Editing Conservative Order (section)

==Conservative Ideology==
The Congress of Vienna was only the beginning of the conservative reaction bent on containing the liberal and nationalist forces unleashed by the French Revolution. Metternich and most of the other participants at the Congress of Vienna were representatives of an [[ideology]] known as [[conservatism]], which generally dates back to 1790, when its best-known figure, [[Edmund Burke]], wrote ''Reflections on the Revolution in France''. Burke, however, was not the only kind of conservative. [[Joseph de Maistre]] was a very influential spokesperson for a counterrevolutionary and authoritarian conservatism and believed in hereditary monarchies because they would bring "order to society," a commodity in short supply in his eyes after the chaos of the French Revolution. Despite their differences, most conservatives held to some general principles and beliefs:

*Obedience to political authority
*The centrality of organized religion to social order
*Opposition to revolutionary upheavals
*Unwillingness to accept liberal demands for civil liberties and representative government and nationalistic aspirations generated by the French Revolutionary era
*Precedence of community over individual rights
*Structured and ordered society
*Tradition as a guide for an ordered society

Many conservatives such as Metternich were not opposed to reforming governments but said that such changes must be taken gradually and that radical revolutions are aimed, rather than at benefiting the masses, as simply power grabs by the new [[middle class]].

After 1815, the political philosophy of conservatism was supported by hereditary monarchs, government bureaucracies, landowning aristocracies and revived churches ([[Protestant]] or [[Catholic]]). The conservative forces appeared dominant after 1815 both internationally and domestically.