French Revolution Dbq

In all of the documents listed, liberty and equality are described with regards to the French Revolution. These concepts are shown to have evolved over the course of the revolution, and this is proven by the documents chosen. Liberty and equality were emphasized as either major or minor ideas in the documents, and although some were only alluded to, it is evident that the ideas of liberty and equality changed during the years of the French Revolution. Also, some of the terms used connoted different things at the end of the Revolution than the original Revolutionaries of 1789, which demonstrates the transformation of the use of words which were symbolic at that time.

Liberty and equality were both highly emphasized during the revolution, and

In 1790, the Jews of Paris, Alsace and Lorraine wrote a petition to the National Assembly. In this petition, they asked that they finally be declared citizens, because religion does not change who a person is with regards to his country. This intriguing argument demonstrates that prior to this there was a major lack of equality, or at least, there was not complete equality, and the Jews in France had come to the point where the previous definition of a want for freedom and liberty was being minimized and the want for equality was coming into the picture. The petition continues by stating that the French “do not want [the Jews] to die, and yet [they] refuse them the means to live.” This line creates a won argument, because it addresses the current situation, and states what the non-Jews of France were thinking at that time, so they couldn’t reject a point which they knew was correct. Eventually, in 1791, just days before the dissolution of the national assembly, the Jews were granted equality under the law. Another document which proves that equality was becoming the central point instead of freedom or liberty was Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Wollstonecraft makes her argument by first noting that women are denied of all political privileges, and have very few privileges when they get married. However, she

If the right of property is limited, society helps the citizens, and society provides subsistence for the citizens the world will be a better place. These ideas include both equality and liberty- equality in that the right of property should be limited, and liberty in the society helping the citizens and making sure that no one is left behind. In his speech in 1794, Robespierre said that they should want to achieve liberty, equality and justice, and that bad passions should be extinguished and replaced by good passions. Also, if this was set with laws, the nation will only have virtue and terror will be non-existent. These ideas also fall under the categories of both liberty and equality. This demonstrates that in between the five years of 1789-1794, the ideas of the revolutionists changed from liberty being the most important, to equality having principal, and finally to both sharing a key role in the French