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The French and American Revolutions
In this paper we will discus and compare the French and American revolutions. Lets
start out by talking about the French Revolution, then move on to the American
Revolution.
The French Revolution was fought between the years of 1789 and 1799, and violently
changed France from a monarchical state to a modern nation in which social power was
loosened and power was mostly in the hands of the middle classes.
There are many causes of the French Revolution. As the population grew, the food
supplies grew short; land had become divided into such small parcels that most Frenchmen
lived close to the subsistence level; and after 1776 agricultural recession forced property
owners to exploit their sources of revenue. Also their involvement in the American
Revolution had caused them to raise taxes.
The French Revolution started at the storming of the Bastille on July 17. On August
26, a group of high placed citizens wrote the Declaration of Rights. On October 5, a mob
forced the king and his queen to step down from the throne. This ended the monarchy, but
in 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte was established first consul by the constitution of 1799.
The American Revolution went from 1776 to 1783. The Cause was many, many
unneeded, over priced taxes.
The new year, 1778, was a time of transition in the Revolutionary War because of
Britain's inability to win in the northern colonies and because of the increasing part played
by France. The French foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, eager to settle an old
score with Britain, convinced his royal master Louis XVI to permit France to funnel secret
aid to the patriots in 1776 and 1777. That aid took the form of the government's handing
over munitions, arms, and clothing to the playwright Caron de Beaumarchais and his fake
Hortalez and Company, which in turn arranged with Benjamin Franklin and other patriot
commissioners in Paris to have them shipped across the Atlantic.
The winter of the signing of the French alliance was also the Continental Army's time
of cruel suffering at Valley Forge, although it was actually not the worst winter of the war.
Spring brought Washington not only new recruits, but also an army better trained than
ever before, due in considerable part to the labors of the Prussian general Baron von
Steuben in drilling the troops at Valley Forge.
The final of the war was the federal Constitution Of The United States, which was
approved by the states in ratifying conventions in 1788, despite the cries of opponents that
such a powerful government would tyrannize the states and their citizens. The new
constitution was federal, in that powers were separated and divided between the national
and state governments, both with their own jurisdictions. By turning to federalism the 55
men at Philadelphia solved what had been the central problem of American political
history in the quarter century since the end of the French and Indian War, namely, how
governmental power should be allocated. First, the question was between Parliament and
the colonial assemblies; later, between Congress under the Articles of Confederation and
the state legislatures. The American Revolution reached its culmination when the
Constitution was adopted in 1788.
Word Count: 537
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