florentine Academy, founded in the 15th century near Florence. Under the leadership of Marsilio Ficino, members of the Academy studied Plato in the original Greek. In England, Platonism was revived in the 17th century by Ralph Cudworth and others who became known as the Cambridge Platonists. Plato's influence has been extended into the 20th century by such thinkers as Alfred North Whitehead, who once paid him tribute by describing the history of philosophy as simply “a series of footnotes to Plato.”
See also Greek Philosophy; Idealism; Metaphysics; Philosophy.

Sir John MacDonald

Sir John MacDonald
I INTRODUCTION
Sir John MacDonald (1815-1891), first prime minister of the Dominion of Canada (1867-1873, 1878-1891). Macdonald was a practical politician whose deals and maneuvers made possible the creation of the Dominion of Canada and its territorial expansion across the continent. He survived political scandal to complete a program of nation-building that included policies of tariffs to protect Canadian industry, the building of transcontinental railroads, and the encouragement of western settlement. For most of his career he was a powerful figure in Canadian politics.
II EARLY LIFE
Macdonald was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1815. His father, Hugh Macdonald, came from Dornoch, Sutherlandshire. His mother, Helen Shaw, came from a farming family of Inverness. Both left the Highlands of Scotland to go to Glasgow, where Hugh Macdonald set up a small manufacturing business. The business failed, and the Macdonald family emigrated to Canada when John was five years old. It was only through the perseverance of his mother that Macdonald received a good education.
At the age of ten Macdonald was sent away from home to attend the Midland Grammar School in Kingston, Upper Canada (now Ontario). When he was 15, he was apprenticed to George Mackenzie, a Kingston lawyer. By the time he was 18, he had inspired such confidence that Mackenzie sent him to open a branch office at Napanee in southeast Upper Canada. When Mackenzie died in 1835, Macdonald returned to Kingston to start his own legal practice. Macdonald was called to the bar a year later.
Macdonald’s legal reputation grew steadily, based on a series of small cases rather than on any dramatic triumph. By 1842 his law office had become one of the busiest in Canada. The next year he was appointed a councilman in Kingston. In 1844 he decided to run for a Kingston seat in the legislative assembly of Canada, which then consisted of the two colonies of Canada West (formerly Upper Canada) and Canada East (formerly Lower Canada, now Québec). Although technically united as the Province of Canada, the two sides of this Union were divided by nationality, with the English predominating in the west and the French in the east. The Union had a joint premiership: each side voted separately, and the two winning parties named premiers who governed the Union together. Macdonald won by a large majority, although his opponent had the advantage of being the incumbent.
III EARLY POLITICAL CAREER
A First Ministry
From the beginning, Macdonald voted with the Conservative, or Tory, Party. During the next few years he helped to build the power of a more moderate group, the Liberal-Conservative Party, which then assumed the name of Conservative Party. In 1847 the 32-year-old Macdonald was made receiver general, an office he held for less than a year.
B Opposition
The election of 1848 swept a rival party, the Reformers, into office, and Macdonald was one of the few Conservatives to retain his seat. He worked to increase his influence among the Conservatives and to broaden the appeal of his party. He was willing to work with anyone who would serve his immediate or long-term aims. He demonstrated this attitude in the 1854 election, when the Conservatives and the radical Clear Grits (later Liberals) worked together to defeat the Reform government.
C Minister
Sir Allan MacNab, a Tory and head of the Conservative Party, was asked by the governor-general (Britain’s representative) to form a government. MacNab had few supporters, and Macdonald helped him organize a Liberal-Conservative coalition. In this administration, Macdonald served as attorney general for Canada West. In 1856 MacNab resigned, and Macdonald succeeded him. When the other joint premier, Sir Étienne Taché of Canada East, resigned in 1857, the governor-general asked Macdonald to form a new cabinet. Macdonald recommended Sir George-Étienne Cartier to take Taché’s place.
George Brown, the leader of the Clear Grits from Canada West, was Macdonald’s chief opponent at that time. In 1858 the government introduced a measure making Ottawa the permanent capital of Canada. Brown prevented this measure from passing, and Macdonald and Cartier resigned, allowing Brown to form a new government. However, the Brown government lasted only two days, and when the governor-general asked Cartier to form another government, he brought Macdonald back with him. Macdonald became attorney general. At that time, ministers could switch positions in the cabinet without having to be reelected. Members of the cabinet exchanged posts with one another and then switched back the following day. This “double shuffle” allowed the Conservatives to maintain their hold on the cabinet, as well as allowing Macdonald to switch from attorney general back to joint premier. One of the few newcomers to the cabinet was Alexander Galt, a railway promoter whose dream was the federation of all of Britain’s North American colonies into one country. He entered the cabinet on the condition that it would attempt to bring about federation, but Macdonald did little about it at the time.
The next few years were mainly years of maneuvering by Macdonald to keep his party together. He fought against Brown’s solution of representation by population, which would have allowed the more populous section, Canada West, to dominate the legislature. To preserve the Union, Macdonald claimed, Canada East and Canada West must continue to have an equal number of members in the assembly.
D Out of Power
Macdonald’s government fell in 1862 as an indirect result of the American Civil War (1861-1865). The United States resented the sympathy that Britain and Canada were giving to the other side in that war, the Confederate States of America. As a result, Canadians feared there would be an invasion from the United States. Macdonald introduced a militia bill to protect Canada, but the bill was defeated, Macdonald resigned, and a Liberal administration took office. The Liberals had far less political skill than the Conservatives, and could do even less than the previous ministry about the colonies’ problems. This government fell early in 1864.
E Return to Office
The new Conservative government, headed by Taché and with Macdonald as attorney general, remained in power for only three months. In June 1864 the political impasse of the Canadas became so serious that a broad government coalition was formed. Brown, Macdonald’s old enemy, joined Taché and Macdonald in the government on the understanding that it would press for a federation of all the British North American colonies. If this project were to fail, Brown would demand a dissolution of the existing Union.
The Atlantic colonies, which consisted of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland, were considering the question of their own union and planned to meet at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, on September 1, 1864. Macdonald saw his opportunity and secured an invitation for the Canadians to attend. The delegates of the Atlantic colonies put off their own discussion until they had heard the Canadians. Macdonald spoke of the advantages in strength that federation would bring, Cartier stressed the preservation of provincial rights, Brown pointed out the safeguards of an upper house on the lines of the U.S. Senate, (see Congress of the United States) and Galt explained the financial advantages of federation. Together they persuaded the Atlantic delegates to attend a formal conference to be held in Québec City on October 10.
Macdonald then showed himself at his greatest. He said in a speech at Halifax, Nova Scotia: “I have been dragging myself through the dreary waste of colonial politics. I thought there was no end, nothing worthy of ambition, but now I see something which is well worthy of all that I have suffered in the cause of my little country.” Under the stress of internal political difficulties and external dangers, Macdonald was changing from a dabbler in politics to a man with an ideal: the creation of a new nation.
At the Québec Conference, Macdonald fought for a strong central government. He proposed 72 resolutions, all of which were passed. These later formed the basis of the federal constitution. In Canada the motion to join the federation, which came to be called Confederation, was passed with large majorities in both houses of the legislature. However, it failed in the first instance in all four of the Atlantic colonies. Canada would have settled for its own union, but by then the British government was also pressing for federation. Macdonald never lost hope, and in 1865, long before federation was a fact, he proposed to Britain that all British territory east of the Rocky Mountains be turned over to Canada.
Taché died in 1865. Macdonald would ordinarily have succeeded to the joint premiership, but he still faced the obstacle of Brown’s jealousy. Rather than risk the cause of federation, he made Narcisse Belleau the new joint premier. The work of persuading the Atlantic colonies went on, and finally, after a change of cabinet in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick consented to join the new union. On March 28, 1867, the British North America Act was passed, creating the Dominion of Canada with the provinces of Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. Even in triumph, Macdonald was soberly cautious: “We are all mere petty provincial politicians at present; perhaps by and by some of us will rise to the level of national statesmen.”
IV PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA
Lord Monck, the first governor-general of the Dominion of Canada, swore in Macdonald as the first prime minister on July 1, 1867. He formed a coalition government drawn from the Conservatives and Reformers who had supported Confederation, giving each party approximately equal weight in the new cabinet. Brown remained in the opposition that later developed into the Liberal Party.
In the August legislative elections the government won overwhelmingly in Ontario and Québec and did well in New Brunswick. The results in Nova Scotia, however, showed that the dominion’s troubles were not over. Led by Joseph Howe, all but one of the members elected were opposed to Confederation. The province threatened to withdraw. When Britain refused to allow this, some elements in Nova Scotia even advocated joining the United States. Macdonald settled the problem by increasing the federal subsidy to the province by $140,000 and by taking Howe into the cabinet. Although the opponents of Confederation protested that the province had been sold for 80 cents a man, they won only one seat in the next election.
In 1868 the British Parliament authorized the transfer of the whole of the northwest east of the Rocky Mountains to Canada. Macdonald treated the territory as if it were virgin land and appointed a lieutenant governor without consulting the settlers, who were mostly indigenous peoples and Métis (a people who were a mixture of the French and indigenous peoples). In 1869 Louis Riel, a Métis, led the Red River Rebellion that, although unsuccessful, gained provincial status for the Red River area; this area became the province of Manitoba and joined the dominion in 1870.
One of Macdonald’s greatest achievements was persuading British Columbia to join the dominion. In 1871 the colony was in severe debt. One faction wanted to join the United States, another to remain British, while only a few considered joining the dominion. Nevertheless, a small party of federationists, favored by the British government, was organized in 1867. As an inducement to British Columbia, Macdonald offered to build a railway connecting Québec to British Columbia. Moreover, he promised to complete it within ten years. Convinced, British Columbia joined the dominion on July 20, 1871, and Canada stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Prince Edward Island joined two years later, making Newfoundland the only holdout.
Parliament was dissolved in 1872, and in the subsequent election, Macdonald suffered a severe setback. The Conservatives’ campaign was vigorous and heavily subsidized, but their dream of a federated Canada was not matched in appeal by their local policies. They lost Ontario and barely won Québec. It was only majorities in the Atlantic provinces that kept them in power, but that power was not to last long.
The idea of a railway to the Pacific was a good one, but the government’s plans for carrying it out were not. Macdonald wanted the railway built by a Canadian company, and in 1873 he created one for that purpose. Sir Hugh Allan, a shipping magnate, was the chief promoter. However, it soon became clear that the money behind Allan was mainly from the United States and that this money was subsidizing the Conservatives. In July 1873, letters stolen from Allan’s lawyer showed that Allan had provided $350,000 in campaign funds for the previous election. Macdonald maintained his innocence, but a personal telegram made it clear that he was deeply involved. Although a Parliamentary commission later cleared him of blame, Macdonald resigned. It seemed that his political career had come to an end.
V ONCE MORE IN OPPOSITION
Macdonald was succeeded by the Liberal Alexander Mackenzie. The Liberals were now faced with the overwhelming problem of building the railway to British Columbia. The world economic depression after 1873 meant that no private investment could be found, so the Liberals attempted to build the railway as a public venture. Their efforts were half-hearted, and British Columbia was on the verge of secession. During these years, Macdonald played a responsible opposition role. He even helped the Liberals reform the legal system and establish the Supreme Court of Canada.
The election of 1878 showed Macdonald’s greatness, which lay in his faith in Canada’s capacity to achieve a firm union. He knew what to do to attain this goal, and he knew he could do it. Everywhere he campaigned, Macdonald played to the local audience. He discovered what people needed and promised it to them. There was something for everyone in his National Policy, as his program was called.
The Conservatives gained an overwhelming victory. Macdonald himself was defeated at Kingston but ran again in Victoria, British Columbia. In spite of his casual manner, his drinking bouts, and his chronic indebtedness, he had become the grand old man of Canada. Without his leadership the election campaign would have been a failure.
VI SECOND MACDONALD GOVERNMENT
The greatest achievement of Macdonald’s last years was the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). The decision to go ahead with the railway, after the Allan scandals, was a display of remarkable courage as well as unusual stubbornness. Macdonald was fortunate that there was a temporary recovery from the depression about that time, and he negotiated the contract for the railway’s construction in 1880. The line was built with incredible speed and was completed in November 1885.
Although the engineering was superb, the financing proved inadequate. The older Northern Pacific Railway went bankrupt in 1883, just before the CPR needed more funds. When Macdonald declared that the money could not be raised, one of his advisors quickly reminded him that “The day the Canadian Pacific busts, the Conservative Party busts the day after.” The government and the railway were both saved by the second Métis resistance, the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. The speed with which the troops arrived via the railway gave Macdonald the necessary arguments to persuade his cabinet and Parliament to reduce previous railroad debts and to make a further loan to the CPR.
The Northwest Rebellion had, in fact, been partly caused by the CPR. The Métis had hunted the last of the bison (usually called buffalo), which were essential to their culture, and the railroad was bringing settlers to destroy what remained of their old way of life. Louis Riel was invited by the Métis to return to western Canada to set up a provisional government. Troops were brought up on the CPR, the resistance was easily crushed, and Riel was hanged.
Meanwhile, in 1882, the Conservatives had won another election. Macdonald himself ran and won in Lennox and Addington County, Ontario. He visited England again in 1884 to participate in discussions with the British government regarding a more independent status for Canada. Although Macdonald declared in one of his last speeches that “A British subject I was born, a British subject I will die,” he believed that Canada could be a “powerful auxiliary to the Empire.” His view of Canada as enjoying equal status with Britain was expressed in his appointment in 1880 of a Canadian High Commissioner in London to aid western settlement and to deal with other Canadian concerns.
Macdonald’s settlement program was not faring well. Canada was again in the throes of an economic depression, people were emigrating from every province to the United States, and there was an increasing dissatisfaction at the slow pace of national growth.
In spite of these circumstances, Macdonald managed to win the election of 1887, although his victory was achieved through a variety of dubious political methods that included bribery and promises that were unlikely to be kept. He was so successful that, despite Riel’s execution, even Québec gave a slim majority to the Conservatives. Macdonald himself won in his old constituency of Kingston.
Even more surprising, the Conservatives succeeded again in 1891, in spite of a series of scandals. The Conservatives had done little in the intervening years, and the campaign was fought on the slogan, “The old man, the old flag, and the old policy.” Macdonald, although 76 years old, campaigned until he died in 1891. His legacy to his country was the structure of a transcontinental dominion.

Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama
I INTRODUCTION
Vasco da Gama (1469?-1524), Portuguese explorer and navigator, who was the first person to reach India from Europe by a sea route. Da Gama was born in Sines, in southwestern Portugal. He joined the Portuguese navy at a young age and participated in the wars against the Spanish kingdom of Castile. Little else is known of his early life.
II VOYAGE TO INDIA
Following the discovery in 1488 of the Cape of Good Hope by Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias, Portuguese king John II ordered the construction of a fleet to seek a maritime route to the Indies. The Portuguese had been spurred by the discoveries of Italian-Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus and by the fear that the Spanish might reach the Indies and tap their wealth first. John died in 1495, however, before the completion of the ships. He was succeeded as king by Manuel, who issued orders for the expedition and, impressed by da Gama’s ability, appointed him to lead it. The fleet consisted of the flagship São Gabriel, the São Raphael (captained by da Gama’s brother Paulo), and two smaller ships.
Departing from Lisbon on July 8, 1497, da Gama plotted his route to take advantage of the prevailing winds. After reaching the vicinity of Cape Verde he veered far to the west and then swung back in a great arc to arrive at the African coast near the Cape of Good Hope. Whether he did this by chance or by following information gathered by earlier mariners is not known, but his procedure established the route still followed by sailing vessels.
Da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa in November. On Christmas Day he sighted and named the region of Natal, from the Portuguese word for Christmas. In the spring of 1498 da Gama reached the East African ports of Moçambique and Mombasa, but ran into armed resistance from Arab Muslim traders at both. At Malindi, on the coast of what is now Kenya, he managed to secure a pilot to guide him eastward. With the aid of Arab navigator Ahmed ibn Majid, da Gama sailed across the Arabian Sea and on May 20, 1498, reached Calicut (now Kozhikode) on the Malabar Coast of India. Da Gama thus completed the first voyage from western Europe around Africa to the East.
Because of the hostility of local Arab merchants, who controlled the seaborne trade of the East and feared the loss of their monopoly, the ruler of Calicut rebuffed da Gama. He received a better reception from other coastal rulers, however, and obtained from them a valuable cargo of spices. He set sail for Portugal on August 29, 1498. Facing unfavorable winds for much of the voyage, the return journey took three times longer than the outgoing trip. Many of da Gama’s crew—including his brother Paulo—died of scurvy before they returned to Portugal in September 1499.
Da Gama navigated about 40,000 km (25,000 mi) on his expedition and demonstrated that the Indian Ocean was not the landlocked sea Europeans had thought it to be since the time of the ancient Greeks. King Manuel rewarded him with the titles Dom and, later, Admiral of the Indian Sea.
III LATER VOYAGES
To follow up the discoveries of da Gama, Manuel immediately dispatched Portuguese navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral to India. Cabral established a Portuguese trading post in Calicut. When news reached Portugal that those stationed in Calicut by Cabral had been massacred, da Gama was sent to avenge that act. On the way to India he attacked Arab Muslim ships ruthlessly. One ship he sunk carried more than 400 men, women, and children returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Arriving in Calicut, da Gama quickly subdued the inhabitants, impressing them with the superior firepower of the Portuguese and forcing the ruler to make peace. On his return voyage he established Portuguese colonies at Moçambique and Sofala on the coast of what is now Mozambique. He returned to Portugal in September 1503 having accomplished his mission and bearing a rich cargo of spices, but he left behind a memory of useless cruelty that damaged the Portuguese name for generations.
Richly rewarded by the Portuguese royal family for breaking the Arab Muslim monopoly on trade with India, da Gama settled down to profit from his ventures. For the next 20 years he saw no active sea duty. He received the title of count of Vidigueira in 1519. In 1524 he was named viceroy and sent to India to correct the mounting corruption among the Portuguese authorities there. Da Gama reached India in the autumn of 1524, but he died in Cochin only three months after his arrival.
He was buried in Goa, on the coast of India, but in 1539 his remains were conveyed to Portugal and interred in the Church of Vidigueira. There the coffin remained until 1880, when it was transferred to a marble sepulcher in the church of the Monastery of the Jerónimos at Belém, outside Lisbon. This monastery had been erected by Manuel as a token of the country’s gratitude to da Gama. Later it was proved that the wrong coffin had been removed from Vidigueira and in 1898, about 400 years after da Gama’s first voyage, the coffin that contained his true remains was placed in the sepulcher. The tomb lies very near that of Camões, Portugal’s most famous poet, who commemorated da Gama’s deeds in his epic 1572 poem The Lusiads.
IV DA GAMA’S LEGACY
On his return to Lisbon in 1499, da Gama had completed the longest recorded sea voyage ever to set sail up to that time. By pioneering the Portuguese sea route to India, da Gama established Lisbon as the center of the European spice trade. This laid the foundation for the Portuguese Empire, which controlled trade with the ports of East Africa, southwest India, and Indonesia for centuries.

Victoria

Victoria (queen)
I INTRODUCTION
Victoria (queen) (1819-1901), queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1837-1901) and empress of India (1876-1901). Her reign was the longest of any monarch in British history and came to be known as the Victorian era.
Queen Victoria was the official head of state not only of the United Kingdom but also of the growing worldwide British Empire, which included Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, and large parts of Africa. As the personal embodiment of her kingdom, Victoria was eager to ensure that her country was held in high esteem throughout the world as an economically and militarily powerful state and as a model of civilization. Victoria brought to the British monarchy such 19th-century ideals as a devoted family life, earnestness, public and private respectability, and obedience to the law. During the later years of her reign, the monarchy attained a high degree of popularity among most of its subjects.
II CHILDHOOD
Queen Victoria was born Alexandrina Victoria on May 24, 1819, in Kensington Palace, London. Her parents were Victoria Mary Louisa, daughter of the duke of the German principality of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Edward Augustus, duke of Kent and Strathern, the fourth son of King George III of Great Britain. When Victoria was eight months old, her father died. Victoria’s mother raised her in Kensington Palace with the help of German governesses, private English tutors, and Victoria’s uncle, Prince Leopold (who in 1831 became King Leopold I of Belgium). Victoria learned to speak and write French and German as readily as English. She also studied history, geography, and the Bible. She was taught how to play the piano and learned how to paint, a hobby that she enjoyed into her 60s. Because Victoria’s uncle, King William IV, had no legitimate children, Victoria became heir apparent to the British crown upon his accession in 1830. On June 20, 1837, with the death of William IV, she became queen at the age of 18.
III EARLY REIGN
Immediately after becoming queen, Victoria began regular meetings with William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, the British prime minister at the time. The two grew very close, and Melbourne taught Victoria how the British government worked on a day-to-day basis.
Britain in the 19th century was a constitutional monarchy, and the king or queen ruled through ministers who were members of, and required the support of, the British Parliament. This meant that the monarch had some influence in government, but not a great deal of real power. In the course of her reign, Queen Victoria played a role in appointing some cabinet ministers (and even a prime minister), as well as particular ambassadors and bishops of the Church of England, and she consulted regularly with her prime ministers by letter and in person. In private, Victoria was never afraid to speak her mind. Much of her time, however, was devoted to ceremonial activities such as the official opening and closing of each year’s session of Parliament.
Victoria was very fond of Melbourne, and because he was the leader of the Whig Party (which later became the Liberal Party), Victoria began publicly to support the Whigs rather than the opposition party, the Tories (later the Conservative Party). The Whigs were sympathetic to freedom of speech and of the press and favored greater religious liberty for those people who did not belong to the official Church of England. The Tories were more concerned with maintaining the country’s established institutions and with making no further legal concessions to religious minorities.
The young queen hoped that the Whigs would continue to keep a majority of seats in the House of Commons (the lower house of the British Parliament) so that Melbourne could remain prime minister. When it appeared in 1839 that he might have to give up the post, the queen successfully used her influence to keep him. In the so-called Bedchamber Crisis, she refused to allow Tory leader Sir Robert Peel to change the ladies-in-waiting of her court, all of whom were Whig sympathizers. Peel then felt unable to form a government, and Melbourne continued as prime minister for two more years. A general election in 1841 resulted in a majority of Tory party members in the House of Commons, however, and Victoria was compelled to accept Peel as prime minister.
IV MARRIED LIFE
In 1839 Victoria fell in love with her first cousin, Prince Albert, of the small German principality of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. They were married in February 1840, and Albert soon developed a keen interest in the government of his new country. Albert was an unusually studious and serious young man, and he served as his wife’s private secretary. He was an active patron of the arts and sciences, and he was the prime organizer of the Great Exhibition of 1851, the first true world's fair, which was held in the Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park. Albert also favored the expansion of education, and he served as chancellor of the University of Cambridge. He became a great champion of the strengthening and modernizing of Britain's armed forces. Though Albert was respected by most of his new countrymen, he was not loved; many resented him because he was a foreigner, and his heavy German accent did not help.
A The Royal Family
For Victoria, however, Albert represented perfection, and the two were very happy together. The royal couple offered an example of family life that contrasted sharply with the images of previous British monarchs. Between 1840 and 1857, Victoria and Albert had nine children. They took an intense personal interest in the upbringing of their children, and they did not leave them solely in the care of nannies and governesses. They increasingly enjoyed a private family life, particularly at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight and Balmoral Castle in Scotland, both of them rebuilt on the basis of Albert’s designs.
B Early Victorian Politics
The royal couple took a sympathetic interest in the efforts of Sir Robert Peel in 1846 to abolish the Corn Laws (acts of Parliament that protected landlords and farmers against foreign competition) and to lead Britain toward international free trade, but in the process he divided his Conservative Party. During the 1850s, with the two-party tradition in temporary disarray, the influence of the monarchy on the formation of ministries reached a 19th-century highpoint. In 1851 royal initiative led to the dismissal of the popular Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, from his post as foreign secretary. He had failed too often to consult the queen before sending dispatches to British diplomats abroad.
Although Victoria and Albert were initially unhappy with the manner in which their country drifted into the Crimean War (1853-1856) against Russia, they became enthusiastic supporters of the conflict once fighting had begun, and in 1855 Victoria appointed Palmerston as wartime prime minister. The queen personally instituted the Victoria Cross as the highest British award for wartime valor.
V WIDOWHOOD
Queen Victoria never truly recovered from Albert’s death in December 1861 at the age of 42. For almost a decade she remained in strict mourning. She rarely set foot in London, and she avoided most public occasions, including the state opening of Parliament. She made an exception, however, for the unveiling of statues dedicated to Prince Albert and, after a few years, for attendance at army reviews.
Behind the scenes, she continued to correspond with and talk to her ministers, and she took comfort in the company of her favorite servant, a Scottish Highlander named John Brown. By the late 1860s, the queen’s absence from the public stage caused her popularity to decline, and there was talk of replacing the monarchy with a republic. In the course of the later 1870s and the 1880s, she gradually returned to the public arena, and her popularity rose once more.
A Late Victorian Politics
Although in her youth she had been known as the “Queen of the Whigs,” in the course of the later 1860s and 1870s she came to prefer Benjamin Disraeli, the leader of the Conservative Party, to William Ewart Gladstone, the leader of the Liberal Party. Disraeli impressed Victoria as being more concerned with Britain's international prestige and with the strengthening of its empire. She strongly supported Disraeli's government from 1874 to 1880. In 1876, when Parliament made her empress of India, she showed her gratitude to Disraeli by opening Parliament in person and by creating him earl of Beaconsfield.
When Disraeli's government was defeated in the general election of 1880, Victoria made little secret of her disappointment in being compelled to name Gladstone prime minister for a second time. Gladstone impressed her as too much a popular demagogue and too ready to tamper with the kingdom's institutions. When in 1866 he proposed home rule (domestic self-government) for Ireland, the queen felt that he was undermining the British Empire. Despite Victoria’s dislike, Gladstone continued to treat the queen with courteous respect.
During the last 15 years of her reign, the Conservatives dominated Britain’s government most of the time under prime minister Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury. Victoria was sympathetic to Salisbury’s views on foreign affairs and the empire. She strongly supported her government’s involvement in the Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa, even though the anxieties of the struggle and the criticism that Britain received from other European powers took their toll on the queen.
B The Grandmother of Europe
During the years after Albert’s death, the queen remained concerned with her ever-growing family. All nine of her children married, and eight of them had children of their own. Some of Victoria’s children and grandchildren eventually married the heirs to thrones of Spain, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Romania. Because of her many descendents, Victoria became known as the “Grandmother of Europe.”
The most important of these marriages occurred when Victoria’s eldest child, also named Victoria, was married at age 17 to Crown Prince Frederick, the heir to the kingdom of Prussia (and, as of 1871, the German Empire). Victoria and Albert had hoped that the marriage would strengthen the bonds of Anglo-German understanding and would help transform Prussia into a constitutional monarchy like that of Britain. In the long run their hopes were disappointed as Frederick’s son (and the queen’s oldest grandchild) went on, as Emperor William II of Germany, to lead the anti-British coalition during World War I (1914-1918).
By the 1880s Victoria had again become the popular symbol of dutiful public service. She appeared in public more often. Excerpts from her private journals that she published in 1868 and 1884 helped to humanize her in the eyes of her subjects. Her personal identification with late-19th-century empire building and the sheer length of her reign also enhanced her popularity. In 1887 her Golden Jubilee, the 50th anniversary of her accession to the throne, was celebrated with great enthusiasm. The Diamond Jubilee of 1897 brought representatives of all the different parts of the British Empire to London and led to the first meeting of the prime ministers of Britain’s colonies; it was then that Victoria’s popularity reached its peak. Four years later, after a reign of 63 years, she died on January 22, 1901, in Osborne House.
VI CONCLUSIONS
The length of Queen Victoria’s reign gave an impression of continuity to what was actually a period of dynamic change as Britain grew to become a powerful industrialized trading nation. The queen sympathized with some of these changes—such as the camera, the railroad, and the use of anesthetics in childbirth. She felt doubtful about others, however, such as giving the vote to many more people, establishing tax-supported schools, and allowing women into professions such as medicine. During her reign, the popularity of the British monarchy underwent both ups and downs but ultimately increased. Victoria was important because she brought morality, good manners, and a devotion to hard work to her role as constitutional monarch. She took pride in her role as formal head of the world’s largest multiracial and multireligious empire, and her honesty, patriotism, and devotion to family life made the queen an appropriate symbol of the Victorian era.