american revolution, french revolution, napoleon

1. Democracy: American and
French Revolutions
Theme: The effect of Enlightenment
ideas on government and society

2. Enlightenment (Where we left off
on Lesson 4)
Abbé Delille recites a
poem in the salon of
Madame Geoffrin, site of
many gatherings of the
Enlightenment
philosophes

3. 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”

4. John Locke (1632-1704)
 Studied the relationship
between the individual
and the state
 Largely anti-authoritarian
 Opposition is both on
the level of the
individual person and
on the level of
institutions such as
government and
church

5. John Locke
 Individuals should use reason to search after truth
rather than simply accepting the opinion of authorities
or being subject to superstition
 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

6. 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

7. Voltaire
 Wrote Candide in 1759 in
which he analyzes the
problem of evil in the
world and depicts the
woes heaped upon the
world in the name of
religion
 His battle cry against the
Roman Catholic Church
was ecrasez l’infame
(“crush the damned
thing”)

8. 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

9. American Revolution: New
Legislation
 In the mid-18th
Century, British colonists in North
America seemed content with British rule, but in the
mid-1760s 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

13. American Revolution: Colonial
Response
 The colonists responded
with demands of “no
taxation without
representation,”
boycotted British
products, attacked
British officials, and
staged the Boston Tea
Party (1773)
 In 1774, they organized
the Continental
Congress which
coordinated the colonies’
resistance to British
policies

14. 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)

15. American Revolution:
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”

16. Revolutionary War
 Declaring yourself to be
“Free and Independent
States” and making it so
were two different things
 On April 18, 1775, British
troops and colonial militia
skirmished at Lexington
and the American
Revolutionary War had
begun
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

17. Colonial Troops: Aug 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

18. British Troops: Aug 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

19. 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

20. Trenton
 The British defeated the colonists at Long Island in
Aug 1776 and followed up their success with a
series of landings on Manhattan Island
 Compelled Washington to retreat, escaping finally
over the Delaware River into Pennsylvania with
about 3,000 men.
 Howe then went into winter quarters.

21. Trenton
 In December 1776, Washington
determined to make a surprise attack on
the British garrison in Trenton, a 1,400-
man Hessian force
 Took advantage of British being in winter
quarters and in poorly defended, dispersed
locations
 Bad weather and limited visibility
 Christmas had reduced British security
 Hoped that a striking victory would lift
the badly flagging American morale.
 Reinforcements had raised
Washington’s army to about 7,000
Continental Soldier
by Don Troiani

22. Trenton
 On Christmas night (December 25-26) Washington ferried about
2,400 men of across the ice-choked Delaware River at McConkey’s
Ferry above Trenton and then proceeded by two columns on different
routes, converging at opposite ends of the main street in Trenton

23. Trenton
 At 8:00 a.m. the colonists
converged on Trenton in two
columns, achieving complete
surprise. After only an hour
and a half of fighting, the
Hessians surrendered.
 Some 400 of the garrison
escaped southward to
Bordentown, N. J., when
two other American
columns failed to get
across the Delaware in
time to intercept them.
 About 30 were killed and
918 captured. American
losses were only 4 dead
and about the same
number wounded.

24. Cowpens
 Nathanael Greene was
commander in the
Carolinas and Georgia
 Only a little over 1,000
Continentals and bands of ill-
disciplined militia against
Cornwallis’ 10,000 men
 Had to create
circumstances to achieve
success

25. Cowpens Greene divided his army into two
divisions which he posted to the
northwest and northeast of
Cornwallis’ camp at Winnsboro
 Allowed him to better feed his own
men, sustain the militia, and harass
the British
 Tempted Cornwallis to divide his main
body, making it more vulnerable
 Cornwallis did this in Jan 1781,
sending 1,100 men (commanded by
Tarleton) to attack Greene’s western
division (commanded by Daniel
Morgan)

26. Cowpens
 Americans suffered 6.2%
losses (12 killed and 60
wounded)
 British suffered 90% losses
 Cornwallis became
obsessed with Morgan and
turned to pursue him
 Morgan retreated into
Virginia
 In a month Cornwallis had
marched 225 miles without
achieving decisive battle
Daniel Morgan

27. Yorktown
 From Aug 21 to Sept 26,
1781 Washington and
Rochambeau (French)
marched their armies from
New York to Virginia
 Simultaneously, De Grasse
(French) sealed off the
Chesapeake with the Navy
 Objective was to trap and
defeat Cornwallis’ army on
the York Peninsula

28. Yorktown
• Battle would begin with
two parallel siege lines
followed by an assault
• Allies had an
overwhelming
advantage in numbers
(16,000 to fewer than
8,000)
• On Oct 19, the British
surrendered and in Sept
1783 they formally
recognized American
independence

29. The United States
 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
 Remember Emerson’s “shot heard round the world”

30. 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

31. 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
King Louis XVI

32. 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

33. 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
Marie Antoinette

34. French Revolution: National Assembly
 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 Storming of the Bastille

35. 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

36. 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)
 Men of property could vote for
legislators The motto of the National
Assembly was “Liberty,
equality, fraternity”

37. 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

38. 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

39. 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

40. Robespierre and 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 "It is dreadful but necessary" ("Cest
affreux mais nécessaire"), from the
Journal d'Autre Monde, 1794.

41. 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

42. Napoleon (1769-1821)
 Was 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

43. Napoleon (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
 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

44. 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

45. Napoleon: Civil Code
 In 1804,Napoleon established the 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 measures passed by the more radical
Convention

46. 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
Joseph Fouche, head of
Napoleon’s secret police

47. 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

48. 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
An episode from the retreat from
Russia, by Nicolas-Toussaint Charlet

49. 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 in 1821

50. Other Impacts
 The Enlightenment ideals and the American and
French Revolutions also influenced:
 The Saint Domingue slave revolt (Lesson 5)
 Simon Bolivar in South America (Lesson 5)
 The abolition movement (Lesson 5)
 The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the
Female Citizen
 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and women’s rights
movements

51. Compare and Contrast
Objective Type of
Warfare
Religion Philo-
sophical
Rationale
and
Declara-
tions
Interna-
tional
Reaction
Immedi-
ate and
Long-
term
Results
Am Rev
Fr Rev

52. Next
 Part 1:
Russian
Revolution
and
Communism
 Part 2:
Fascism and
National
Socialism
Street demonstration in Petrograd, July 4, 1917