This article investigates the first generation of peasant farmers elected to modern representative assemblies in Denmark. I argue that the contributions of the first peasant farmer politicians are an important but overlooked part of the history of democratisation in Denmark. The peasant farmer members were uneducated and unable to speak in a way considered suitable for parliament. For that reason, they were deemed unfit for political participation by their contemporaries and have been similarly judged in most of the existing literature. The peasant farmer members were not as timidly passive as they have been described. Instead of speaking, they used petitions to gain a voice in parliament. The farmer members thus introduced petitioning as a form of political participation in parliamentary politics, a practice that remains central to popular politics today. The actions of the peasant farmer politicians challenged the existing boundaries of what was considered appropriate political practice and thereby expanded the repertoire of forms of political participation available to the uneducated majority of the population.

Democracy became a popular and highly contested concept in the Danish-speaking parts of the Danish monarchy in 1848. For a brief time, it went from being an occasional guest in political language to a popular concept in the constitutional struggle of 1848-1849. This article argues democracy became attached to an equally popular concept of the time, movement, when introduced into everyday political communication in Denmark. In this context, democracy became a name for the movement observed in Europe and in the Danish monarchy. The article identifies three main interpretations of democracy that occurred in the Danish constitutional struggle of 1848-1849 and argues the battle over the constitution was essentially a battle over how one interpreted the past, the present, and the future. Democracy became a key term in this battle in 1848 Denmark.

Democracy became a popular and highly contested concept in the Danish-speaking parts of the Danish monarchy in 1848. For a brief time, it went from being an occasional guest in political language to a popular concept in the constitutional struggle of 1848–1849. This article argues democracy became attached to an equally popular concept of the time, movement, when introduced into everyday political communication in Denmark. In this context, democracy became a name for the movement observed in Europe and in the Danish monarchy. The article identifies three main interpretations of democracy that occurred in the Danish constitutional struggle of 1848–1849 and argues the battle over the constitution was essentially a battle over how one interpreted the past, the present, and the future. Democracy became a key term in this battle in 1848 Denmark.

The article studies the rhetoric of ’Bondevennernes Selskab’, an organized peasant movement, in the constitutional battle of 1848-49. Through an analysis of speeches held on the constitutional assembly by members of the peasant movement, the article concludes that the movement’s call for democracy was supported with a rhetoric that used the absolutist king as a legitimizing figure. Through the principle of popular sovereignty, the concept of democracy was connected to the concept of ‘people’ and ideas of a strong monarch. This rhetoric was used to legitimize the status of the peasant movement as speaking on behalf of the people and in claiming political agency for the peasantry.

Der er i dag i den vestlige verden en udpræget konsensus om demokratiet som den bedste styreform, ligesom der er en solid tradition for at betragte den offentlige samtale som omdrejningspunktet i den demokratiske proces. Alligevel er der langt fra enighed om, hvordan begreberne demokrati og offentlighed skal fortolkes, endsige hvilke udfordringer nutidens demokratier og offentligheder aktuelt står over for i et nationalt og globalt perspektiv.

This article investigates how a Danish peasant movement, united in the association ‘Bondevennernes Selskab’, became a social movement and therefrom developed into an early version of a parliamentary party. Established in 1846, it was the revolutions of 1848 and following political development in Denmark that triggered the movement’s entrance to parliamentary politics. In this process, the association challenged the bourgeois liberal concept of politics, as the association argued that it would represent one particular class – the peasants – in parliament. The argument of the article is unfolded in an analysis of a conflict between the peasant association and the dominating bourgeois, liberal opinion. As the conflict took place in the daily press, the article investigates both the arguments, the peasant movement had to face in the liberal newspaper Fædrelandet and its replies in the paper Almuevennen. Thereby the article touches upon how the association legitimized its actions as a social, political movement.