![Samuel van Houten (portrait)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Samuel_van_Houten_%28portrait%29.jpg)
Samuel van Houten (17 February 1837 – 14 October 1930) was a Dutch
liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
politician
A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...
and
philosopher, who served as
Minister of the Interior
An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...
from 1894 to 1897.
Early life
Van Houten was born in
Groningen into a wealthy
Mennonite
Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radi ...
family.
His parents were Derk van Houten, a timber merchant and local politician, and his wife Barbara Elizabeth Meihuizen. After attending a Latin school from 1849 to 1854, he studied
Law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
at the
University of Groningen
The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Founded in 1614, the university is th ...
, obtaining a degree in 1859. He then worked as a lawyer. He quickly became involved in the city's politics, getting elected to the municipal council in 1864 and becoming one of the city's aldermen in 1867.
About this time Van Houten left the Mennonite Church and became an agnostic.
Member of the House of Representatives
In 1869, van Houten was first elected to the
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
for the electoral district Groningen. In the House of Representatives, Van Houten quickly established himself as an independent liberal, not reluctant to criticise the Thorbeckian liberal establishment. He denounced what he saw as a centralist tendency in the ideology of their leader,
Johan Rudolph Thorbecke
Johan Rudolph Thorbecke (14 January 1798 – 4 June 1872) was a Dutch liberal statesman, one of the most important Dutch politicians of the 19th century. Thorbecke is best known for heading the commission that drafted the revision of the Const ...
, jokingly referring to the latter's views as
Bonapartism in 1872. Van Houten, in contrast, adhered to the belief that the historical development of different sectors of society should be respected, in this sense sharing semblance to
Abraham Kuyper's theory of
sphere sovereignty
In neo-Calvinism, sphere sovereignty ( nl, soevereiniteit in eigen kring), also known as differentiated responsibility, is the concept that each sphere (or sector) of life has its own distinct responsibilities and authority or competence, and stan ...
. This belief led him to take a different position on the issue of the
school struggle than most of his fellow liberals.
[ In 1887, he was one of only seven liberals to vote to allow for the equal funding of confessional schools.][
Van Houten adhered to the principle of autonomy regarding the individual as well. On the issue of social policy, he believed government intervention was necessary to eliminate barriers to development of the individual so as to create equality of opportunity and thus to promote individual liberty. In this spirit, Van Houten introduced a bill that forbade child labour for children younger than 12 years. This bill, nicknamed the ''Kinderwetje van Van Houten'', became the first social law of the Netherlands in 1874.][ Nonetheless, van Houten who started out as very progressive gradually became more conservative and opposed further social laws and any ]egalitarianism
Egalitarianism (), or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds from the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all hu ...
by the state. On individual issues, he continued to sponsor progressive causes, writing about feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
, prostitution and birth control. He was president of a Neo-Malthusian
Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. This event, ...
society in 1888.
While initially supportive of expansion of suffrage, Van Houten gradually became more conservative on the issue over time, fearing that an enfranchised proletariat would threaten the social balance. His opposition to Johannes Tak van Poortvliet's proposal to extend suffrage to all men except beggars and servants led him to lose re-election in the progressive district of Groningen in the general election of 1894. He was defeated by the Takkian liberal Hendrik Lodewijk Drucker.[
]
Ministership and later career
While Van Houten lost his seat in 1894, the anti-Takkians won the general election, after which Joan Röell
Joan Röell (21 July 1844 – 13 July 1914) was a Dutch nobleman, lawyer and statesman. He was a member of a prominent Dutch noble family which produced many public administrators, and politicians.
From 1894 to 1897 Röell headed the Dutch gove ...
was asked to form a government. In this conservative liberal government, which was installed on 9 May 1894, Van Houten succeeded Tak van Poortvliet as Minister of the Interior
An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...
. As such, he was responsible for preparing a new Election Act. During the campaigning for this act he narrowly survived an assassination attempt. He took an arrow to the knee before his attacker was taken down. While more modest than Tak van Poortvliet's previous proposal, Van Houten's bill still doubled the electorate to roughly half the male adult population, a figure that would gradually rise to 68% in 1913.[ Aside from the suffrage issue, Van Houten introduced a bill that gave ]municipalities
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
more financial support. He also allowed for the territorial expansion or large municipalities, such as Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...
in 1894 and Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
and Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wi ...
in 1896, necessitated by urbanisation.[
Van Houten's ministership lasted until 27 July 1897, when he was succeeded by ]Hendrik Goeman Borgesius
Hendrik Goeman Borgesius (11 January 1847, Schildwolde, Slochteren – 18 January 1917, The Hague) was a Dutch politician. He was a member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands from 1877 until 1917, representing respectively Win ...
. Although he was not re-elected to the House of Representatives, he sat in the Senate for Friesland
Friesland (, ; official fry, Fryslân ), historically and traditionally known as Frisia, is a province of the Netherlands located in the country's northern part. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of ...
between 1904 and 1907. He strongly opposed the government of Abraham Kuyper, but also criticised liberal policy; his voting behaviour led some fellow liberals to call him an "honorary member of the right".[ Critical of the new electoral system and the expansion of government, the 85-year old Van Houten founded the short-lived ]Liberal Party
The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left.
__TOC__ Active liberal parties
This is a li ...
in 1922 and became its ''lijsttrekker
In politics, a lead candidate (; , ) is the leader of a political party in an election to a legislative body. In parliamentary systems, it is often the party's nominee for the position of head of government. In open list electoral systems, it is ...
'' in the general election in that year. The party won one seat, but Van Houten chose not to accept it, allowing instead Lizzy van Dorp
Elisabeth Carolina "Lizzy" van Dorp (5 September 1872 – 6 September 1945) was a Dutch lawyer, economist, parliamentarian and feminist.
Life
Elisabeth Carolina van Dorp, often shortened to Lizzy, was the daughter of Adriana Elisabeth Verdam an ...
to take the seat.
Death
Van Houten died of natural causes at the age of 93 on 14 October 1930.
Philosophical career
Van Houten spoke on several terms of philosophy throughout his life and political career. He is largely contrued to be a Empirist in his ideals. Although he never wrote any texts many people have written down various quotes attributed to Van Houten;
"from taking ones first step into the world, society has begun to chain to the ideals of the group"
"The act of taking chocolate from an infant is only in a society where youth if glorified and embellished considered an ignoble act"
"When the constitution of the moral fails in a group, the immoral are often the ones most willing to do the necessary acts".
"I don't conform to the notion that man was made in gods image, but rather god was made in mans image"
Personal life
Van Houten married Elisabeth van Konijnenburg on 29 June 1861, and the couple had five daughters and two sons. She died on 16 June 1872, after which Van Houten remarried Hermine Leendertz on 3 June 1873. With her, Van Houten had another five daughters and two sons. He had three well known grandsons. One was Hans van Houten, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs in The Netherlands between 1959 and 1963. Also, through his daughter Sina, her two sons, Sir Frederick William Leith Ross, who was chief economic advisor to the UK government from 1932 to 1945 and Harry Leith Ross, who was a well-known artist who lived and worked in the US.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Houten, Samuel Van
1837 births
1930 deaths
Aldermen of Groningen
Dutch agnostics
Dutch classical liberals
Dutch political party founders
Independent politicians in the Netherlands
Members of the House of Representatives (Netherlands)
Members of the Senate (Netherlands)
Ministers of the Interior of the Netherlands
Municipal councillors of Groningen (city)
University of Groningen alumni