Compare And Contrast The American Revolution Vs French Revolution

The American Revolution, from 1775 to 1783, was a war in which the British Colonies in North America fought against Great Britain, and eventually gained their independence and formed the United States of America. Across the Atlantic Ocean, in 1789 to 1799, The French Revolution, a bloody civil war which resulted in the downfall of the absolute monarchy in France, was being fought. The American Revolution and French Revolution were more similar than different because although they were an ocean apart, both revolutions were established on many of the same economic, political and social fundamentals and issues; specifically, heavy taxes, no government representation, and ideas from Enlightenment thinkers.

Both Britain and France were in great debt after the Seven Years War, due to the need of money “to finance military operations”, which caused taxes to be inflated for both country’s citizens (Problems and Issues in the Atlantic

World). In the colonies, the British implemented new taxes, such as the Stamp Act of 1765, which resulted in a stamp being placed on goods such as “documents, newspapers, playing cards, etc.” that the colonists had to pay extra for (American Revolution Crash Course). In France, First Estate, which consisted of the Catholic Church, and the Second Estate, which included the nobility, were not taxed while the Third Estate, consisting of everyone else, was heavily taxed, including starving peasants. Both countries were using their citizens to try and regain financial stability, and both countries’ citizens resented the new obligations, which was a large component leading up to both revolutions.
Another similar factor that caused both the American and French Revolutions was that both the Colonists and the Third Estate had little to no say in their respective parliaments. The colonists “had no direct way to influence British government policy” which angered the colonists even more in regards to the taxes, because they had no way to end them, and the colonists began to use the slogan “No taxation without representation” to express their anger. (Voyages p. 492). In France, each of the three groups of the Estates-General, a representative assembly, had only one vote, and “Louis anticipated that the…First and Second Estate would vote together” over powering the Third Estate and its ideas (Voyages p. 496). The ideas and complaints collected by the third estate representatives were ultimately ignored, resulting in the National Assembly, a group of common people who vowed they would not disband until there was a constitutional monarchy. Both the Colonials and the Third Estate were unhappy in regards to their status in a society with an absolute monarch in power.
Now that both the Third Estate and the Colonials knew they must do something in regards to the unfair treatment they were bring given by the absolute monarchies, they needed ideas to construct their revolutions on. The newly named “Americans” and the French both adapted ideas from the same place, Enlightenment Thinkers. The French government transformed over the revolution, and went from an absolute monarchy to a system “based on Enlightenment principles of a republic, citizenship and inalienable rights” (French Nationalism from Britannica). In the Declaration of Independence, a document in which the Colonies formally announce their independence from Great Britain, Thomas Jefferson uses the phrases “inalienable Rights” and “consent of the governed” which were built on the Enlightenment thinker John Locke’s ideas (Voyages p. 492). Both the rebel leaders in France and America agreed on and adapted the fundamentals for their revolutions from Enlightenment philosophes.
Some may say that these revolutions were very different, for the American’s accomplished their goal of independence from Great Britain during their Revolution, and the French Revolution did not end with a constitutional monarchy, as originally planned by the National Assembly.

However, even if the original goal of a constitutional monarchy was not reached in France, the revolution still had a large impact on the French population, for now they had the ideas of equality and natural rights in their minds, and also many of the peasants were better off in the country because feudal rights had been abolished for lords. Even though the French revolution was only partly successful, the values and foundations for the French and American revolutions were largely the same. It is important to draw similarities from these two Revolutions, so that questions such as “If these two revolutions were so similar, why did one result in a victory and one not accomplish its original goal?” to gain a deeper understanding of the French and American

Revolutions.