Liberal Party (Belhavia)
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Liberal Party | |
|---|---|
| File:Liberals Belhavia.png | |
| Founder | Asher Disraeli |
| Founded | December 23, 1836 |
| Dissolved | November 10, 1922 |
| Preceded by | Reformists Free Labor Party Provincial Rights' Party |
| Merged into | Liberal Democratic Party with Democratic Party |
| Headquarters | Provisa (formerly) |
| Student wing | Liberal Students Wing (defunct) |
| Youth wing | Young Liberals (defunct) |
| Ideology | Classical liberalism Provincial rights Internal Factions: Conservative liberalism Whiggism Protectionism Free trade Incrementalism Social conservatism |
| Political position | Center Right |
| Religion | Secular but mostly self-identified Conservadox Judaism |
| Colors | Buff/Pale Yellow |
| Slogan | "Free Labor, Free State, Free Society" |
The Liberal Party, also commonly called the Liberals, Whigs, or Yellows (colloquially), is a currently defunct and long-lived historical classically liberal, modernizing, and Whiggish political party in Belhavia whose creation is credited by political historians as the end of the First Party System (1812 - 1836) and the start of the Second Party System (1836 - 1858) in in Belhavian politics. Although weak in the 2nd Party System and beginning of the 3rd System, by the middle and late 3rd Party System (1858 - 1955), it was a major party of Belhavia's liberals, rural gentry, and urban centers.
It was the leading party of liberals for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries in Belhavia. It was formed from the remnants of the minor and decaying urban liberal parties of the 1810s - 1830s, including the Free Labor Party and Provincial Rights' Party, and is considered the ideological heir to the pre-1812 Constitution liberal Reformists.
It was the main opposition to the religious- and conservative-oriented National Party and Traditional Union Party, both of which fractured along denominational and regional lines over the issue of religion and the state, the powers of the monarchy and central government, and the role of the nobility and growing industry. Later, it opposed their successor party, the Federalists, for most of the 3rd Party System, merging with the Democrats in 1922 to form the Liberal Democratic Party.
The Liberals promoted an ideology of an agrarian Belhavia with a small government in favor of Whiggish liberal conceptions of a strong, rural yeomanry and gentry paired with protected, light industry and a limited monarchy. In particular, there was a fierce emphasis on provincial rights for local autonomy to prevail over a strong Imperial Government. Over time, the free trade faction gained favor, and as the century wore on, a vision of vigorous, free industrialization and modernization uninhibited and lightly interfered with by the state took precedence.
By the 1870s and 1880s, with the rise of provincial and urban Federalist political machines and corrupt Imperial government patronage systems, the Liberals became weakened politically amid the Federalists' strong dominance. By the 1890s, the Liberals were outfoxed on the left by the newly-created Democrats, and lost voters to them as well. However, they saw political victory in the early 1900s, as Federalists had become undercut by corruption scandals and perceptions of gross malfeasance by the public.
In the late 1910s, almost two decades worth of dominance by the Liberals came crashing to an end after the Federalists retook the Senate in 1918, and elected a Federalist president with nearly 62% of the vote - and a concordant commanding majority in the Senate - in 1920. Compounding their troubles, the republican and left-populist Democrats had made consistent, if minor, gains, eroding the Liberals' room to attract marginal, liberal-leaning voters.
With the rise of the wildfire-fast-growing third-party, the Fascists, which appeared to cut deeply into Federalist constituencies, in 1921 and 1922, the Liberals and Democrats began meeting to discuss a unified caucus in the Senate or even a party merger. After the 1922 midterms, when the Fascists, Liberals, and Democrats all gained seats at the expense of the Federalists, the Liberals and Democrats decided to merge parties and formed the Liberal Democratic Party.