ideas of national unity in early …

The term liberalism' comes from the Latin root liber which meant to be free.

1. In the political sense, liberalism stood for freedom for the individual and equality of all before the law. It emphasised on the end of aristocracy and clerical privileges, a constitution and representative government through parliament and the inviolability of private property, drawing its basic foundation from the French Revolution.
2. From the very beginning, universal suffrage i.e. voting rights were granted only to the property-owning men, excluding men without property and all women. However, throughout the nineteenth century and early twenties, many movements were organised demanding equal political rights.
3. In the economic sense, liberalism stood for the freedom of markets and the abolition of state-imposed restrictions on the movement of goods and capital. People often attempted to go beyond the state restrictions such as the formation of a customs union by Prussia in 1834 which abolished tariff barriers and no. of currencies from 30 to 2. The creation of railway networks further stimulated national unification and the wave of economic nationalism in all contributed towards strengthening wider national sentiments.