More Important to Modern Western Liberalism:1776, 1789, 1848

[Brenus]

1789 is my choice. The American Independence and the following Constitution had no impact on the World at the time.

The French Revolution shook Europe and indeed created new concepts: UNIVERSAL human rights (LIBERTY TO EVERY MAN to come and go without being subject to arrest or detention: they abolish slavery, thing the US counterpart failed to do), the notion of Nation and the vote of all the Region Delegate to express the will to be part of France, the levée en masse, no reference to a God all mighty but the concept of NATURAL right (“The Constitution guarantees as natural and civil rights; The law no longer recognizes religious vows or any other obligation contrary to natural rights or the Constitution) and the emancipation of Jews (the last act of power of Louis the XVI as absolute monarch was to give the key of the Jewish Ghetto in a Catholic Guardian in charge to lock the door) but as well the end of the Protestants persecution initialised by Louis the XIV (That all citizens are admissible to offices and employments, without other distinction than virtues and talents).
And this is the Constitution of 1791, when France was still a Monarchy…

Louis, Menedil, the French Revolution happened by accident:
Brief summary for those who didn’t follow at school:
Ruined by the American War (the US having signed a separate Peace with UK against all agreement) Louis XVI couldn’t claim to have Canada, India and Antilles islands back as it was the norm at the time. So he had to ask for new taxes.
For doing this he had to gather the Etats Generaux (established in 1302 by Phillip IV Le Bel - the King of Iron, or Marble, depending opponents).
The Etats were organised on the 3 orders based on St Augutin doctrine: The Priests, The Warriors and the Labourers.
At the times, a part of the nobility wanted to have their Privileges re-established (taken by Louis the XIV) and thought it could be a good idea to blackmail the King in order to get their support for the new taxes therefore they demand the gathering of the Three Orders. They thought to have the support of the Priesthood and the vote was done by order, not by delegate.
So, Louis XVI was obliged to do so, and to organise the Cahier des Doléances, book of complains.
Until there, the French were ok, but it opened the Pandora box. They started to fill the pages of complains about how unjust the inherited system from feudalism was and the burden of taxes on one order, and the ownership of the lands by the Church etc…
So the Gathering was in chaos.
It turned bad and we all know “nous sommes ici par la volonté du people et nous ne sortirons que par la force des baionettes” (we are there by the will of the People and we will leave only by the force from the bayonets).
Louis went from bad decision to bad decision, panicked, was obliged to recognise the Constitutional Monarchy, upset the Parliament with its constant opposition (Monsieur Veto) then betrayed it (he gave the plans of the French Army to his Brother in Law who happened to be the Emperor of Austria-Hungary and enemy of France at the moment) and the Country, was arrested, put on trial then executed.
At no moment it was organised and that is why you have no leaders.
Power was shifting in second from the streets to Parliament, from Paris to the Counties (they had local Assembly at these times), and all problems spiralling in a twister (foreign invasions from Spain, Italy, England and Belgium, civil wars in Vendee, Brittany, Lyon, Toulon occupied by GB, the Emigrés problem –Quibron) religious unrests new laws, news concepts etc).
The Revolutionaries who started the Revolution were not prepared for it. They didn’t even know they were Revolutionaries.

[Slyspy]

The most important influence of 1776 on the growth of Western Liberalism was that it helped push French finances right over the edge, at which point political change became just about inevitable. If you want the event that made the most difference to the most people then I would suggest 1789, though to be honest I'm not that well up on 1848.

[TinCow]

The French Revolution shook Europe and indeed created new concepts: UNIVERSAL human rights (LIBERTY TO EVERY MAN to come and go without being subject to arrest or detention: they abolish slavery, thing the US counterpart failed to do), the notion of Nation and the vote of all the Region Delegate to express the will to be part of France, the levée en masse, no reference to a God all mighty but the concept of NATURAL right (“The Constitution guarantees as natural and civil rights; The law no longer recognizes religious vows or any other obligation contrary to natural rights or the Constitution) and the emancipation of Jews (the last act of power of Louis the XVI as absolute monarch was to give the key of the Jewish Ghetto in a Catholic Guardian in charge to lock the door) but as well the end of the Protestants persecution initialised by Louis the XIV (That all citizens are admissible to offices and employments, without other distinction than virtues and talents).
And this is the Constitution of 1791, when France was still a Monarchy…

This is exactly what I'm talking about... lots of pretty words without any implementation. Emancipation of the Jews? France was still so anti-Semitic that Dreyfuss Affair occurred 1894... while Britain elected a Jewish Prime Minister in 1874. Abolition of slavery? Napolean used armies to re-establish slavery in French colonies and it wasn't abolished again until 1848, long, long after Britain had done the same.

The history of French liberalism is a history of great ideas with total failures to enact them. I find it hard to rank liberal ideas higher than liberal actions.

[Brenus]

“Emancipation of the Jews? France was still so anti-Semitic that Dreyfus Affair occurred 1894” Who was Dreyfus? A captain in the French Army… So much for FRANCE being anti-Semitic…
An important fringe of the society was anti-Semitic, but that is why laws are important when they go against populism.

“lots of pretty words without any implementation”: Yeap. When in your British Army was commanded by General who had the right to flog their troops, most of the French Generals were from the rank.
One even became King (Bernadotte, son of a lavandière…).
Just go on the list of the French Generals during the Revolution.

By the way, “Britain elected a Jewish Prime Minister in 1874” you probably means co-opted by his pair… The British people had little to say in the 19th century…

In 1795, the Jews are allowed to join the Army; Marc François Jérôme Wolff in 1808 the fist Jew to become Colonel. He will become general but converted to Catholic in between. However one of his colleagues Henri Rottembourg still being Jew, become general a little bit later.

Just read some books about the effects of the emancipation in France and outside, and make you mind…

And we are still waiting for the British Monarchy the possibility to marry a Catholic…

[Louis VI the Fat]

T Emancipation of the Jews? France was still so anti-Semitic that Dreyfuss Affair occurred 1894... while Britain elected a Jewish Prime Minister in 1874.

The history of French liberalism is a history of great ideas with total failures to enact them. I find it hard to rank liberal ideas higher than liberal actions.

Ohlala. Nononon.

Benjamin Disraeli was an Anglican convert, not of a man of Jewish faith. (Which is not all that's to be said of Disraeli's Jewishness, but let's not digress)

Meanwhile, France did elect a Jew for head of state, during the Dreyfus affair. In fact, France has elected more Jews as head of government than the rest of the world combined, five times. (Diregarding, for obvious reasons, the state of Israel)


Two things:

I wouldn't mind, but for the onslaught against France by Israeli* and conservative American Jewry in recent years. I acusse them of being short of memory and facts.
*Keep yer hands off of our Jews, Sharon.

Secondly, I think the finer points of the Dreyfus affair are quickly lost. It is always brought up as an example of anti-semitism. I would say it equally well, and perhaps better, serves as an example of pro-semitism. What shocked Herzl so much, was not the injustice done to a Jew in itself. This was the 1890's. Pogroms were rampant. Much of European Jewry enjoyed litlle to no civil rights. America nor Israel had a large Jewish community yet. The hope of European Jewry was France. The one place on the continent were Jews could assimilate. The birthplace of Jewish emancipation, and the champion of Jewish rights.

No, what shocked Herzl, was to see the extent of anti-semitism in this France, with its Jewish head of state and its assimilated Jewry. If a fully assimilated Jew, with a career in the military, at the end of the day can still fall victim to anti-semitism, then all hope is lost and only a Jewish state itself can provide full rights to Jews.

The second fine point that is lost, is that what set apart Dreyfus from the countless millions of other mistreated Jews, is not that it happened, but that in the case of Dreyfus, half nation would risk civil war for the honour of a single, irrelevant Jew. This is crucial, and this is why we remember Dreyfus, but not the countless victims of pogroms, humiliation, the Jews who did not have the opportunity to assimilate and rise in the ranks of state, and for which the nations great writers did not write an 'I acusse'.


At Dreyfus, the divisions that would and had plagued France came to the fore, came to a head. Not until the fifth Republic would every Frenchman be conciled to a liberal republic. The Third in particular saw a large segment of Frenchmen irreconcilable to the Republic. Yet, the Third Republic was much more stable than contemporaries thought it was, and withered every storm. Until finally brought down by outside forces in 1940, after which the reactionaries could at last have their way with their Vichy state. Which would discredit them forever. But not before having to undergo the final humiliation of French Republicans: to stoically elect another Jewish head of state again in 1935, just to piss off the fascists at home and abroad, while celebrating jazz, avant-garde art and naked American negro dancers in a show of cultural defiance. If Europe was going down, Paris would do so celebrating, together with everybody who flocked to it: Spanish Republicans, American Blacks, Jews, communists, anarchists, socialists, artists. Then the curtain fell.

[TinCow]

Benjamin Disraeli was an Anglican convert, not of a man of Jewish faith. (Which is not all that's to be said of Disraeli's Jewishness, but let's not digress)

There is more to being Jewish than the house of worship you attend. Just as I do, Disraeli considered himself a Jew even though he did not follow the religion. I don't want to turn this thread into a Jewish discussion though, as it's incredibly off-topic.

My point is not that France was intolerant, it certainly was far more tolerant as a society than most other nations during the same time period. However, the French social tolerance was not a product of 1789; if anything 1789 was a product of French society.

The question asked in this thread is whether the American Revolution, the French Revolution, or the Revolutions of 1848 was the most important to western liberalism. I do not dispute that France led the way in the ideology of equality of men as a whole. It is very true that the earliest movements for equality of class, race, and religion either started or were heavily influenced by the French. However, it is my assertion that the French failed to manifest these liberal ideas in useful way for a very long period of time. Despite 1789, France did not truly become 'free' in any permanent sense until the Third Republic, about 80 years after the revolution. I contrast this with the United States, which managed to create a successful and workable representative government before the French Revolution even began, and has sustained it in continuous operation ever since.

So, for me it's a question of weighing France's ideological successes against American's practical successes. I admit, I'm having difficulty explaining why I think implementation is better than ideology. I've typed up a few paragraphs trying to explain it and I keep deleting them because the reasoning is always horrible and comes across poorly. I'll think on it a bit and see if I can find a way to explain my feelings in an actual decent manner.

I do agree with whoever said earlier that the Statue of Liberty is the best representation of what the real answer is: the joint work of both French and Americans. If you consider 1776 and 1789 as two parts of the same movement, that may be a better answer than either of them individually.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

As a yank, I am unsurprisingly in agreement with Tincow. The USA's great contribution was to institutionalize political liberality (note, I am NOT using the simplistic "liberal" label so beloved of right-wing talk radio, but liberal in its more classic sense). That framework was able to survive and surpass the mistakes of those who founded it.

[Brenus]

“I think implementation is better than ideology”:
I agree.
That is why I don’t count Napoleon reinstallation of slavery as a product of the French Revolution.
Then my dear US citizens, what happened with the slavery, followed by the segregation? Isn’t a pure denial of your Constitution, a flaw in your liberal approach?
To judge French Revolution of 1789 with what the Empire did is not adequate as they are different regimes.
However, as you said, USA didn’t change, had the same Regime from the start. So?

Just a word about Dreyfus affair: The owner of the newspaper which published THE “J’accuse” from Emile Zola was George Clémenceau. The future Père la Victoire, the man who led France to the victory during the WW1 risked his money, newspaper, honour and his political carrier in defending a men accused of treason. Which politician or journalist would do this today?

[TinCow]

“I think implementation is better than ideology”:
I agree.
That is why I don’t count Napoleon reinstallation of slavery as a product of the French Revolution.
Then my dear US citizens, what happened with the slavery, followed by the segregation? Isn’t a pure denial of your Constitution, a flaw in your liberal approach?
To judge French Revolution of 1789 with what the Empire did is not adequate as they are different regimes.
However, as you said, USA didn’t change, had the same Regime from the start. So?

It is definitely a flaw for the US. The Constitutional Convention quarreled over slavery a great deal specifically because it was directly contradictory to the ideals of the revolution. In the end, they just ignored it because they decided it was more important to keep the country united. That was a major failure and directly resulted in the Civil War 70 years later.

No country is perfect though. For every single 'free' nation on the planet, I can cite a hundred different examples of how its oppressed people or otherwise acted against the interests of freedom. With regard to the US, Winston Churchill summed up my feelings extremely well. "The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative."

[HoreTore]

The USA's great contribution was to institutionalize political liberality

Yes.

....Unfortunately, it was only for a part of the population. Which is quite frankly nothing new, the nobility have had plenty of institutionalized freedoms for ages, the american constitution only expanded that to include a few more people than before.

It wasn't until 1968 and Martin Luther King that full freedom was achieved.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Yes.

....Unfortunately, it was only for a part of the population. Which is quite frankly nothing new, the nobility have had plenty of institutionalized freedoms for ages, the american constitution only expanded that to include a few more people than before.

It wasn't until 1968 and Martin Luther King that full freedom was achieved.

I'm not opposed to restrictions on the suffrage. Basing those restrictions on utter irrelevancies such as biological plumbing, epidermal melanin content, or the the number of orbits completed by the planet since you vacated the womb is a bit idiotic, however. I'm glad we've gotten past most of the worst of these silly restrictions.


As to the timing, I'd note the following. The institutions and cultural mind-set (along with a good dash of economics) engendered by the foundation of the US republic combined to remove the formal prohibition against suffrage based on race after less than 9 decades as a polity; to remove the prohibition against XX-chromosome types voting within 14 decades; and to bring about political parity in less than 20 decades. By contrast, the English didn't really start getting past the "part of the population" enfranchised by Magna Carta for more than 40 decades. We bled quite a lot to expiate the sin of slavery, more of us having died in that conflict than in all of our other conflicts combined.

[Papewaio]

English government evolved over about 700 years to reach its current form, with many steps along the way. They have no single defining moment of radical change that compares well to any of the dates listed above.

I'd say it has quite a few radical changes so it is a bit hard to figure out. Starting with the way Saxons administered the land, then mixing in the Normans for a different version of feudalism, the status of Yeoman. The Commonwealth of England in 1649 lead to the American Colonies having more independence and Cromwell helping establish that religion wasn't to rule them, but all could privately chose their own. So the protocol of separation of church and state was established.

Also Cromwell turned down the crown... so his actions predate Washingtons.

I do agree with whoever said earlier that the Statue of Liberty is the best representation of what the real answer is: the joint work of both French and Americans. If you consider 1776 and 1789 as two parts of the same movement, that may be a better answer than either of them individually.

[Beskar]

Magna Carta was the first ever consitution which influenced all after it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta