Dutch Republic - Politics

Politics

The republic was a confederation of seven provinces, which had their own governments and were very independent, and a number of so-called Generality Lands. These latter were governed directly by the States-General (Staten-Generaal in Dutch), the federal government. The States-General were seated in The Hague and consisted of representatives of each of the seven provinces. The provinces of the republic were, in official feudal order:

1. The Duchy of Guelders (Gelre in Dutch)
2. The County of Holland
3. The County of Zeeland
4. The former Bishopric of Utrecht
5. The Lordship of Overijssel
6. The Lordship of Frisia
7. The Lordship of Groningen and Ommelanden.

In fact there was an eighth province, i.e. the Lordship of Drenthe, but this area was so poor it was exempt from paying confederal taxes and, as a corollary, was denied representation in the States-General. Each province was governed by the Provincial States, the main executive official (though not the official head of state) was a raadspensionaris. In times of war, the stadtholder, who commanded the army, would have more power than the raadspensionaris.

In theory the stadtholders were freely appointed by and subordinate to the states of each province. However in practice the princes of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau, beginning with William the Silent, were always chosen as stadtholders of most of the provinces. Zeeland and usually Utrecht had the same stadtholder as Holland. There was a constant power struggle between the Orangists, who supported the stadtholders and specifically the princes of Orange, and the Republicans, who supported the States-General and hoped to replace the semi-hereditary nature of the stadtholdership with a true republican structure. Stadholder in Dutch means 'place-holder', similar to the English word 'stead' and 'in stead of'.

After the Peace of Westphalia several border territories were assigned to the United Provinces. They were federally-governed Generality Lands (Generaliteitslanden). They were Staats-Brabant (present North Brabant), Staats-Vlaanderen (present Zeeuws-Vlaanderen), Staats-Limburg (around Maastricht) and Staats-Oppergelre (around Venlo, after 1715).

The States-General of the United Provinces were in control of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Dutch West India Company (WIC), although some shipping expeditions were initiated by some of the provinces, mostly Holland and/or Zeeland.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution were influenced by the Constitution of the Republic of the United Provinces. In addition, the Act of Abjuration, essentially the declaration of independence of the United Provinces, is strikingly similar to the later American Declaration of Independence, though concrete evidence that the former directly influenced the latter is absent.