A Question of Liberty | The American and French Revolutions
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
— Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, 1776 —
“Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood, or Death.”
— Maximilien Robespierre, On the Organization of the National Guard, 1790 —
In two cities, the people rose against their rulers. They spoke of freedom from tyranny, of rights for all men and citizens, and for shared sacrifice in the struggles to come. Within a few years, one city was prosperous and free, and the other was bathed in blood. Americans in Philadelphia spoke openly of the Convention of States to draft a new constitution, while Parisians either cheered the murder of Loyalists and former nobles or else fled the “Reign of Terror” and the mob it had unleashed. How could this have happened?
Both the American Revolution of 1763-75 and the war of independence which followed, and the French Revolution of 1789-99 and the wars waged by the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte were grounded in ideals that, on paper, seemed to spring from the same source. French soldiers who had fought alongside the American colonists saw with their own eyes the sacrifice of their American brothers in arms, thought about the oppression of the Ancien regime of Louis XVI back home, and wondered aloud whether a similar revolution might be possible in France. When they re-crossed the Atlantic Ocean after the American War of Independence was won, they took with them copies of the Declaration of Independence, “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine, and other revolutionary writings, which soon spread like wildfire across the French kingdom. And yet, when revolution came to France, its course diverged wildly from that of the earlier uprising in the New World. What had changed?
Today, we are going to examine the philosophical and historical roots of the two greatest revolutions in world history before the 20th century and answer these two questions. This will be more of a think-piece than a traditional history lesson, but the revolutions in France and the United States echo into our own times and, perhaps, have done more than any other turning point we have covered this season to give us our world today.
The Law of God vs. the Law of Man
Since the Classical Age of Greece centuries before the birth of Christ, philosophers and scholars have written of the differences between a moral offense and a legal offense. Moral offenses are crimes against one’s God, while legal offenses are crimes against one’s country or a fellow citizen. Socrates and Aristotle both wrote on these differences, and the latter’s Nicomachean Ethics is an excellent treatise on the idea of moral vs. legal offenses. For much of the Middle Ages, the line between these two ideas was blurred as the Church became increasingly-powerful in the political sphere, but a separation eventually emerged between church and state. This led to a resurgence of a fundamental question in legal and moral circles: “Is it possible for one to commit a moral evil without suffering a legal punishment?” In other words, does a person have a “right to do wrong”?
To clarify this seemingly-obscure difference between moral and legal offenses, it might be helpful to use a simple example. In the so-called “age of Trump” here in the United States, charges of racism are regularly hurled at one’s political opponents. Most people regard racist statements or beliefs as a moral evil, but this raises an interesting philosophical question: “Can a person be a racist without being punished by the state for their beliefs?” To be perfectly clear, this is not a defense of racism in any way—speaking personally, I find racism in all its forms to be both morally-repugnant and intellectually-vacuous; it is utterly illogical to hate someone because of the color of their skin which, barring major medical procedures, one cannot change. The idea of racism and how society ought to confront it leads us back to the two revolutionary movements which are the subject of this podcast because the societies they created would have dealt with them in very different ways.
The United States Constitution, which, as we have discussed in earlier episodes, is the framework by which the principles of our Declaration of Independence are implemented in society (however flawed at times), protects the three natural rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. No one in the United States may infringe, by direct action, on the life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness of another person. Pursuit of happiness is a vague term, so for clarity I am going to use it in the original meaning as “the fruits of one’s labor” going forward. If a racist individual assaults or murders someone with a different skin color, if he enslaves them, or if he steals the money or possessions they have earned by their labors, that is a legal offense and should, naturally, be punished by the justice system. However, freedom of thought is guaranteed throughout the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and, under its original meaning and the intent of our Founding Fathers, racism in thought is different than racism in deed. The former is not a legal offense but a moral one, while the latter is both. Government power, under the original meaning of the US Constitution, should thus be used only on the racist who acts against another citizen.
The society of France under its various constitutions during the Revolution protected three basic rights or principles: liberty, equality, and brotherhood. Maximilien Robespierre, leader of the Jacobins who instituted the “Reign of Terror,” then added the promise of death to the revolutionary motto when he came to power. Liberty allows a person to act as they wish, but the next two principles set limits on that liberty. Equality, as defined by Robespierre, meant that all citizens in society were to have roughly the same income and social standing (i.e. no more clerics or nobles), and brotherhood meant that all citizens were to both think of and treat each other in a “brotherly” manner, not threatening them, treating them poorly in any way, or even thinking them to be different or of a lesser status or position in life. The threat of death should one fail to behave properly was certainly a powerful one, and this punishment was meted out regularly under Robespierre’s rule. Again, let us turn back to the example of the racist to further explain how French society during the revolution functioned. Racist thought would be punished (probably by death) in France during the revolution because even the idea that one is less valuable as a person because of their skin color would violate the principle of brotherhood. The “right to do wrong” is thus inconsistent with French revolutionary ideals but consistent with those of the American revolution.
The Protection of Life vs. the Promise of Death
A second major difference between American and French revolutionary principles is evident when one considers the absence of a right to life under Robespierre. Many of the early French revolutionaries, such as the Marquis de Lafayette who had fought alongside George Washington, believed that all people had an inalienable right to life which no one could take unless they had committed a legal offense severe enough to warrant death (usually premeditated murder or treason). However, Robespierre and the other Jacobins believed that individuals were mere “cogs in a wheel” or parts of the social whole, and that their rights and freedoms were subject to both the wishes of the masses and the good of the state. Thus, while the American government has almost always protected the rights of the individual consistent with good order (slavery being the tragic exception), the French government was willing, if not eager, to subsume individual freedom to the good of the state. This meant that if it was necessary to execute tens of thousands of wealthy nobles to promote the equality and brotherhood of the nation, that was perfectly acceptable. The results of this difference between America and France are self-evident; the pages of American history are largely free of mass violations of its citizens’ rights, again with the caveat of slavery which was entirely agains the principles of the Declaration of Independence, while France’s past is stained with the deaths of at least forty thousand people during the “Reign of Terror,” and over a quarter million more having been imprisoned and lost everything they had.
Abstract Theory vs. Concrete Reality
In November 1790, after the revolution in France had broken out but before the “Reign of Terror” had begun, the Irish politician Edmund Burke published a pamphlet called “Reflections on the Revolution in France.” Burke had previously supported American independence from Great Britain in debates in the House of Commons, and he contrasted the two revolutionary movements in his pamphlet and articulated quite clearly the differences between them. At its most basic level, Burke argued, the French Revolution would lead to disaster and bloodshed because it elevated abstract ideas like equality and brotherhood above the basic realities of human nature and good government. He wrote, “What is the use of discussing a man’s abstract right to food or to medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In this deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor.” In effect, Burke was rejecting the idealism of Enlightenment philosophes and their Jacobin intellectual “descendants,” admonishing them for ignoring history, reason and reality in favor of hope, emotion, and theory.
The American Constitution acknowledges and, some argue, embraces the basic truth of the fallen nature of man. We are not perfect in our nature, and we cannot be made perfect because of the wickedness of our hearts. Thus, the American government was formed in a way which recognized this truth and then harnessed both the good and bad of the human heart and soul in a way that restrained our passions and sinful desires, permitted us to think what we wished (good or bad), so long as we did no harm to another. By contrast, the French revolutionaries insisted that they knew how to create a utopia by reshaping human society in their image and murdering those who stood against them. Again, the results speak for themselves.
Turning Point: How to Create a Successful Revolution
So what are we to make of the events of two centuries ago, and how can we apply these lessons to today? We’ll come to that in a moment, but first it is necessary to make one last important point. This podcast has contrasted two countries in very stark ways. I do not intend to paint the United States as a perfect society, for we certainly have our flaws. Nor is it my goal to condemn the nation of France as one of murderers and bloody-minded revolutionaries. Much has changed in both countries over the past two hundred years, and today both the United States and the French Republic are, generally speaking, tolerant and liberal democracies. Slavery was abolished in the United States at great cost, and France has rejected the dangerous ideas of the Jacobins amidst the many tragedies of its history. We can still discuss the events of the past, good and evil, without condemning those societies today.
Speaking generally, successful movements for political change (for that is what revolutions usually are) have shared three basic characteristics throughout history. They promote the liberty of the individual to think and act in any way they wish—even if those in power or those who wish to be in power disapprove of their actions on moral grounds—provided that they do no harm to others. They protect the life of the individual over the so-called “common good” of society and are unwilling to harm to excess those who disagree or refuse to conform. And they recognize the realities of human nature and take into consideration how their plans and programs will affect those who will feel their effects rather than assuming that the people will accept changed conditions blindly or face the might of government power if they do not. Every successful revolutionary movement (peaceful or violent) which has met these requirements has been successful: the American Revolution, the British parliamentary reforms of the 19th century, and the postwar settlements in Germany and Japan after 1945 to name just three. Those movements which fail to follow the example of 1776—the Russian Revolution, the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, and the religious strife in the Middle East as examples—were or ultimately are doomed to failure.
The American revolutionary ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the concomitant protection of the individual over the state has created the most enduring democratic society in world history. On the other hand, the principles of the French Revolution, and especially the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the state, has spawned any number of dangerous ideologies and woeful events. In the 20th century alone, the ideas of communism, fascism, and religious or political fundamentalism in all their myriad forms have each promised death to those who refuse to conform to the idealistic vision of their leaders for society. The holocausts of fire and blood of two world wars trace their origins back to the utopian reformers of revolutionary Paris, and many would-be victims were saved by men and women working under the banner of individual liberty for all people. The ultimate triumph of individualism is never certain, and lovers of liberty were and must still be on guard against those who would subsume our rights for their vision of good.
