Western Civilization: Volume B: 1300 to 1815, 8th Edition
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Key Terms
natural laws
natural rights
enlightened absolutism
patronage
balance of power
reason of state
primogeniture
infanticide
agricultural revolution
cottage industry
tithes
Suggestions for Further Reading
GENERAL WORKS For a good introduction to the political history of the eighteenth century, see the relevant chapters in the general works by Woloch, Anderson, Birn, and Blanning listed in Chapter 17. See also G. Treasure, The Making of Modern Europe, 1648–1780, rev. ed. (London, 2003); O. Hufton, Europe: Privilege and Protest, 1730–1789, 2nd ed. (London, 2001); and W. Doyle, The Old European Order, 1500–1800 (New York, 1996). On enlightened absolutism, see H. M. Scott, ed., Enlightened Absolutism: Reform and Reformers in Later Eighteenth-Century Europe (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1990), and D. Beales, Enlightenment and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Europe (New York, 2005). Good studies of individual states include J. Black, Eighteenth-Century Britain, 1688–1783 (New York, 2001); P. R. Campbell, The Ancien Regime in France (Oxford, 1988); E. Wangermann, The Austrian Achievement, 1700–1800 (London, 1973); J. Gagliardo, Germany Under the Old Regime (London, 1995); J. Lynch, Bourbon Spain, 1700–1808 (Oxford, 1989); C. Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (Cambridge, Mass., 2006); P. Dukes, The Making of Russian Absolutism, 1613–1801, 2nd ed. (London, 1990); and D. Kirby, Northern Europe in the Early Modern Period (London, 1991). Good biographies of some of Europe’s monarchs include G. MacDonough, Frederick the Great (New York, 2001); I. De Madariaga, Catherine the Great: A Short History, 2nd ed. (New Haven, Conn., 2002); V. Rounding, Catherine the Great: Love, Sex, and Power (New York, 2007); T. C. W. Blanning, Joseph II (New York, 1994); and J. Black, George III: America’s Last King (New Haven, Conn., 2006).
CHAPTER TIMELINE
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EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WARFARE The warfare of this period is examined in M. S. Anderson, War and Society in Europe of the Old Regime, 1615–1789 (New York, 1998).
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE A good introduction to European population can be found in M. W. Flinn, The European Demographic System, 1500–1820 (Brighton, 1981). One of the best works on family and marriage patterns is L. Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (New York, 1977). On wet nurses and infanticide, see G. Sussman, Selling Mother’s Milk: The Wet-Nursing Business (Bloomington, Ind., 1982), and M. Jackson, Newborn Child Murder: Women, Illegitimacy, and the Courts in Eighteenth-Century England (New York, 1996). On England’s agricultural revolution, see M. Overton, Agricultural Revolution in England (Cambridge, 1996). Eighteenth-century cottage industry and the beginnings of industrialization are examined in M. Berg, The Age of Manufactures: Industry, Innovation, and Work in Britain, 1700–1820 (Oxford, 1985).
THE SOCIAL ORDER On the European nobility, see J. Dewald, The European Nobility, 1400–1800, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2004), and H. M. Scott, The European Nobility in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London, 1995). On the peasantry, see J. Blum, The End of the Old Order in Rural Europe (Princeton, N.J., 1978), and R. Evans, ed., The German Peasantry (New York, 1986). On European cities, see J. de Vries, European Urbanization, 1500– 1800 (Cambridge, Mass., 1984). On the lower urban classes, see R. M. Schwartz, Policing the Poor in Eighteenth-Century France (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1988). There is no better work on the problem of poverty than O. Hufton, The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France (Oxford, 1974).
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CHAPTER 19
A Revolution in Politics: The Era of the French Revolution and Napoleon
The storming of the Bastille
© The Art Archive/Marc Charmet
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CHAPTER OUTLINE AND FOCUS QUESTIONS
The Beginning of the Revolutionary Era: The American Revolution
What were the causes and results of the American Revolution, and what impact did it have on Europe?
Background to the French Revolution
What were the long-range and immediate causes of the French Revolution?
The French Revolution
What were the main events of the French Revolution between 1789 and 1799? What role did each of the following play in the French Revolution: lawyers, peasants, women, the clergy, the Jacobins, the sansculottes, the French revolutionary army, and the Committee of Public Safety?
The Age of Napoleon
Which aspects of the French Revolution did Napoleon preserve, and which did he destroy?
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CRITICAL THINKING
In what ways were the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and the seventeenth-century English revolutions alike? In what ways were they different?
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ON THE MORNING OF JULY 14, 1789, a Parisian mob of eight thousand people in search of weapons streamed toward the Bastille (bass-STEEL), a royal armory filled with arms and ammunition. The Bastille was also a state prison, and although it now held only seven prisoners, in the eyes of these angry Parisians, it was a glaring symbol of the government’s despotic policies. The armory was defended by the marquis de Launay (mar-KEE duh loh-NAY) and a small garrison of 114 men. The attack began in earnest in the early afternoon, and after three hours of fighting, de Launay and the garrison surrendered. Angered by the loss of ninety-eight of their members, the victorious mob beat de Launay to death, cut off his head, and carried it aloft in triumph through the streets of Paris. When King Louis XVI was told the news of the fall of the Bastille by the duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt (dook duh lah-RUSH-foo-kohlee-ahnh-KOOR), he exclaimed, “Why, this is a revolt.” “No, Sire,” replied the duc, “it is a revolution.”
Historians have long assumed that the modern history of Europe began with two major transformations— the French Revolution (discussed in this chapter) and the Industrial Revolution (see Chapter 20). Accordingly, the French Revolution has been portrayed as the major turning point in European political and social history, when the institutions of the “old regime” were destroyed and a new order was created based on individual rights, representative institutions, and a concept of loyalty to the nation rather than the monarch. This perspective does have certain limitations, however.
France was only one of a number of areas in the Western world where the assumptions of the old order were challenged. Although some historians have called the upheavals of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries a “democratic revolution,” it is probably more appropriate to speak of a liberal movement to extend political rights and power to the bourgeoisie in possession of capital—citizens besides the aristocracy who were literate and had become wealthy through capitalist enterprises in trade, industry, and finance. The years preceding and accompanying the French Revolution included attempts at reform and revolt in the North American colonies, Britain, the Dutch Republic, some Swiss cities, and the Austrian Netherlands. The success of the American and French Revolutions makes them the center of attention for this chapter.
Not all of the decadent privileges that characterized the old European regime were destroyed in 1789, however. The revolutionary upheaval of the era, especially in France, did create new liberal and national political ideals, summarized in the French revolutionary slogan, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” that transformed France and were then spread to other European countries through the conquests of Napoleon. After Napoleon’s defeat, however, the forces of reaction did their best to restore the old order and resist pressures for reform.
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The Beginning of the Revolutionary Era: The American Revolution
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FOCUS QUESTION: What were the causes and results of the American Revolution, and what impact did it have on Europe?
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At the end of the
Seven Years’ War in 1763, Great Britain had become the world’s greatest colonial power. In North America, Britain controlled Canada and the lands east of the Mississippi (see Map 19.1). After the Seven Years’ War, British policy makers sought to obtain new revenues from the thirteen American colonies to pay for expenses the British army incurred in defending the colonists. An attempt to levy new taxes by a stamp act in 1765 led to riots and the law’s quick repeal.
The Americans and the British had different conceptions of empire. The British envisioned a single empire with Parliament as the supreme authority throughout. Only Parliament could make laws for all the people in the empire, including the American colonists. The Americans, in contrast, had their own representative assemblies. They believed that neither the king nor Parliament had any right to interfere in their internal affairs and that no tax could be levied without the consent of an assembly whose members actually represented the people.
Crisis followed crisis in the 1770s until 1776, when the colonists decided to declare their independence from the British Empire. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress approved a declaration of independence written by Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826). A stirring political document, the declaration affirmed the Enlightenment’s natural rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and declared the colonies to be “free and independent states absolved from all allegiance to the British crown.” The war for American independence had formally begun.
The War for Independence
The war against Great Britain was a great gamble. Britain was a strong European military power with enormous financial resources. The Second Continental Congress had authorized the formation of a Continental Army under George Washington (1732–1799) as commander in chief. Washington, who had had political experience in Virginia and military experience in the French and Indian War, was a good choice for the job. As a southerner, he brought balance to an effort that to that point had been led by New Englanders. Nevertheless, compared with the British forces, the Continental Army consisted of undisciplined amateurs whose terms of service were usually very brief.
Complicating the war effort were the internal divisions within the colonies. Fought for independence, the Revolutionary War was also a civil war, pitting family members and neighbors against one another. The Loyalists, between 15 and 30 percent of the population, questioned whether British policies justified the rebellion. The Loyalists were strongest in New York and Pennsylvania and tended to be wealthy, older, and politically moderate.
Since probably half the colonial population was apathetic at the beginning of the struggle, the patriots, like the Loyalists, constituted a minority of the population. The patriots, however, managed to win over many of the uncommitted, either by persuasion or by force. There were patriots among the rich as well as Loyalists; George Washington owned an estate with 15,000 acres and 150 slaves. But the rich patriots joined an extensive coalition that included farmers and artisans. The wide social spectrum in this coalition had an impact on representative governments in the states after the war. The right to vote was often broadened; Pennsylvania, for example, dropped all property qualifications for voting.
Of great importance to the colonies’ cause was the assistance provided by foreign countries that were eager to gain revenge for earlier defeats at the hands of the British. The French supplied arms and money to the rebels from the beginning of the war, and French officers and soldiers also served in Washington’s Continental Army. When the British army of General Cornwallis was forced to surrender to a combined American and French army and French fleet under Washington at Yorktown in 1781, the British government decided to call it quits. The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783, recognized the independence of the American colonies and granted the Americans control of the western territory from the Appalachians to the Mississippi River.
MAP 19.1 North America, 1700–1803. The Seven Years’ War gained Britain much territory in eastern North America, but asking the American colonies to help pay for the war sparked the American Revolution. The 1803 Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled the size of the United States and spurred westward expansion to the Pacific Ocean.
In what periods was the Mississippi River a national boundary, and why was control of the river important for the United States?
View an animated version of this map or related maps on the CourseMate website.
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Forming a New Nation
The thirteen American colonies had gained their independence as the United States of America, but a fear of concentrated power and concern for their own interests caused them to have little enthusiasm for establishing a united nation with a strong central government. The Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781, did little to provide for a strong central government. A movement for a different form of national government soon arose. In the summer of 1787, fifty-five delegates attended a convention in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation. The convention’s delegates—wealthy, politically experienced, well educated—rejected revision and decided to devise a new constitution.
The proposed constitution created a central government distinct from and superior to the governments of the individual states. The national government was given the power to levy taxes, raise a national army, regulate domestic and foreign trade, and create a national currency. The central or federal government was divided into three branches, each with some power to check the functioning of the others. A president would serve as the chief executive with the power to execute laws, veto the legislature’s acts, supervise foreign affairs, and direct military forces.
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The Argument for Independence
On July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted a resolution declaring the independence of the American colonies. Two days later, the delegates approved the Declaration of Independence, which gave the reasons for their action. Its principal author was Thomas Jefferson, who basically restated John Locke’s theory of revolution (see Chapter 15).
The Declaration of Independence
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that 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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.— Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
What influence did John Locke’s theory of revolution have on the American Declaration of Independence? How would a member of the British Parliament have responde
d to this declaration?
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The Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence, approved on July 4, 1776, by the Second Continental Congress, opened the door to the war for American independence. John Trumbull’s famous painting, The Signing of the Declaration, shows the members of the committee responsible for the Declaration of Independence (from left to right, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin) standing before John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress.
© Yale University Art Gallery/Art Resource, NY
Legislative power was vested in the second branch of government, a bicameral legislature composed of the Senate, elected by the state legislatures, and the House of Representatives, elected directly by the people. The Supreme Court and other courts “as deemed necessary” by Congress served as the third branch of government. They would enforce the Constitution as the “supreme law of the land.”
The United States Constitution was approved by the states—by a slim margin—in 1788. Important to its success was a promise to add a bill of rights to it as the new government’s first piece of business. Accordingly, in March 1789, the new Congress proposed twelve amendments to the Constitution; the ten that were ratified by the states have been known ever since as the Bill of Rights. These guaranteed freedom of religion, speech, press, petition, and assembly, as well as the right to bear arms, protection against unreasonable searches and arrests, trial by jury, due process of law, and protection of property rights. Many of these rights were derived from the natural rights philosophy of the eighteenth-century philosophes, which was popular among the American colonists. Is it any wonder that many European intellectuals saw the American Revolution as the embodiment of the Enlightenment’s political dreams?