Why Did the French Revolution Divide American Society?

History Hit ^ | 24 July 2019 | Ben Fellows

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Through the early years of the French Revolution most American’s had perceived events in France as a product of their own revolutionary ideals, namely, promising the benefits of liberty and a written constitution to all mankind.

But as France edged closer to war with the rest of Europe, the neutrality of the United States was becoming ever more complicated as American citizens began to take sides, urging President Washington to choose between France and Britain.

The federalists saw a profound difference between the experience of the French Revolution and American Revolution. In France they saw radicalisation, social anarchy and the destruction of political and religious institutions. While in respects to Britain, they saw stable liberty that did not end in barbaric bloodshed.

The French revolution was more than just a subject of study and revile for many federalists, but a realisation of the potential problems that may one day affect the American Republic.

However, Jeffersonian Republicans continued to associate the French revolution with their own cause. The Republicans had already identified the domestic conflict as an attempt to defend America against ‘corrupting English ways’.

Shortly after news had arrived of the European War, Republican writers began to connect the cause of France with the survival of liberty at home. They would claim that if the British succeeded against France, then the Federalists would, with British support, use their influence to establish a monarchy.

[Who is John Galt?]

There’s only one revolution in history that worked to the better: The American Revolution.

If true, it may relate to the fact that the American 'revolution' might better be described as the formal withdrawal (i.e., secession) of the American colonies from the British kingdom...

[CondoleezzaProtege]

That ancient placard should be brought that up to date for the 21st century... REPUBLICANS:

RELIGION, Loyalty, Obedience to the Laws, Independence, Personal Security, Justice, Inheritance, Protection, Property, Industry, National Prosperity, HAPPINESS. DEMOCRATS:

ATHEISM, Rebellion, Treason, Anarchy, Murder, Equality, Madness, Cruelty, Injustice, Treachery, Ingratitude, Idleness, Famine, National & Private Ruin, MISERY.

BINGO! You got it!

And the 'equality' under French liberty is not equality in the Declaration of Independence sense...more like the Marxist sense.

[VanDeKoik]

The American revolution was based on the English tradition of having orderly reason and rational to it after exhausting all legal means and appealing to higher ideas of justice and fairness found in established legal documents. It’s almost weird how compartmentalized and “by the book” it was.

The French revolution was the result of centuries of built-up resentment between the peasants that had to live under the chaotic rule of the aristocracy, the tone deaf monarch and his court, and the church. All three were in it for themselves and just used the peasants as cannon fodder against one faction or another.

It was basically rage againt the machine, and then burn the whole thing to the ground with no framework or tradition as to what to do next.

That anarchy had some appeal in America back then. Cooler heads were running the nation thankfully.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

The French Revolution was the last straw in terms of the friendship between Thomas Pain and George Washington:

https://www.historynet.com/thomas-paines-revolutionary-reckoning.htm

[YogicCowboy]

It was Creator-endowed unalienable rights versus State-endowed libertine license.

It was, on some basic level, Christianity versus Atheism.

There is a reason Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn of Austria included the Marquis de Sade and the French Revolution in his treatise:

Leftism: from de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

All of the colonies were essentially self- and locally-governed from the beginning and didn’t have the centuries old baggage of kings and despots.

[otness_e]

Heck, not even that. It was thanks to a coup by the Enlightenment philosophers where they wanted to just destroy Christianity outright for the sake of atheism. Timothy Dwight even laid that out bare. And if The New American by the JBS is of any indication, the so-called “Revolution” was engineered by a psychopathic brother of King Louis XVI as well as the philosophes. Louis XVI was actually one of their more popular kings.

[otness_e]

“And the ‘equality’ under French liberty is not equality in the Declaration of Independence sense...more like the Marxist sense.”

Ironically, both the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen were partly written by the exact same guy: Thomas Jefferson himself.

[Theodore R.]

Texas Revolution too!