Unit Two: Democratic Revolutions in Europe and America

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Unit Two Democratic Revolutions in Europe and
America

• Democratic Developments in England
• The Enlightenment
• The Glorious Revolution
• The American Revolution
• The French Revolution
• Nationalism
• Revolutions in Europe and Latin America

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Antiquity to Middle Ages to Modern Times
Middle Ages
Greece
Enlightenment
Rome (W.R.E)
E.R.E.
Diaspora
Judaism
Growth of church and royal power
Christianity
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Growth of Church Power

• When the Western Roman Empire fell, its
  government structure and laws largely
  disappeared.
• This left the Roman Catholic Church as the most
  organized an structured entity.
• The body of Church laws were based on Christian
  writings and were interpreted by the clergy.
• Church courts judged those who disobeyed the
  laws.
• The church exercised significant control over
  European society as church officials were placed
  in high level government positions.

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Democratic Developments in England
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Growth of Royal Power

• Feudalism was a loosely organized system of rule
  in which powerful local lords divided their
  landholdings among lesser lords.
• In exchange, these lesser lords, or vassals,
  pledged service and loyalty to the greater lord.
• William the Conqueror built an efficient
  tax-collecting system that increased royal wealth
  and authority.
• King Henry II broadened the system of royal
  justice by expanding accepted customs into common
  law enforced by traveling judges.

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The Feudal System
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Evolving Government

• Henry IIs son, John, was a greedy ruler who
  angered his nobles by imposing high taxes and
  abusing his power.
• The barons united and forced John to sign the
  Magna Cartaa document that limited the kings
  power and affirmed due process and that even the
  monarch was subject to the rule of law.
• During the 1200s the Great Council established
  by the Magna Carta developed into Parliament.
• For hundreds of years the British monarch and
  Parliament struggled for power.
• King Charles I summoned Parliament when he needed
  to raise money, but would dissolve it when the
  legislature tried to impose limits on his power.

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In 1660, Parliament restores the monarchy. In
1688, the English Bill of Rights is signed.
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The Glorious Revolution
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Rise of the Constitutional State/Glorious
Revolution

• Seventeenth century political developments lead
  to the rise of a republic, then constitutional
  monarchy in England.
• Charles I was tried for tyranny and beheaded in
  1649.
• Oliver Cromwell lead the Puritan regime that took
  power in absence of a king. This disagreeable
  dictatorship prompted Parliament to restore the
  monarchy in 1660.
• The restored king Charles II and parliament soon
  resumed conflict.
• James II inherited the throne, suspended laws,
  and appointed Catholics in a power flex that
  angered and scared Parliament.
• In 1688, in what became known as the Glorious
  Revolution, Parliament extended an invitation to
  rule, but forced William III and Mary to sign the
  English Bill of Rights, which ensured the
  superiority of Parliament over the monarchy.
• In 1689, a constitutional monarchy is formed
  where the monarchs powers are limited by
  representative institutions.

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The Age of Revolutions
Absolute Monarchies (France)
Constitutional States (England)
Philosophy Enlightenment The American
Revolution The French Revolution The Age of
Napoleon Spread of Nationalism Revolutions of
1830 1848 Revolts in Latin America
Feudalism/Regional States
Roman Empire
Ancient Greece
Judaism
Christianity
Early Modern Times
Middle Ages
Ancient Times/Antiquity
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The Enlightenment
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The Enlightenment

• In the wake of the Scientific Revolution came the
  Enlightenment.
• This was an era in which people used reason to
  try to understand more about human behavior and
  solve the problems of society.
• Thinkers launched an ambitious project to
  transform human thought and to use reason to
  transform the world. One such change was to move
  away from the theoretical foundations of the
  divine right of kings.
• Enlightened thinkers sought to discover natural
  laws that governed human society.

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Modern Philosophers/Philosophes

• English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke
  both wrote about society and the ideal form of
  governing it.
• Hobbes thought people needed strict control to
  rein in their naturally brutish tendencies.
• Locke thought people were moral at heart and were
  entitled to certain natural rights, which
  governments were obliged to protect. He attacked
  divine right theories and promoted a
  constitutional government.
• A group of French philosophers who wrote about
  government, law, and society were known as the
  philosophes. (progress, prosperity, social
  harmony)
• Baron de Montesquieu believed in employing three
  branches of government that could balance each
  others powers.
• Voltaire fought oppressive policies and religious
  prejudice with his witty writings.
• Denis Diderot collected Enlightenment articles in
  an Encyclopedia that helped to spread ideas
  throughout Europe and the Americas.
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought people were
  basically good and should be much freer from
  governmental controls. He advocated political
  equality.
• Economists also applied reason to their study of
  economics during the Enlightenment. Adam Smith
  and a group of French thinkers called physiocrats
  urged economies that operated with little
  government control (laissez-faire).

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The American Revolution
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Britain and the Thirteen Colonies

• Britain becomes a global power
• At the time of the American Revolution, Britain
  was a world superpower.
• It had begun to build its empire and already
  controlled trade with much of North America, the
  West Indies, and India.
• George III came to power in 1760 and was
  determined to assert his control.
• The 13 colonies in the mid-1700s
• In Britains American colonies, economic life was
  booming by 1750.
• Although Britain tried to regulate trade and
  other aspects of life in the colonies, there was
  a sense of semi-independence on the part of the
  colonists, who tried to control their own affairs.

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Tensions Escalate into War

• When King George III imposed taxes on the
  colonies to help pay for wars, the colonists
  rebelled. Tensions escalated and finally broke
  out into war.
• Inspired by Enlightenment ideas about the natural
  rights of man and the right to revolt against an
  unjust government, the Second Continental
  Congress declared independence from Britain.
• With their passion, with their knowledge of the
  countryside, and with help from France, the
  Netherlands, and Spain, the colonists defeated
  the British.
• The Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized
  the independent United States of America.

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Birth of a New Republic

• When the Articles of Confederation proved too
  weak to establish effective government, some of
  the nations leaders drafted the Constitution
  based on Enlightenment ideas of Locke,
  Montesquieu, and Rousseau.
• The new government would recognize some basic
  rights of the people and establish three branches
  of government to create checks and balances.
• The Constitution served as a model for
  constitutions created by other countries.

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The French Revolution
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Political, Economic, and Social Rights of Citizens
Political and Civil Rights
Human Rights
Right to participate in government Freedom of
expression Equality before the law
Economic and social freedoms
Social mobility Property rights Freedom to make
economic choices
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Divided French Society

• Before the French Revolution, France operated
  under a social system in which there were three
  classes of people.
• The highest was made up of the clergy, the next
  was composed of the nobility and the lowest was
  for everyone else.
• Members of this lowest class, called the Third
  Estate, paid most of the taxes.

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1st Estate Owned 10 of land Collected fees Paid
no taxes
First Estate
Combined lt 3 of population
Second Estate
Third Estate
2nd Estate Held top government jobs Paid by the
state Owned land (little income)
3rd Estate Business owners Professionals
(doctors, lawyers, bankers) Lower level jobs in
government Tenant farmers Factory workers
The Old Order represents a rigid class system
with no social mobility
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Financial Troubles and the Estate General

• France suffered from soaring debt during the
  lavish reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis
  XVI.
• Finally, Louis XVI was forced to summon the
  Estates-General in hopes of ending the crisis.
• Delegates to the Estates-General could not agree
  on a fair way to vote.
• Members of the Third Estate finally declared that
  they constituted a National Assembly and were
  joined by some reform-minded clergy and nobles.
• When rumors spread that royal troops were going
  to occupy the capital, a crowd of Parisians broke
  into the Bastille looking for weapons.

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France Becomes a Limited Monarchy

• Famine and rumors fueled peasant revolts in the
  countryside.
• Parisians were splintered into various factions
  who fought for power.
• The National Assembly finally voted to give up
  many of their exclusive privileges and declared
  Feudalism is abolished.
• In the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the
  Citizen, all male citizens were proclaimed equal
  before the law, which disappointed many women.
• The National Assembly voted to take over and sell
  Church lands (to pay off debt) and to place the
  Catholic Church under state control.
• The Assembly also produced the Constitution of
  1791, which set up a limited monarchy.

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Radicals End the Monarchy

• Soon, radicals held power in the Legislative
  Assembly.
• They wanted a republic, not a monarchy.
• The radicals also declared war on the tyrannical
  rulers in Austria, Prussia, Britain, and other
  states.
• News of mounting deaths in the war with Prussia
  caused anger with the King, who many thought was
  on the side of Prussia.
• In what has been called the September
  massacres, citizens attacked prisons that held
  nobles and priests and killed many of them.
• The Assembly gave the vote to all male citizens
  and the newly elected legislature was full of
  radicals who seized nobles lands and sentenced
  the king to death ending the now limited
  monarchy.
• The Convention, or legislative body, created the
  Committee of Public Safety and gave its 12
  members almost absolute power in response to the
  threats from inside and outside the country.
• Under the leader, Maximilien Robespierre, this
  Committee set out an a Reign of Terrorduring
  which suspected enemies of the state were hastily
  tried and often put to death by guillotine,
  including Robespierre in the end.

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In-Class Activity

• The French Revolution threatens to destabilize
  other European governments (absolute monarchies).
  
• You are policy makers working for the monarchies
  of Austria-Hungary, Prussia, Russia, and Spain.
• Your job is to secure the existence of absolute
  monarchy in the face of mounting pressure from
  your people who are growing aware of the French
  Revolution and the ideas of the Enlightenment.
• How do you counter the forces? Would you accept
  limitations on the power of the monarch in order
  to preserve the monarchy?
• Identify the pre-existing conditions that caused
  the French Revolution. Can you assume that many
  of these conditions are present in your monarchy?
  Address each potential problem with a specific
  solution. Identify the different options you have
  to deal with the problem. What are the
  consequences of your actions? Is there a benefit
  to creating an international alliance to defend
  the monarchy from domestic forces?

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Third Stage of the Revolution

• Moderates took over after the Reign of Terror and
  the Convention produced the third constitution
  since 1789.
• Inflation and the resurgence of royalist feelings
  caused politicians to rally around war hero
  Napoleon Bonaparte.
• The revolution brought nationalism or loyalty to
  the nation, instead of to a monarch.
• Revolutionaries pushed for various social reforms
  and religious toleration.

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The Age of Napoleon Bonaparte

• Napoleon was a military hero to the French and
  moved from being a general to being a member of a
  three-man Consulate who ruled France.
• Through votes by French citizens, he then rose to
  First Consul and eventually to Emperor.
• Napoleons government valued order and authority.
  
• He made reforms to improve the economy and made
  peace with the Catholic Church.
• He also instituted a new code of laws (Napoleonic
  Code) that recognized the equality of all
  citizens under the law.
• Napoleons armies invaded and annexed the
  Netherlands, Belgium, and parts of Italy and
  Germany.
• In lands he didnt control militarily, he tried
  to place friends and relatives in positions of
  power.
• Britain, however, successfully resisted
  Napoleons actions through the force of its navy.

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Napoleon Falls from Power

• When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, other
  countries began to revolt against French
  occupation and culture.
• There were not enough soldiers to secure each
  territory and strike at Russia.
• To make matters worse, Russian troops had burned
  crops and villages along the French route,
  leaving them without food or shelter during the
  brutal winter.
• Frances Russian disaster gave birth to the
  alliance of Russia, Britain, Austria, and
  Prussia.
• They defeated France in 1813.
• Napoleon was sent into exile on the island of
  Elba, and the monarchy was restored in France.
• Napoleon then escaped Elba and returned to rule
  for a short time, until his troops were beaten
  again in battle.
• He died while in exile on the island of St.
  Helena, but his conquests helped to spread the
  ideas of the French revolution throughout Europe
  and Russia.

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Conservatives Restore the Old Order

• At the Congress of Vienna, European leaders tried
  to create a lasting peace by placing strong
  countries around France and by protecting the
  system of monarchy.
• Metternich was a principal negotiator and
  dominant member at the Congress of Vienna.
• He also became one of the main supporters of
  legitimacy and intervention.
• Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Great Britain
  maintained their alliance.
• Nationalism, however, would come back to haunt
  Europe soon enough.

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Revolutions in Europe and America
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Competing Ideologies

• Conservatives put together an agreement called
  the Concert of Europe, in which they pledged to
  support the old political and social order.
• They vowed to suppress revolutionary ideas and to
  aid each other in fighting rebellions.
• Liberals wanted governments to be based on
  constitutions and the separation of powers.
• They believed male property owners should
  constitute the voting public.
• They wanted an open market economy.
• At the same time, some nationalist leaders sought
  to create various independent states for people
  who shared a common heritage.
• Serbia revolted against the Ottoman Empire and,
  with the help of Russia, finally succeeded in
  gaining independence.
• Greece also broke away from the Ottomans.
• Other revolts broke out in Spain, Portugal, and
  some of the Italian states.

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Conservative Efforts Fail After a Generation
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