American and French Revolutions in Comparison

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The American (and French revolutions are considered as some of the most influential and consequential events of the second half of the eighteenth century. As historians note, the mentioned revolutions have had a profound continuous effect on the world’s development.¹ Despite having been held in different countries, the conditions that ignited the two major revolts were similar in many respects. The causes of the two revolutions had much in common, which allowed some scholars to call them twin revolutions.

The first similarity in the initiation of the two revolutions was the taxation issue. For America, which was at the time Britain’s colony, the problem was that its people were being taxed by the British Parliament, where they had no representatives. Meanwhile, in France, the revolution started with a financial crisis.² As a result, a variety of assemblies was gathered around the country to recommend progressive taxation reforms. The major problem was that the nobility and the clergy, who were the king’s representatives, had more power than the people and could thus impose their will on the people.³ Hence, apart from the financial dimension of taxation, there the question of human equality was also raised.⁴ For Americans, there existed inequality due to their being colonized and hence lacking the right to create their laws. For the French, there prevailed the system of privileges for nobility, clergymen, and wealthy peasants, of which poor people were deprived.⁵

Another condition initiating the two revolutions was the endeavor to become independent. For Americans, it was the independence of their colonizer, and for the French, it was the attempt to become free from the monarchy. For both countries, revolutions were the guiding power to compose their first constitutions. As a result, both revolutions made it possible to create a set of rights and freedoms for American and French people.

At the same time, there were some considerable differences between the two revolutions. Firstly, French people rebelled against their government, whereas Americans endeavored to gain freedom from their colonizer. As one of the scholars mentioned, “the British army was fighting for the king, and the Americans were fighting for their rights.”⁶ Thus, the French fought against their citizens, and Americans fought against a different country. Secondly, the rebels in France had bloodier intentions and attached more significance to their ideas and actions.⁷ Thirdly, the French were trying to copy the aftermath of the Americans’ achievements gained during their revolution. For instance, one of the French Gouverneurs, Morris, believed that the American experience of constitution-making and revolutionary activities was “universally relevant” and could, thus, teach French some lessons.⁸ The system of taxation was also borrowed from the Americans. However, the attempt to imitate the Americans’ example was not aimed purely at poverty abolition but rather at “transplant[ing]” the conditions of the newly formed American Republic to French (European) soil.⁹

Finally, both revolutions had at their core the ideals of the Enlightenment. Specifically, the two countries’ people pursued the goal of gaining liberty and settling a constitutional government. Furthermore, both revolutions were trying to gain fraternity for their people. Also, in France, Enlightenment ideas were represented in opposition to absolute monarchy. Finally, in both countries, people wanted to separate church from state, which was one of the premises of the Enlightenment.

While the reasons for initiating revolutions in France and America were similar, there were not only similar but also divergent features in their outcomes. In both countries, the segment of revolutionaries who experienced significant success as a result of their fight was represented by the majority of the common people. This class of population gained the most important goal: that of independence and freedom. However, some groups experienced little change in their social status. On the larger part, such people were French since their endeavors turned out not to be completely fulfilled. Americans gained independence and received several freedoms, and the French tried to copy the success of their predecessors. However, the “ultimate fruit” of the French revolution was “an unstable France.”¹⁰ As a result, it is viable to notice that many people who had been hoping for better lives did not receive what they had expected.

It is impossible to say that there were some groups active in the revolutions but not having experienced a major change in their social life. There were considerable alterations both for American and French people as a consequence of revolutionary activities. For Americans, the revolution did more than just “legally create the United States” because it altered society to a great extent.¹¹ Meanwhile, in France, the revolution gave way to major military campaigns initiated by Napoleon, who became the country’s ruler after the abolishment of the monarchy.¹² Historians believe that the aftermath of these two revolutions can still be felt in the two activist countries as well as in many other states of the world. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that the two revolutions brought about prominent change not only in the lives of their people but also in the further course of events in the whole world.

Bibliography

Baker, Hunter. “The Soul of Liberty: Calls for Freedom, Democracy & Secularism End Up with None of the Above.” Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity 25, no. 3 (2005): 36–43.

Goldstone, Jack A. Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies. 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Cengage, 2003.

Jones, Gareth Stedman. “An End to Poverty: The French Revolution and the Promise of a World beyond Want.” Historical Research 78, no. 200 (2005): 193–207.

Perovic, Sanja. “Other People’s Lives: Exemplary History and the French Revolution.” Literature & History 21, no. 2 (Autumn 2012): 16–31.

Ziesche, Philipp. “Exporting American Revolutions: Gouverneur Morris, Thomas Jefferson, and the National Struggle for Universal Rights in Revolutionary France.” Journal of the Early Republic 26 (2006): 419–447.

Footnotes

Hunter Baker, “The Soul of Liberty: Calls for Freedom, Democracy & Secularism End Up with None of the Above,” Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity 25, no. 3 (2005): 37.
Jack A. Goldstone, Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies, 3rd ed. (Belmont, CA: Cengage, 2003), 171.
Baker, “The Soul of Liberty,” 37.
Sanja Perovic, “Other People’s Lives: Exemplary History and the French Revolution,” Literature & History 21, no. 2 (Autumn 2012): 23.
Goldstone, Revolutions, 171.
Revolution: America—The Story of Us, 2010. Web.
Baker, 37.
Philipp Ziesche, “Exporting American Revolutions: Gouverneur Morris, Thomas Jefferson, and the National Struggle for Universal Rights in Revolutionary France,” Journal of the Early Republic 26 (2006): 420.
Gareth Stedman Jones, “An End to Poverty: The French Revolution and the Promise of a World beyond Want,” Historical Research 78, no. 200 (2005): 206.
Baker, 39.
Goldstone, 179.
Baker, 39.

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American and French Revolutions in Comparison

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