The American Revolution and the French Revolution are two phenomenal topics to consider. When you go in depth into these topics, you may notice that they have many differences, but they also have many similarities. In my opinion, these concepts should be considered more alike than they are different. We should acknowledge that there are many differences and they did occur at many different parts of history, but in the concepts we find many similarities. By exploring the American Revolution and the French Revolution, we will see the many similarities.
The American Revolution started out with the colonists wanting to escape the monarchy to be in the new world. Unfortunately, the British didn’t make it easy on the colonists. Initially they supported
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The British issued the Stamp Act of 1765. According to our textbook, the act levied taxes for the colonists. Because of this, many resorted to rioting. These two groups both envisioned a different form of an empire. Our textbook tells us that “the British envisioned a single empire with Parliament as the supreme authority throughout.” They wanted Parliament to make all the laws for the people, including the colonists. The Americans on the other hand had representative assemblies. Their belief was “that neither king nor Parliament had any right to interfere in their internal affairs and that no tax could be levied without the consent of the people or their chosen representatives.” (Spielvogel) This is when the colonists decided they needed to make a change. They decided it was time to become an independent nation. The Second Continental congress met to create the “Declaration of Independence”. In the Declaration, the colonists are promised that their natural …show more content…
Even though the monarch was against it, he was forced to summon the Estates General. It was merely summoned to find a solution to this financial problem. Little did he know that the Estates General was attempting to take more power than they were initially supposed to have. They declared themselves as the “National Assembly” and were pushing to form a constitution. For their next meeting they arrived to find the door locked. The king attempted to dissolve them, but the common people responded by storming the Bastille. Following this, many peasants decided to rebel. The National Assembly created a new constitution. Even though Louis XVI was already incredibly inactive, this limited the power of the monarch. It also created a National Convention with representatives from each estate. One day, the National Convention was meeting to talk about foreign policies. Groups that had initially aligned with France wanted to invade France to bring Europe back to the Old Regime. The Convention decided to put power in the hands of the Committee of Public Safety, led by Maximilien Robespierre. These leaders organized a “Reign of Terror”. The goal of this was to remove the corruption. In Robespierre’s speech, he says that “when the people itself is corrupted, liberty is already lost.” In order to maintain their government they must be free of corruption. This group became more excessive with their power than