Quote Originally Posted by Brenus View Post
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.