Liberty Equality and Brotherhood The American and French
Liberty, Equality and Brotherhood The American and French Revolutions
Last Years of the 18 th Century Period of Great Upheaval Ø Series of revolutions challenge the old order Ø Freedom and Equality become the focus Ø 1775 in America and 1789 in France Ø l Questions to consider • What caused this era of revolution? • What were the ideas and objectives of the men and women who rose up against the system? • What were the gains and losses for privileged groups and for ordinary people after the smoke cleared?
Liberty and Equality Ø Ø Ø This was a call for individual humna rights Monarchs had felt the need to control what their people did, wrote, and said Beyond censorship they also dictated religious worship and imposed arbitrary laws The Declaration of the Rights of Man said that “Liberty consists in being able to do anything that does not harm another person. ” This was radical and it called for a new kind of government. Revolutionaries believed that sovereignty lay with the people
Equality- More or Less Equality was an ambiguous idea The revolutionaries believed that people should be equal in rights and liberties and that the nobility deserved no special privileges Ø There were limits to this equality Ø Ø l l Equality between men and women was not practical Not everyone should be necessarily equal economically • Jefferson changed the word property to happiness • Gap between rich and poor was natural • Not everyone could succeed in their “pursuit” but they deserved the chance
Classical Liberalism Ø Ø Ø Equal opportunity was a new concept Society was legally divided into groups with certain privileges This is what the liberals stood against The central ideas of this had roots in Greek and Judeo. Christian traditions Liberal ideas reflected a concern for human dignity, personal liberty, happiness on earth, faith in science, rationality and progress Two of the most importatnt thinkers to turn the Enlightenment concern for liberty and equality into a practical form of government were John Locke and baron de Montesquieu
Representative Government Ø Representative institutions appealed to the bourgeoisie Ø It also appealed to some of the nobility in western Europe because Montesquieu’s version did not mean democracy which was seen as mob rule Ø Voting was to be restricted to those who owned property and had a “stake in society”
Lacking Popular Support Ø Embraced by the bourgeois and the nobilty liberalism lacked popular support Ø For the commoners the real questons were not philosophical but immediate and economic- getting enough to eat Ø Secondly, some of the institutions and traditions that were to be abolished were dear to them
Revolutions Begin Ø Ø Ø Things heated up for the British in the Colonies- 1775 Not all British supported the war and many thought it was mismanaged The Irish also felt oppressed by the British and they started to stir up trouble Britain began to overlook Irish ports in favor of Scottish and British ones They also began granting political rights to Catholics in Ireland so that they would enlist to fight the war Revolutionary flare ups also took place in the Netherlands and Poland
The American Revolution Ø Ø Ø France was England’s biggest rival so they were naturally drawn into the American Revolution France had lost a lot of its American outposts to the British earlier France sent covert aid to the Colonies from the beginning in 1775 After the first major victory by the colonists at Saratoga in 1777, France formally recognized the independence of the US and established an alliance They began sending troops and ships and they outfitted the U. S. Navy They assisted at Yorktown which became the decisive victory that ended the war.
France Ø Footing the bill for the American Revolution put them in a 1 million pound debt which was ¼ of their total debt Ø They also sent 9000 troops (the Marquis de Lafayette) Ø The relationship brought about a sharing of revolutionary ideas and the U. S. documents were immediately published in France
The French Revolution By the 1780 s there was no question that the Old Regime in France would be reformed. Ø The royal government was almost bankrupt Ø The Regime faced a crisis Ø • Heavy debts and an antiquated system of collecting revenue • Institutional constraints on the monarchy to defend privileged interests • Public opinion that demanded change • An inept king and queen: Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette
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