Revolutions!

Revolutions occurred, historically, because the middle class, eager to obtain power and compete with the nobles, harnessed the sheer numbers of the lower classes against the upper classes and create their own order of some kind. This was the case in many modern revolutions, including those of the United States and France. Usually, these middle classes are interested in profit-maximization policies such as lower taxes, lower tariffs, a laissez-faire attitude, etc. Again, true for both American burgesses and la bourgeoisie française. 

In what became these United States, the Articles of Confederation, focused on the rights of states, was ratified around the time General Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. It was abolished in favor of today’s Constitution in 1787, which enumerated more power to the Federal government and added the Bill of Rights that guaranteed certain privileges to American citizens. All of these were heavily based on, (in some cases, reworded) versions of the English Civil Law we fought so hard to be independent from. The only difference was that the Founding Fathers and the colonial American middle class and elite were on top, not King George or Parliament. The Old Pennsylvania State House was notoriously divided that summer, to the point where the Bill of Rights itself, today seen as an essential part of American citizenship, just barely made it in. The southern dream of a small, self-sustaining farmers’ republic still had elements of medieval English feudalism dating from the days of the Roman Republic, rather different from the northern idea of a burgeoning, capitalist, industrial trade hub a la the United Kingdom or the Netherlands. (Looking at today’s Congress, not much has changed.) Without compromise, the Constitution would’ve stalled for much longer, and the Articles would’ve been all we had left. Without some crucial powers our Constitution gives us today, like the ability for the Federal government to raise its own army or raise taxes directly from the American people, I’m sure The United Kingdom would’ve been happy to take back the lucrative eastern seaboard. If not, other powers surely would've (España, France, Nederland, Portugal, maybe even the Native Americans we took this land from). However, this compromise had its drawbacks. More centrist and right-leaning Convention representatives would never have accepted to give women suffrage, abolish slavery, or accept Native Americans as citizens. This pattern continues to this day. While some admire the structure of the U.S. government and its balance, others feel that it is too balanced, to the point where nothing gets done. This is seen predominantly in our electoral system. Most of the Founding Fathers were northern merchants and early industrialists, as well as southern plantation owners. They saw the lower classes as uneducated, and didn’t trust them with the political powers to direct the nation. Key milestones of political, social, and economic progress (abolition of slavery, workers’ rights, universal suffrage, civil rights, etc.) were achieved much later here than elsewhere in the world, while other issues (universal healthcare, the metric system, end of penny minting/circulation, status of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Native American Reservations, etc.) are still meandering through Washington.

La Révolution Française was much more socially, economically, as well as politically radical than its American counterpart. It began, like any other, with a discontented populace. La bourgeoisie wanted to gain power and influence against the nobles. With the nobles and clergy blocking any meaningful tax reform, la bourgeoisie and peasants fled le Palace du Versailles, and met in le Jeu de Paume and, the new Assemblée nationale vowed to draft a new constitution that included citizenship and suffrage for all French, property-owning males under a constitutional monarchy, a blend of feudal tradition and liberalist reform. However, the French people were starving. The past two winters were harsh, leading to mass crop failure, and France was at war with much of Europe. Bread prices rose, making it hard for the populace, especially the poor, to feed themselves. La Bastille was stormed by les révolutionnaries to acquire arms and gunpowder. Shortly afterward, the October Revolution occurred when women heard that Queen Marie-Antoinette was hoarding food and pillaged the Palace. The public (including the lower classes) was hungry, which fueled their anger into a mob. This mob, in the form of La Montagne under Maximilien Robespierre, had ideas beyond laissez-faire capitalism, and it (unlike the American lower classes) had the power to influence la Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen. Through La Montagne, a republic was established and slavery was abolished. Citizenship and universal suffrage were also granted to property-owning men and women, including the newly freed slaves. La Ancien Régime, with the same Roman feudal system as the American South, was completely torn down. Louis Bourbon XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed via guillotine. The esteemed noble titles were replaced by the more egalitarian “citoyen”. This all happened in the 1790’s. The United States had to wait until 1865 to abolish slavery and 1920 to grant suffrage to women. There are women in the U.S. still alive, today, that were alive at a time when they were denied the right to vote based on sex. The feudal elements of the American South might’ve ended in 1865, with the Confederacy’s defeat in the Civil War, or maybe it was in the early 20th Century, when the Great Migration brought African-Americans northward and westward to inner city factory jobs, ending sharecropping by entering a more capitalist society, and draining the feudal plantations of their serfs.

Of course, revolutionary governments are unstable. La Montagne was only able to pass their egalitarian policies because all those that opposed them, or seemed to oppose them, were executed. Eventually, Robespierre himself was executed, and La Directoire, a council of five statesman, had to take over. With the wake of Robespierre’s Reign of Terror, his death, and the desperate situation against the Coalitions, they were too weak to be able to act towards any of France’s problems and govern effectively. Corsican general Napoleon Buonaparte led a coup-d’etat against La Directoire, and seized power as the first consul and first emperor of the French, ending the First French Revolution. In an effort to stabilize the country, he pulled back on some Montagne policies, notably by reinstituting slavery to pay for the Coalition Wars. Buonaparte was defeated in his 1812 Russia campaign and Paris was besieged by the Sixth Coalition. However, revolutionary fervor was still in the minds and souls of the people. Buonaparte returned from his exile in Elba, was defeated at Waterloo, and sent to Saint Helena. Louis Bourbon XVIII was put on the throne of a feudal/capitalist constitutional monarchy slightly more traditional than envisioned by la bourgeoisie. The revolution was re-sparked in 1830-the July Revolution that brought Louis Philippe “The Citizen King” d’Orleans to the throne, supported by the lower classes and la bourgeoisie that sought out a more liberal branch of the Bourbon dynasty. A similar group of lower classes and la bourgeoisie launched the Third French Revolution against him in 1848, establishing the Second French Republic. 

The people never lost the fire in their bosoms that brought them to secede from L’Etat-General in back in 1789. After decades of instability, starvation, war, through three Révolutions, and under kingdoms, republics, and empires, this fire became part of the French identity, and was never fully extinguished. Through great national crises like the Franco-Prussian War, WWI, WWII and the Nazi occupation, Algerian independence, etc., it has burned bright. To this day, we Americans are scared of our government, while the French government is scared of its people and the potential of another révolution if the natural rights of the people are infringed upon. The people of France have power to control their own livelihoods and their society in a way that Americans do not, in a way that would fully satisfy John Locke’s principle of abolishing a government that breaches this social contract.