Download American and French Revolutions

Democracy: American and
French Revolutions
Theme: The effect of Enlightenment ideas
on government and society
Hermosillo
Impact of the Scientific Revolution
• Suggested that rational analysis of behavior and
institutions could have meaning in the human as
well as the natural world
• Increasingly, thinkers challenged recognized
authorities such as Aristotelian philosophy and
Christian religion and sought to explain the world
in purely rational terms
• The result was a movement known as the
“Enlightenment”
John Locke
• Individuals should use reason to search after truth rather
than simply accepting the opinion of authorities or being
subject to superstition
– Proportion assent to propositions to the evidence for
them
• There must be a distinction between the legitimate and
illegitimate functions of institutions
– Based on those distinctions, there is a corresponding
distinction for the uses of force by those institutions.
• By using reason to try to grasp the truth and by
determining the legitimate functions of institutions, the
individual and society will flourish materially and
spiritually
John Locke
• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) had described a
social contract in which people in a state of
nature ceded their individual rights to a strong
sovereign in return for his protection
• Locke offered a new social contract theory in
which people contracted with one another for a
particular kind of government, and that they
could modify or even abolish the government
– Great influence on Thomas Jefferson and the
Declaration of Independence
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (17121778)
• Many Enlightenment thinkers
condemned the legal and
social privileges enjoyed by
aristocrats and called for a
society in which all individuals
were equal before the law
• In 1762, Rousseau wrote The
Social Contract arguing that
members of a society were
collectively the sovereign
– All individuals would
participate directly in the
formulation of policy and
the creation of laws
American Revolution: New
Legislation
• In the mid-18th Century, British colonists in North
America seemed content with British rule, but in the mid1760s things started to change
• Trying to recover financial losses from the French and
Indian War (1754-1763) and the Seven Years’ War
(1756-1763), the British passed a series of new taxes on
the colonies
–
–
–
–
Sugar Act (1764)
Stamp Act (1765)
Townsend Act (1767)
Tea Act (1773)
• Other offensive legislation included the Quartering Act of
1765
American Revolution: Declaration
of Independence
• On July 4, 1776,
the Continental
Congress
adopted “The
Unanimous
Declaration of the
thirteen united
States of
America” (The
Declaration of
Independence)
The United States
• By 1780 Britain engaged in imperial war with most of
Europe. To cut losses, and focus on more critical areas,
British offered peace on very generous terms.
• In 1787, Americans drafted the Constitution of the United
States which created a federal government based on
popular sovereignty
• The Bill of Rights in particular stressed individual liberties
such as freedom of speech, the press, and religion
– However, not everyone was granted full political and legal
equality, only white men of property
• Equality for all Americans would be an on-going struggle
for many years, but still the early understanding of
freedom, equality, and popular sovereignty in America
would have broad implications throughout the world.
French Revolution: Ancien Regime
• The Americans sought independence from
British imperial rule, but they kept British
law and much of the British social and
cultural heritage
• On the other hand, French revolutionaries
sought to replace the ancien regime (“the
old order”) with new political, social, and
cultural structures
Similarity: Taxes as immediate cause
• In May 1789, in an
effort to raise taxes,
King Louis XVI
convened the Estates
General, an assembly
representing the
entire French
population through
three groups known
as estates.
King Louis XVI
French Revolution:
Estates General
• The first estate was about
100,000 Roman Catholic
clergy
• The second estate was
about 400,000 nobles
• The third estate was
about 24 million others
(serfs, free peasants,
laborers)
– In spite of these
numerical
discrepancies, each
estate had one vote
ancien regime
What caused economic problems in France?
• War of the Austrian Succession plunged
France into a first financial crisis.
– 1748: 5% income tax decreed on ALL people.
• Nobility and other important groups protested, and
the king decided to drop the tax!
• Seven Years War (French and Indian War)
again brought up the tax issue – Louis XV
exiled the loud Parlement of Paris and
instituted taxes on the privileged classes.
– 1774: Louis XV dies, and Louis XVI caved in
to pressure from nobility.
Louis XVI – a man in over his head.
• 1776: Attempted to reform tax system, but was
unsuccessful. Aid to American Revolution only
made things worse – all of it was borrowed!
– 1778: French sympathized with American Revolution,
government saw it as an opportunity to injure main
enemy: British.
• Lack of a central bank, and a weak monarchy
incapable of declaring bankruptcy (a la Spain)
added up to Louis having only one option:
INCREASE TAXES
– This opens a Pandora’s box of troubles: demands for
reform (more power for Nobles) and finally a meeting
of the Estates General.
French Revolution: Declaration
• In Aug 1789, the National Assembly issued
the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the
Citizen
– Obviously influenced by the American Revolution
and the Declaration of Independence
• Proclaimed the equality of all men, declared
that sovereignty resided in the people, and
asserted individual rights to liberty, prosperity,
and security
Reforms of the National Assembly
• Reconfigured French society
– Ended the fees and labor services
the peasants owed their landlords
– Seized church lands
– Abolished the first estate and
defined clergy as civilians
– Required clergy to take an oath of
loyalty to the state
– Made the king the chief executive
but deprived him of legislative
authority (a constitutional
monarchy)
The motto of the National
Assembly was “Liberty,
– Men of property could vote for
equality, fraternity”
legislators
The Convention
• Alarmed by the disintegration of monarchial
authority, the rulers of Austria and Prussia
invaded France to support the king and restore
the ancien regime
• The revolutionaries responded by establishing
the Convention, a new legislative body elected
by universal male suffrage
• The Convention abolished the monarchy and
proclaimed France a republic
The Convention
• Drafted people and
resources for use in
the war through the
levee en masse
(universal
conscription)
– A move toward
total war
• Used the guillotine
to execute enemies
to include King
Louis XVI and
Queen Marie
Antoinette in 1793
for treason