The Triumph of Liberty
The Enlightenment, Modern Democracy, and the
American & French Revolutions
Professor Will Adams
Valencia College

Setting the Scene

Scientific Revolution
 In 1543, Copernicus published On
the Revolutions of the Heavenly
Spheres which argued that the sun,
rather than the Earth, stood at the
center of the universe and that the
planets revolved around the sun
 Copernicus’ work inspired
astronomers to examine the
heavens in new ways
 Increasingly, they based their
theories on observed data and used
mathematical reasoning to
organize the data
 This reliance on observation and
mathematics ushered in the
“Scientific Revolution”.

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”.

The American Revolution

A Changing World
 In the mid-18th century, British colonists in North
America seemed content with British rule, but in
the mid-1760’s things started to change
 First, new ideas about a just society began to
circulate in the Enlightenment era
 Second, the British imposed new taxes to offset
the cost of the Seven Years’ War; taxes which
seemed to the colonists to conflict with the
Enlightenment philosophy.

The Seven Years’ War
 Commercial competition
in the New World
ultimately generated
violence that culminated
in the Seven Years’ War
(1756-1763).
 In North America, the
Seven Years’ War merged
with the on-going French
and Indian War which
pitted the British and
French against each other.
George Washington fought for the British
and was defeated in the opening battle of
the French and Indian War at Fort Necessity
in the Ohio Country

The Seven Years’ War: A British Victory
 The British emerged
victorious and as a result
they gained control of North
America from the French.
 The war helped create
conditions that led to the
American Revolutionary
War, because the British
colonists no longer needed
British protection from the
French and would come to
resent the taxes imposed by
Britain to pay for its military
commitments.

American Revolution: New Legislation
 Trying to recover financial losses from the
French and Indian War and the Seven Years’
War, the British passed a series of new taxes
on the colonies.
 Sugar Act (1764)
 Stamp Act (1765)
 Townshend Act (1767)
 Tea Act (1773)
 Other offensive legislation included the
Quartering Act of 1765 and the Intolerable
Acts.

The Issue of Taxation
 While other issues annoyed the colonists, it was
taxation that most led to demands for independence.
 Because Parliament had usually refrained from taxing
them, many colonists assumed that it could not.
 One American asked, if taxes were now imposed
“without our having a legal Representation where
they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character
of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary
Slaves?”
 The idea of “No taxation without representation” was
consistent with Rousseau and other Enlightenment
thinkers.

The Issue of Representation
 In England, electoral districts for Parliament were
often based on earlier conditions.
 For example, Dunwich continued to maintain its
right to elect a parliamentary representative long
after the city itself had been washed into the
North Sea.
 Manchester, however, was a rapidly growing city
that lacked representation.
 Most Englishmen accepted this condition because
they believed in “virtual representation”.
 Representatives served the interests of the entire
nation rather than just their home locality.

The Issue of Representation
 Such Englishmen assumed that
since the colonists held
interests in common with
citizens back home, they were
“virtually” represented.
 Americans, on the other hand,
had enjoyed “actual
representation” since the
founding of the colonies.
 They believed elected
representatives should be
directly responsive to local
interests and they were used to
instructing their legislators
about how to vote on key
issues.
 They were skeptical of the idea
of “virtual representation”.

Country Ideology
 Even before the Seven Years’ War, the British had
borrowed heavily to fund several other wars and
developed a large bureaucracy to collect taxes to
pay the war debt
 In response, a “Country” or “Real Whig” ideology
emerged that:
 Stressed the threats to personal liberty posed
by a large standing army and a powerful state
 Emphasized the dangers of taxation to
property rights and the need for property
holders to maintain the right to consent to
taxation

Country Ideology
 Country ideology stressed that it was the duty of
the Parliament (particularly the House of
Commons which represented the people as a
whole) to check the executive power of the Crown.
 It was the House of Commons’ control of taxation that
controlled tyrannical leaders.
 John Locke had argued that rulers had authority to
enforce law “only for the public good”.
 When the Crown did its job properly, the House of
Commons appropriated the necessary funds.
 When rulers infringed on the people’s liberties, the
House restrained them by withholding taxes.

Country Ideology
 Because of these important
responsibilities, Country
ideology required
representatives to be of
sufficient property and
judgment to make
independent decisions
 A representative of
appropriate social status was
generally assumed to be
qualified to lead, but if he
proved otherwise, his
constituents should be able to
vote him out

Country Ideology
 Country ideology appealed to
many Americans.
 It was consistent with the idea
that power should reside at
the local level.
 It emboldened those who
feared they lacked a voice in
decisions being made in
England.
 Its insistence on the
important political role of the
propertied elite appealed to
the local gentry.

The Sugar Act
 Given the philosophies of the Enlightenment
and Country ideology, the colonists responded
only mildly to the Sugar Act.
 The effects of the act were felt mostly in New
England where it cut into the smuggling trade
with the French West Indies.
 Still, on principle, the act was offensive and
eventually all the assemblies passed
resolutions declaring that any Parliamentary
tax on America, including the Sugar Act, was
unconstitutional.

The Stamp Act
 The Stamp Act, because its
effects were felt equally
throughout the colonies, elicited
a more swift response
 One response was the formation
of the Sons of Liberty, a
collection of loosely organized
protest groups, who put
pressure on stamp distributors
and British authorities
 The American response was
troublesome enough that in
March 1766, the Stamp Act was
repealed
 Still the British persisted in their
right to impose taxes, including
the Townshend Duties in 1767

The Boston Massacre
 The Townshend duties
continued to strain the
relationship between America
and Britain, and most of its
articles were eventually repealed
 Before that, however, on March
5, 1770, the “Boston Massacre”
occurred in which British troops
fired on an unruly crowd, killing
five men
 A period of quiet followed this
outbreak, but during it the
colonies established “committees
of correspondence” to keep each
other informed of objectionable
British actions.

The Boston Tea Party
 The “Quiet Period” was broken on
December 16, 1773 with the Boston
Tea Party.
 Partly because Americans were
drinking smuggled and untaxed
tea, the British East India Company
was nearly bankrupt.
 Lord North, the British prime
minister, tried to rescue it by the
Tea Tax of 1773 which was a thinly
disguised measure to get the
Americans to pay the old
Townshend duty on British East
India Tea.
 A well-organized band of men,
some disguised as Indians, boarded
the tea ship Dartmouth and broke
open 342 chests of tea and threw
the contents into the harbor.

The First Continental Congress
 The Boston Tea Party led to
the British passing three
repressive measures known
collectively as the Intolerable
Acts.
 These acts united the colonists
like never before and the First
Continental Congress met in
Philadelphia from September 5
to October 26, 1774.
 Even now, however, it was but
a minority who favored war
with Britain.
 Most hoped and believed the
British would change their
policies and all would be well
again.

Increased Tensions
 Colonists began to separate
into “Whigs” who advocated
increased rights and “Tories”
who were more loyal to the
Crown.
 Both the Americans and
British could see a crisis was
looming and took steps to
prepare.
 In 1774, General Thomas
Gage, the commander of the
British army in America and
governor of Massachusetts,
dissolved the legislature
which then proceeded to
assemble anyway.

Increased Tensions
 A “Provincial Congress”
established the “Committee of
Safety,” to be headed by John
Hancock, in October 1774 for
the purpose of stockpiling
weapons and organizing
militia volunteers.
 Special companies of “minute
men” were to be ready at “a
minutes warning in Case of an
alarm”.
 In a move to quell such
belligerence, Lord North
ordered Gage to take decisive
action.

Lexington & Concord
 On April 18, 1775, Gage
assembled 700 men on the
Boston Common and marched
them toward Lexington and
Concord
 His goal was to arrest rebel
leaders Samuel Adams and
John Hancock in Lexington and
destroy the military supplies
the Committee of Safety had
stockpiled in Concord
 Riders like Paul Revere warned
fellow patriots, and by the time
the British reached Lexington
they found 70 armed
militiamen waiting for them

Lexington & Concord
 No one knows who fired the
first shot, but the end result
was 18 Americans killed or
wounded.
 The British then marched to
Concord and burned some
supplies.
 Some 4,000 militia men
descended on the British
and harassed their retreat
back to Boston, inflicting
273 casualties while
suffering nearly 100 of their
own.

Lexington & Concord
Concord Hymn
By the rude bridge that arched the
flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers
stood,
And fired the shot heard ‘round
the world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Concord Hymn

The 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 Declaration of Independence
 “all men are created equal, that they are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty, and the
pursuit of Happiness”
 Governments derive their power and authority
from “the consent of the governed”
 When any government infringes upon
individual’s rights, “it is the Right of the People to
alter or abolish it, and to institute new
Government”
 Declared the colonies to be “Free and
Independent States”

David vs. Goliath
 However, declaring independence and actually
winning it by war were two different things.
 Victory in the Seven Years’ War had left Britain as
the dominant power in the world.
 It had a population of eight million with a
professional army, large navy, and formidable
wealth.
 The colonists had a population of two and a half
million (20% of whom were enslaved) and no
army, navy, or significant financial resources.

British Troops: August, 1776
 24,000 soldiers
 Average soldier was 30 years old
with 10 years service
 Muskets, bayonets, light field
guns
 Two or three ranks of infantry
supported by light field guns
 Powerful Navy (30 warships, 400
transports)
 More experienced, better led,
more thoroughly disciplined and
trained
 General William Howe knew
generals from their Seven Years’
War record

Colonial Troops: August, 1776
 28,000 soldiers
 Average soldier was 20 years old
with less than a year of service
 Muskets, bayonets, light field guns
 Two or three ranks of infantry
supported by light field guns
 Used simplified British tactics
(experience from Seven Years’
War)
 No Navy
 Great disparity in quality between
militia and Continental Army
 Many generals were imposed upon
General George Washington by
Congress or state governments.

The Difference
 What gave the colonists hope
was the opportunity to be
gained by courage, cause, the
home court advantage, and
patriotism
 Unlike earlier European
dynastic squabbles, the
American Revolution was an
ideological war that affected
the population
 “Remember, officers and
soldiers, that you are freemen,
fighting for the blessings of
liberty; that slavery will be your
portion and that of your
posterity if you do not acquit
yourselves like men.”
- George Washington

British Challenges
 Underestimated the impact of patriotism.
 Overestimated the Loyalist strength.
 Only about 20% of free Americans were Tories.
 Colonial decentralization meant colonies had no
strategic heart and the British would have to
occupy vast expanses of territory.
 Supply and communications were difficult with
England 3,000 miles away.
 The British population was not united behind the
war.
 Britain still had enemies in Europe to worry about.

Civilian Attitudes
 Both sides understood from the
beginning that they were
fighting for the allegiance of a
people and for the destruction
or preservation of one state and
the creation of another
 The colonists had to defeat the
British and control the loyalists
without losing popular support
or destroying the republican
principles for which they
fought
 The British argued that they
were protecting loyalists from
the tyranny of a few ambitious
rebels.

The British Strategy
 The British never really found a
good solution for dealing with the
population
 Tried various strategies with little
success
1. Intimidating the rebels with
a show of force
2. Combining force and
persuasion to break the
rebellion without alienating a
majority of the colonists
3. Enlisting the support of
loyalists in a gradual and
cumulative restoration of
royal government

American Strategy
 Primarily defensive and
therefore shaped by
countering British moves.
 Uncertainties about
supplies and manpower
worked against a
consistent strategy.
 However, Washington
understood his strengths
and weaknesses and had
the defender’s advantage.

American Strategy
 Maintain a principal striking force in a central
position to block any British advance into the
interior.
 Be neither too timid or too bold in seeking battle
for limited objectives (Partisan operations in the
South).
 Avoid the destruction of the army at all costs.
 Find some means of concentrating a sufficient
force to strike a decisive offensive blow whenever
the British overextended themselves.

The United States is Born
 In September 1783, the British formally recognized
American independence.
 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.
 The success of the American Revolution and this early
understanding of freedom, equality, and popular
sovereignty in America would have broad implications
throughout the world.
 Remember Emerson’s “shot heard round the world”!

The French Revolution

Absolutism
 King Louis XIV (1643-1715)
of France is credited with
having said “L’etat c’est
moi!” or “I am the state.”
 Louis’s statement is
consistent with the idea of
absolutism.
 Absolutism is the theory
that ultimate power in the
early centuries of modern
Europe was vested in a
hereditary monarch who
claimed a God-given right
to rule.

Absolutism
 Louis went so far as to call
himself the “Sun King,”
claiming that like the sun,
everything revolved around
him
 Catholicism was the
national religion of France
 “One faith, one law, one
king.”
 In 1685 Louis revoked the
Edict of Nantes and
insisted that Huguenots
convert to Catholicism.

Philosophes
 Enlightenment thinkers
considered absolutism to
be unnatural and they
sought to discover natural
laws that governed human
society in the same way
Newton’s laws regulated
the universe.
 Collectively, these
thinkers were called the
philosophes
(“philosophers”) .

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
 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

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.

French Revolution: Estates General
 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.

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.

French Revolution: Estates General
 The third estate
demanded sweeping
political and social
reform, but the other
two estates resisted
 On June 20, 1789, the
third estate seceded
from the Estates
General and declared
itself the National
Assembly.

French Revolution: NationalAssembly
 The National Assembly vowed
not to disband until France
had a written constitution.
 This assertion of popular
sovereignty spread to Paris
and on July 14 a crowd
stormed the Bastille to seize
weapons and ammunition.
 The garrison surrendered in
the wake of great bloodshed.
 The attackers severed the
commander’s head and
paraded it through the streets
on a pike.
 Insurrections spread
throughout France.

French Revolution: Declaration
 In August, 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
 The motto of the National
Assembly was “Liberty, equality,
fraternity”
 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)
 Men of property could vote for
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).
 This was a move toward
total war.
 Used the guillotine to
execute enemies to
include King Louis XVI
and Queen Marie
Antoinette in 1793 for
treason.

Maximilian Robespierre (1758-1794)
 Led the radical Jacobin
party which believed
France needed
complete restructuring
and used a campaign of
terror to promote their
agenda
 Dominated the
Convention from 1793-
1794.

Robespierre & The Jacobins
 Sought to eliminate the
influence of Christianity
 Closed churches
 Forced priests to take
wives
 Promoted a new “cult of
reason” as a secular
alternative
 Devised a new calendar
which recognized no day of
religious observance
 Between the summers of 1793
and 1794, the Jacobins
executed 40,000 people and
imprisoned 300,000.

The Directory
 Many of the victims of the Reign of Terror were fellow
radicals who had fallen out of favor with Robespierre and
the Jacobins.
 In July 1794, the Convention arrested Robespierre and his
allies, convicted them of treason, and executed them.
 A group of conservative men of property seized power
and ruled from 1795 to 1799 under a new institution called
the Directory.
 The Directory sought a middle way between the ancien
regime and radical revolution but had little success.
 In Nov 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte staged a coup d’etat and
seized power.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
 Napoleon had served as
an officer under King
Louis XVI and had
become a general at age
24.
 In a campaign of 1796-
1797, he drove the
Austrians from
northern Italy and
established French rule
there.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
 In 1799, he returned to
France and joined the
Directory, but when
Austria, Russia, and
Britain formed a coalition
to attack France and end
the Revolution, Napoleon
staged a coup d’etat.
 He overthrew the
Directory, imposed a new
constitution, and named
himself first consul.
 In 1802, he became consul
for life and in 1804
crowned himself emperor.

Napoleon: The Concordat
 Brought stability to France
 Made peace with the Catholic Church
 Concluded the Concordat with the pope in 1801
 France would retain the church lands seized during the
Revolution, but France agreed to pay priests’ salaries,
recognize Roman Catholic Christianity as the preferred
faith of France, and extend freedom of religion to
Protestants and Jews
 Was a popular measure with people who supported the
political and social goals of the revolution but didn’t
want to replace Christianity with the cult of reason

Napoleon: Civil Code
 In 1804,Napoleon established the Napoleonic Civil Code,
which further stabilized France.
 Affirmed the political and legal equality of all adult
men
 Established a merit-based society in which individuals
qualified for education and employment because of
talent rather than birth or social standing
 Protected private property, even allowing aristocratic
opponents of the Revolution to return to France and
reclaim their property
 Confirmed many of the moderate revolutionary
policies of the National Assembly but removed many
measure passed by the more radical Convention

Napoleon as Authoritarian
 Limited free speech, routinely
censoring newspapers
 Established a secret police
force and detained thousands
of political opponents
 Manipulated public opinion
through systematic
propaganda
 Ignored elective bodies
 Surrounded himself with loyal
military officers
 Set his family above and apart
from the French people

The End of Napoleon’s Empire
 In 1812, Napoleon decided to invade Russia,
believing that the Russians were conspiring
with the British.
 Napoleon and his “Grand Army” of 600,000
soldiers captured Moscow, but the Russians
refused to surrender.
 Instead, Russian patriots burned the city,
leaving Napoleon without supplies or
shelter.

The End of Napoleon’s Empire
 Napoleon was forced to
retreat
 Defeated by “General
Winter”
 Only 30,000 soldiers made
it back to France
 The defeat in Russia
emboldened a coalition of
British, Austrian,
Prussian, and Russian
armies to converge on
France.
 Forced Napoleon to
abdicate his throne in April
1814

The End of Napoleon’s Empire
 The coalition restored the
French monarchy and exiled
Napoleon to the island of
Elba, near Corsica.
 In March 1815, Napoleon
escaped, returned to France,
and reconstituted his army.
 This time the British defeated
him at Waterloo and
banished Napoleon to the
remote island of St. Helena in
the South Atlantic.
 He died there in 1821.

Other Impacts
 The Enlightenment ideals and
the American and French
Revolutions also influenced:
 The Saint Dominque slave
revolt in Haiti
 Simon Bolivar in South
America
 The Abolitionist
Movement in the USA
 The Declaration of the
Rights of Woman and the
Female Citizen
 Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and women’s rights
movements

The End
C’Est Fin