THORBECKE, Johan Rudolf

(1798–1872)

   Statesman and his torian. Thorbecke became professor of law at Leiden University in 1831. During his studies in Germany, he was influenced by the His torical School of Friedrich Karl von Savigny (1779–1861), as evi denced in Thorbecke’s Uber das Wesen und den organischen Char acter der Geschichte (1824). Although he was a historian, he did not develop his political theory in a conservative direction. On the con trary, he pleaded in his “Notes on the Constitution” (1839, 1841) for political participation of a broader spectrum of the population. In 1840, Thorbecke became a member of Parliament. After the more liberal revision of the constitution in 1848, he became prime minis ter (1849–1853). During his ministries in 1862–1866 and 1871– 1872, important legislation was enacted, on the power of the provinces and the local councils and on the postal services and expropriation, among other things. Thorbecke’s type of liberalism refrained from more than marginal governmental interference in economic, social, and cultural life. Liberal support for governmental “neutrality” in education clashed with orthodox Protestant—and later Roman Catholic—wishes for state-subsidized education in private religious schools. In this, Thorbecke was an adversary of Guil laume Groen van Prinsterer.