Unit 2 Test Flashcards
American/French Revolutions
What is egalitarianism?
- All people are equal
- People are of equal worth and should be equal before the law
What is an emigre?
A political exile
What was the Reign of Terror (July 1793 - July 1794)?
- Almost 40,000 people were killed including Marie Antoinette
- Revolutionary supporters began to question the need of executions
- In July 1794, Robespierre was put to death, and the reign of terror was over
What was the March on Versailles (October 1789)?
- Thousands of women march to Versailles from Paris (protest high food prices, believe that the king and queen are plotting against the national assembly)
- They demand the monarch must return with them to Paris (monarch agrees, national assembly also moves to Paris)
What was the Storming of the Bastille (July 1789)?
- Louis brought troops to Versailles
- Many believed Louis would dissolve the National Assembly
- A large crowd stormed the Bastille in protest (July 14, 1789)
- Rural citizens turned on their landlords during the summer of 1789
What is feudalism?
- Feudalism was the dominant social system in pre-revolutionary France
- Local lords were bound to the king by ties of loyalty
- Population was divided into three estates
What was the Tennis Court Oath (May 1789)?
- Third estate promises a constitution
- Louis orders the first and second estates to join the National Assembly (gave National Assembly credibility)
- Common values/goals of National Assembly (distrust of the king, a constitution should restrict the powers of a king, abolish titles of nobility and all feudal obligations)
What was the declaration of the rights of man and citizen?
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, set by France’s National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution. The Declaration was drafted by General Lafayette, Thomas Jefferson, and Honoré Mirabeau
What is an absolute monarchy?
- Government by individual or small group
- No consulting ordinary citizens
What was the first estate of France?
First Estate
- Clergy (RCC) and legally privileged
- Goal was to maintain power (status quo)
- However, the first estate was not united and the upper clergy controls the power and wealth of the RCC
What was the second estate of France?
Second Estate
- Nobility and legally privileged
- Goal was to maintain feudal rights and privileges
- However, the nobility wanted to improve their status with the monarch because they were not very important to him
What was the third estate of France?
Third Estate
- Everybody else (26,000,000)
- Bankers, lawyers, businessmen, laborers, peasants
- Goal was a completely new system of government and fair taxation system
Who was Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1721-1778)?
- Believed in direct democracy and social contract
What is direct democracy?
- Citizens should make laws directly, not through representatives
What is a social contract?
- Citizens must agree to the direction of the general will
- Human nature is primitive (without law / morality)
- Cooperation is key to the construction of society
- Government must protect everyone
- those who disagree with the general will must be forced to obey
Who was Thomas Hobbes?
- Believed government must establish order in society
- Supporter of absolute monarchs
- Believed citizens must give up freedoms to ensure peace and order because:
- man is selfish, brutal, and destructive
- man lives in fear and danger of violent death
- man has both passion and reason
- only strength and cunning can provide security
- government must curb man’s selfish and aggressive nature
- freedom is only possible if citizen’s surrender their liberty to an all-powerful sovereign
What was levee en masse?
The concept originated during the French Revolutionary Wars, particularly for the period following 16 August 1793,[2] when able-bodied men aged 18 to 25 were conscripted. It formed an integral part of the creation of national identity, making it distinct from forms of conscription which had existed before this date
What was the divine right of kings?
A political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving the right to rule directly from the will of God.
Who were the bourgeoisie?
The social order that is dominated by the so-called middle class
- The bourgeoisie owns the most important of the means of production, through which it exploits the working class.
What was the old regime?
1.
- Sun King Louis XIV
- France the richest nation in Europe
- Strong military
- Economy slowing down
- Traditional ideas getting in the way of growth
2. Structure of the Old Regime a. Feudalism - Local lords bound to king by ties of loyalty b. Class System - Population divided into 3 Estates
What does radical mean?
- Extreme left wing
- A political extremist, willing to use violence
- Advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social change; representing or supporting an extreme or progressive section of a political party
What does conservative mean?
- Right of center
- Favours traditional values
- Government, economics, religion, and morals
- Cautious about change or innovation
What does reactionary mean?
- Extreme right wing
- Return to narrow values of the past
- Will crush those in favor of change
- Opposing political or social liberalization or reform
What was the enlightenment?
-18th century
A. Concepts
1. Encourage nationalistic thinking
- Loyalty to one’s county not king, or church
- Children should become patriotic adults
- Attacked outdated government attitudes and role of the church
- Demand reforms to abolish privileged groups
- Want a constitution
- Government controlled by the will of the people
- Egalitarianism
- All people are equal
- People are of equal worth & should be equal before the law
