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

[TinCow]

How is that related to liberalism? All french republican constitutions kept the same ideological basis: the Declaration of the Rights of Man of and the Citizen (which is still included in the current constitution).
French long hesitated between a Parliamentary Regime (1st, 3rd and 4th Republics) and a Presidential one (2nd and 5th Republic). There are even people thinking about creating a 6th Republic, but I clearly don't see how that is tied to liberalism.

The foundation of the first modern, stable representative government isn't related to liberalism? I don't understand how you can say such a thing. Surely the actual transition from monarchy (even constitutional monarchy) to pure representative government is worthy of such a categorization. There have been liberal theories based on human rights and equality throughout most of human history, but praise for theories can only go so far when the people who came up with those theories failed to implement them. Even the French failed for a very long period of time... the 1st Republic was a total catastrophe, and France didn't achieve anything approaching a stable representative government until the 3rd Republic.

Not only did the US achieve such a stable representative government 2 years before the French Revolution even began, the government has remained in continuous operation without interruption or major structural changes ever since. Even during the US Civil War, the governmental system was stable enough for the USA to hold a free election in 1864. Even the CSA, with a constitution very heavily based on the US Constitution, was able to hold their own free election in 1861. That alone is major proof of the quality of the structure of the system.

Like I said, the significance of the American Revolution wasn't the revolution itself, it was the government that came out of that revolution. There have been thousands and thousands of revolutions throughout history, and few of those ever contributed to liberalism. The act of rebellion itself is not significant, so identifying 1776 as the date when the American Revolution contributed something important to liberalism is improper. The significance comes from the conversion of that revolution into an orderly and effective system of representative government. Theory is nice, but practical implementation is better.

Honestly, IMO if there's one nation that deserves the most praise for contributions to liberalism, it's England. The gradual development of the English Parliamentary system is absolutely crucial in the foundation of all subsequent representative governments. The only problem with implementing England into the question asked in this thread is that England does not have any clearly defined date on which something significant changed. 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.

[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?

[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

[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.

[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."

[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.

[Louis VI the Fat]

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."

That's a great quote, and to me an explanation of the origin of much of both philo- and anti-Americanism.

To make that clearer, let me quote my local baker: how can the Americans be so stupid and yet be so succesful?

(Edit: Come to think of it, I think I made that up. The quote is: 'how can Americans be so stupid and yet remember to draw breath twice a minute?')


It never ceases to amaze me how quickly, and how completely, American opinion can move on. One week, everybody thinks A. Then it fails, and the next week everybody's talking about B.

Try that in Europe. 'A' fails miserably. A hundred years later, half the population is still moaning that A really was the best idea. The other half denies that A happened in the first place, some argue that A has been the national tradition for centuries despite it being a hundred years old, others that if only 'the others' hadn't tried C then A would never had failed.
Most exhausting.


I am trying to find a clever sentence that reverses the Churchill quote. Which would them sum up France.
I can't quite nail it. Hmm: 'Always a bright idea, always overcome by even brighter means to fail its execution'?

[Papewaio]

France "Great at Philosophy, Not so great at application"
Germany "A little too efficient."
Great Britain "The great leveler. We help destabilize other nations to keep the whole stable"
New Zealand "The semi colon of the South Pacific ;"
Australia "The big pink bum on the bottom of the globe. If you sit around long enough everything will be alright mate."

[Husar]

Try that in Europe. 'A' fails miserably. A hundred years later, half the population is still moaning that A really was the best idea. The other half denies that A happened in the first place, some argue that A has been the national tradition for centuries despite it being a hundred years old, others that if only 'the others' hadn't tried C then A would never had failed.
Most exhausting.

Isn't that pretty much how Americans discuss their healthcare reform?

[HoreTore]

France "Great at Philosophy, Not so great at application"
Germany "A little too efficient."
Great Britain "The great leveler. We help destabilize other nations to keep the whole stable"
New Zealand "The semi colon of the South Pacific ;"
Australia "The big pink bum on the bottom of the globe. If you sit around long enough everything will be alright mate."

Funny how you forgot Norway there, as it should be quite obvious;

Norway "Isn't that the capitol of Sweden?"

[Meneldil]

The foundation of the first modern, stable representative government isn't related to liberalism? I don't understand how you can say such a thing. Surely the actual transition from monarchy (even constitutional monarchy) to pure representative government is worthy of such a categorization. There have been liberal theories based on human rights and equality throughout most of human history, but praise for theories can only go so far when the people who came up with those theories failed to implement them. Even the French failed for a very long period of time... the 1st Republic was a total catastrophe, and France didn't achieve anything approaching a stable representative government until the 3rd Republic.

Yeah, well that's all very nice. But there are two things that irk me in your post:

First, I still don't see how the fact France changed its constitution several times is related to the implementation of liberalism. For all I know, we could have been through 15 republics instead of 5, I still wouldn't see your point.
Now, had you been arguing that France failed said implementation of liberalism because it's still a quite "unliberal" country, I would have been willing to agree, or at least to discuss it. But the equation "many constitution = failed liberalism", that's something I don't understand.
Edit: actually, I would probably agree with such a statement, as France, despite all its revolutions, riots and what not, is far from being a liberal country.

Second, your comparison doesn't hold much value. After the war of independance, the huge majority of people who opposed independance (Loyalists, as they're called in UK and Canada) left the 13 colonies and moved to Canada. There was litteraly no political opposition to the Republic left.
France, on the other hand, had to deal with a rather large reactionary population. Counter-revolutionaries, royalists (later on joined by bonapartists), catholics, and what not, who later on became fascists and modern-days right-wing nutjobs. They still weight quite a lot nowadays.

Obviously, that being said, France modern history was much more troublesome. The people who opposed the Republic couldn't just move to the neighbouring country and start to hate their former opponents from here (as Loyalists did in Canada). They had to stay in France and plot against the hated-Republic, or move to another place and lose all that made their identity.

[Brenus]

France had a President of the Republic who was a Monarchist... If that is not be democratic (er.. almost) and liberal (in French meaning) was is it? (Marshal Mc-Mahon, Duke of Magenta, to avoid reseaching)...