The French and American Revolution PDF

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The American and French Revolution: OPVL American Revolution The Declaration of Independence The Declaration of Independence is a primary source, it was a document principal written by Thomas Jefferson. It was approved by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776 but, on July 2 was the official day that the separation was voted. It is actually a public and official source, everyone can view it and is considered official because Great Britain recognize it. The purpose of the document is to announced officially the separation of the thirteen colonies from Great Britain, because the Americans started getting frustrated of the Britain's government for some circumstances such as taxes and limitations in rights. The document was made for the British to read it, making them know that the thirteen colonies will be independent from the Britain power, making them free for for making them “enemies in the war, in the peace, friends.” The document has a direct message to the monarch accusing him with twenty-five offenses, because he had denied laws for the benefit of the americans. In the time period it was written, the Britains have the power over the colonies and the americans and native americans wanted to reveal against the britains. The document express the natural rights that John Locke establish in the Enlightenment, it said Britain monarchy did not bring those rights to the americans. For the historians this document is important and has a great value, because it shows the initials for the independence movement showing how they live in that time. The Declaration has some limitations, it just shows the reasons of the thirteen colonies to become independent from Great Britain, without exposing the reasons of why the British imposed the removal of rights and the increase of taxes.

The Constitution The United States Constitution is the fundamental law of the U.S government it was written in 1787 in Philadelphia by 55 delegates, it’s the product of long debates over the state’s rights, representation and slavery, the text contains seven articles

which were deeply influenced by the Articles of Confederation.Twenty seven articles have been added to the Constitution since 1789 which include the income of taxes, provided the direct selection of senators, woman suffrage and granted suffrage of citizens of 18 years or older. The Constitution had the purpose to retain the independence and the sovereignty of the states and assign to the central government for the functions that the state could not handle individually, The Constitution is especially concerned with the limitation of power of the government and securing the liberty of citizens, it was designed to strike the balance between authority and liberty. Other purposes are the regulation of interstate commerce, determine the member seating, rules of procedure and states that the president should be elected by the electoral college to serve 4 years. This is a very valuable document because it states the rights of the citizens, equality between women and men, because it worked as a model for other countries. It protects the criminals that were accused unfairly by a grand jury, prohibiting the forced self incrimination and forbidding the deprivation of life, liberty and property. Established rules of governing civil trials, prohibited the excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishments, it protects the right of liberty of all the men. Some limitations of this document may be that it was made by white people and it doesn't exactly protects the people of color only white people because in that time black people were ‘used’ to slavery.

Bill of Rights The Bill of Rights is a primary source written by James Madison and published in 1791. At first there were 12 amendments, but now The 10 amendments that are written on the document are inspired by the natural rights proposed by John Locke and some philosophers of the Enlightenment. It is also inspired by the “Virginia Declaration of Rights”. And the document guaranteed the freedom of religion, speech, press, petition, and assembly.

It is a public and an official document that lists the limits of the government power and its’ purpose is to confirm the ideas of the Enlightenment and to make official the separation of powers into judicial, executive, and legislative. It exists to show everyone their rights and to have new rules for a better society. Another purpose of the Bill of Rights is to tell the people what are their rights and the new laws. They have like the new rules of how everything was going to work after that. The Bill of Rights took place after the constitution in a time where the ideas of the Enlightenment were taken seriously. It was created because the natural rights are very important and because the government wanted to build a new society. It is a very valuable document because it states the natural rights of the people and that the new laws for everyone including the government. A limitation is that at the beginning the Bill of Rights didn’t have an amendment for slavery. That amendment was added later. Another limitation is that this amendements have only the point of view of white people; other limitations are that they are only 10 amendments which can lack of power for citizens.

French Revolution Declaration on the Rights of Man and the Citizen The Declaration on the Rights of Man and the Citizen was written on August 26, 1789 by the French National Committee. The declaration was Inspired by the English Bill of Rights of 1689, the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution. The declaration also was inspired by ideals of the Enlightenment, like the idea that everyone is equal before the law. It also states that no one is free from taxation and that officials have to be chosen by the people. Freedom of expression was also affirmed. It is an official and primary source, for it is recognized by institutions and the French government, and it is not based on another document.

The declaration had the purpose of expressing the idea that the individual must be protected against unfair judgement, proposed by writers such as Voltaire. Also, the protection of private property was stated. Influences of the Declaration were documents like the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the manifestos of the Dutch Patriot movement of the 1780s. But the French Declaration changed these models based on basic principles and therefore universal to everyone. The statement of principles provided the main ideals of a new organization of society. The idea of equality didn't exist in the pre-revolutionary France, when it was divided into three estates—the clergy, the aristocracy, and the common people. Specifically, it contradicts the idea of people being born into a specific class. The declaration intended to defend an equality of rights and to go against negative actions in government. The declaration put forward a doctrine of popular sovereignty and equal opportunity for all men. Some of the limitations are the fact that the declaration only states the principles for men, so women and children were excluded. Also only citizens of France where protected, so the declaration was not universal. For that reason, this declaration will seem to be unfair in modern society. However it is still an influential model that changed French society and reshaped the world.

The Life of Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte's role in the French Revolution is complex. In one sense, he brought it to an end when he came to power in 1799. Yet he was a child of the revolution as well. Without it, he would never have risen to power, and he himself never failed to remind the French that he had preserved the best parts of the revolution during his reign as emperor. Napoleon was born in 1769 in Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean, only a few months after France had annexed the island. The biography of Napoleon is a secondary source, due that it is tell by other people that do not live on that time. It is a public source, because everyone can know the life of this iconic person.

The purpose of telling his life and what did he do is to inform us about the legacy that he left and how he considered as a great leader, change the course of history with his appearance. The life of Napoleon is very valuable for historians and also to french citizens, because is a way to learn about the main conflict and historic events during that lapse of time, and what kinds of war did he fight, considered as one of the most powerful empires during that time. Some limitations that we can found are that the biography may lacks of details about Napoleon, because historians during the pass of time could lost information that was important in order to know better Napoleon; another limitations is that since is was not witter by Napoleon, historians could add or take out facts in order to their way of view of what they thought was important, and what was not.

The French and American Revolution Research The American Revolution The American revolution started in 1763 when British kings started abusing of their power. The problem was the need for money to support the empire after the Seven Years War. Attempts through the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act to raise money caused anger in the colonies. The colonies made the First Continental Congress in September 1774 where members urged colonists to take up arms. In April 1775 the Concord and Lexington Battle started. The Second Continental Congress set up an army, called the Continental Army. George Washington was the leader of such army. In January 1776 Thomas Paine published Common Sense. Paine believed in the rights of people to be separated from monarchs. George Washington saw that Common Sense was changing the opinion of society. The representatives at the Continental Congress were urged to vote for independence. On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence written by

Thomas Jefferson. With this stirring political document, the American Revolution had formally begun. The Declaration of Independence stated that the United States was a new nation. The writers of the Declaration of Independence believed that a government existed only because of government went hand by hand with the people. The Continental Congress decided that something had to be done to establish order American society. They planned to make the Constitution. The Constitution made a federal government, where power is shared with different branches of government. It is based on Montesquieu and government is divided into three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. 12 amendments were proposed to the Constitution. The new Congress approved 10 of the amendments. These amendments became the Bill of Rights. These 10 amendments guaranteed freedom of religion, speech, press, petition, and assembly. The American Revolution represented a change in the society of the XVIII century, form being oppressed to being free, which would later inspire more countries to have their own independent government. This can be seen in the French Revolution. The French Revolution The French Revolution has often been seen as a major turning point in European history. The institutions of the Old Regime were destroyed. A new order emerged, based on individual rights, representative institutions, and a concept of loyalty to the nation rather than the monarch. The long-range causes of the French Revolution are to be found in the condition of French society. Before the Revolution, French society was based on inequality. Since the Middle Ages, France's population was divided into three orders, or estates. Social conditions and Enlightenment ideas, then, formed an underlying background to the French Revolution. The immediate cause of the revolution was the near collapse of the French budget. Although the economy had been expanding for 50 years, there were periodic crises. Bad harvests in 1787 and 1788 and a slowdown in manufacturing led to food shortages, rising prices for food, and unemployment.

On the eve of the revolution, the French economy was in crisis. Despite these problems, the French king and his ministers continued to spend enormous sums of money on wars and court luxuries. The queen, Marie Antoinette, was especially known for her extravagance and this too caused popular resentment. When the government decided to spend huge sums to help the American colonists against Britain, the budget went into total crisis. With France on the verge of financial collapse, Louis XVI was forced to call a meeting of the Estates-General. This was the French parliament, and it had not met since 1614. On August 26, the National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. Inspired by the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and by the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution, this charter of basic liberties began with "the natural and imprescriptible rights of man" to "liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression." Reflecting Enlightenment thought, the declaration proclaimed that all men were free and equal before the law, that appointment to public office should be based on talent, and that no group should be exempt from taxation. Freedom of speech and of the press were affirmed. The declaration raised an important issue. Should equal rights include women? Many deputies agreed, provided that, as one man said, "women do not hope to exercise political rights and functions." One writer, Olympe de Gouges, refused to accept this exclusion of women. The American Revolution and French Revolution Compare and Contrast France during its revolution was different than in America because there was not a war that had just ended. The Seven Years War had increased taxes and no one was free from this taxation. What was surprising about the French Revolution was that it wasn’t a peasant’s rebellion—it was a wide-scale revolt on the monarchy. Even though there were battles in America with the Indians, mostly in the search of land, these did not match the scope and cost of the Seven Years War that had driven the French nearly to bankruptcy.

These revolutions had more in common than it might appear despite the slight difference in time. They were both against a tyrant monarchy that taxed heavily and attempted to control its people.They saw that the king was limiting their role in government and they were part of the resistance effort as well. They both reacted in part because of Enlightenment ideals, such as the ones written by Voltaire and Rousseau. These revolutions had similar objectives and achieved the result of a new republic. Definitely these two revolutions are part of world history. They reinforced the ideals of Enlightenment thinkers, like Rousseau (social contract), Voltaire (individual rights) ,and Montesquieu(separation of powers). Thanks to these major events other countries were able to take them as inspiration. For example, Mexico got its independance from Spain because of taxation, defending the ideas of equality and justice. The two revolutions were inspired by the enlightenment, and the revolutions inspired a new society were only fairness rules, and not an overpowered ruler.

Bibliography: The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2017, April 06). Declaration of Independence. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Declaration-of-Independence La Declaración de Independencia. (2016, August 15). Retrieved September 14, 2017, from https://www.archives.gov/espanol/la-declaracion-de-independencia.html New World Encyclopedia writers. (2013). Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Ma n_and_of_the_Citizen The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2016, July 15). Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Retrieved September 11, 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Declaration-of-the-Rights-of-Man-and-of-theCitizen Godechot, J. (2017, April 28). Napoleon I. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Napoleon-I The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2017, February 22). Napoleonic Wars. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/event/Napoleonic-Wars

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2017, February 22). Napoleonic Wars. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/event/Napoleonic-Wars The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2017, April 24). Constitution of the United States of America. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Constitution-of-the-United-States-of-America Bill of Rights. (n.d.). Retrieved September 12, 2017, from https://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/bill-of-rights/

DigitalHistory. (2016). Overview of the American Revolution. Retrieved September 12, 2017, from http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=3 McGraw Hill Education. (2017). The American Revolution . Retrieved September 15, 2017, from https://connected.mcgraw-hill.com/ssh/book.lesson.do?bookId=VBLR7FME982E3G9G 4G5GNTMNKM&nodeId=T8XGRS41ORH9Q5LSVW6F1TFFF4 John Trubell. (Año de la creación de la imagen). The Declaration of Independence [Pintura]. Recuperado de https://connected.mcgraw-hill.com/media/repository/protected_content/COMPOUND/5 0001681/92/62/WHG18_SC_C21_L4_ii04/WHG18_SC_C21_L4_ii04/network_frame.ht ml?mghCourseID=VBLR7FME982E3G9G4G5GNTMNKM...