American And French Revolutions example essay topic

The American and French Revolutions were both fundamentally based on the Enlightenment ideas. The main ideas that they followed were by John Locke. His ideas inspired the Americans and the French to have a revolution. In these revolutions, the Americans had success and the French failed. The success that the Americans experienced wad due to the protection of rights they had.

These rights are "Life, Liberty and Property". In America a constitution was put together that provided for a stable government and also a representative government. In France failure was caused by chaos, terror, fear and war. The French were unsuccessful because they failed to create a democratic government. In the end they were left with a dictator. During the Enlightenment, many thinkers were writing about how a government should be run.

John Locke was one of those thinkers. His ideas included the consent of the governed, or the "social contract". This social compact is what the Americans and the French both based their revolutions on (Ziegler 126-135). These Revolutions started because the American and French citizens were unhappy.

These people were unhappy because there was inequality throughout the entire country. They did not have any representation, in any from of government. John Locke said that property is a right. In America's constitution it protects property. The 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments guarantee the protection of property in America, In France they did not guarantee property.

In America it was set up so that people have to earn property. The Americans wanted to expand but the Proclamation of 1763 said that they were not able to pass the Appellation Mountains (Ziegler 126-135). In France property was not equal. It was divided up into different classes. Class determined how much property citizens would have. Peasants would have the least because they were at the bottom of the class structure.

During the revolution the French thought that property should be divided up equality. However, during this time the peasants were stealing property. The French's main goal was absolute equality. A faction is a special interest group that is very passionate to their interest. James Madison, a realist, spoke of a way to deal with factions when he wrote Federalist 10. "There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects".

What Madison is saying is that factions are going to be in a society no matter what. People are going to have different opinions. Factions are always going to exist, and no matter what, the government cannot remove factions because if they do then they are eliminating peoples rights. The constitution protects against this. "Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be a less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency".

This is one reason that the Americans had success (Ziegler 216). In order to control the effects of a faction, Madison said that the government needed to have a checks and balance system. By doing this, factions are prevented from getting too powerful. This is the reason why the Americans clearly put a checks and balance system in the constitution.

In the constitution, these rights are guaranteed (Ziegler 216-220). In France, the French were completely against factions. Robespierre thought factions are a threat to equality, and the "common good". He also thought that factions and everyone who had believed in factions were a threat to the Revolution. "Hidden internal enemies, with the word liberty on their lips, stem the flow of life. Despite your benevolent laws, they close granaries, and coolly engage in the heinous calculation of how much a famine, a riot, a massacre is worth to them.

Your spirit breaks at the thought; you give the keys of the granaries and the infernal ledgers of these monsters back to administrators. But where is the strong arm that will vigorously turn the key that is fatal to traitors? Where is the proud and immovable being, unyielding to any kind of intrigue and corruption, who will tear up the pages of the book written with the blood of the people, and turn it immediately into a death sentence against those who are starving the people?" People with factions are conspirators, traders, enemies and counter revolutionaries. These people associated with factions were executed. This is how The Reign of Terror started. "Under a constitutional r'e gime it is more or less enough to protect individuals against abuses of government.

Under a revolutionary r'e gime the government itself is obliged to defend itself against all the factions which threaten it. Revolutionary government gives public protection to good citizens: to the enemies of the people it deals out only death... ". . France was forcing their people to be free, but by forcing them to be free, they really are not free (Ziegler 226-227, Ziegler 234).

Robespierre believed that there could not be virtue without terror. Violence is the only way to achieve virtue. "If the driving force of popular government in peacetime is virtue, that of popular government during a revolution is both virtue and terror: virtue, without which terror is destructive; terror, without which virtue is impotent. Terror is only justice that is prompt, severe, and inflexible; it is thus an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to the most pressing needs of the patri e". (Ziegler 235-236). When America was controlled by Great Britain, they were separated by an ocean.

Because of this, the American people were already used to governing themselves. This put America in a great state of unity when they wanted to rebel from Britain. This is a reason why the American government succeeded. The French, on the other hand, were not used to governing themselves because they were a monarchy for a very long time. There was no ocean separating the monarchy from the French - France was fighting within itself. This war was like a civil war because it was the French verses the French.

France also did not receive any help from any other countries in Europe. Other European powers did not want to help because they did not want any revolutions in their own countries. The kings wanted to keep their power, and they did not want their countries to get any ideas about do the same thing (Ziegler 216-223,234-236). The Americans had a tradition of government that they followed. They followed the ideas that the British had with their parliament. "A Governor has no power either to reprove them or remove them; and indeed it were to little purpose to tell them, he is displeased with them, when he cannot displace them, Thus by little and little, the People have got the whole administration into their Hands, and the Crown is by various Laws despoiled of its principal flowers and brightest Jewels.

No wonder if a Governor be not c loathed with Authority, when he is stripped naked of Power, and when he can neither reward the Virtuous and Deserving, nor Displace and Punish those that offend, it must be difficult for him to keep Government in order". America was already governing themselves, and that helped them set up a successful constitution (Ziegler 155). Before the revolution, France had an absolute monarchy. Louie XVII had total control. His word was law.

In France, people did not have the experience of governing themselves like the Americans did. This is one on the reasons why the French Revolution failed and the American Revolution did not. The Americans were realists. They guarded against problems that could have come about with the constitution. Madison realized that people are not virtuous; that they would do and think however they want too. The French were idealists.

They thought that factions were going to destroy everything they wanted to ache ive so they tried to eliminate the factions. By doing this they did not enable their people to be free. Robespierre never let his people get to the absolute equality that he wanted in France. He believed that in order to have the "Republic of Virtue" that he so desired, he would need to spread fear around his country. By doing this, he failed to reach his goal. In the end, France had a dictator.

America and France both had the same ideas in mind during their revolutions. They both followed the views by the enlightenment think, John Locke. But France and America had different ways of dealing with the important issues they faced. Specifically, things like factions. These differences are what caused the American Revolution to be successful and the French Revolution to be a failure.

Bibliography

Ziegler, Paul. History of Modern Europe and the U.S., Volume 1, Third edition. Copley Custom Publishing Group, 1997..