The 1848 Revolution of the Liberals refers to the revolution led by the educated middle classes that took place parallel to the revolts of the poor, unemployed and starving peasants and workers in many European countries. In France, the events of February 1848 brought about the abdication of the monarch and a republic based on universal male suffrage was proclaimed. In other parts of Europe like Germany, Italy, Poland, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, men and women of the liberal middle classes combined their demands for constitutionalism with national unification.

Politically, liberalism emphasized the concept of government by consent. Since the French Revolution, liberalism stood for the end of autocracy and clerical privileges, a constitution, and representative government through parliament. The liberals pushed for the creation of a nation-state on parliamentary principles, including freedom of the press and freedom of association.

Socially, liberalism stood for freedom for the individual and equality of all before the law. The term 'liberalism' derives from the Latin root 'liber', meaning free. The revolutionaries belonged to the educated middle-class elite, including professors, school-teachers, clerks and members of the commercial middle classes.

Economically, nineteenth-century liberals stressed the inviolability of private property, which was a key principle for the new middle classes. Though conservative forces suppressed liberal movements in 1848, they could not restore the old order, and monarchs eventually granted concessions to the liberal-nationalist revolutionaries.