French Revolution vs. the American Revolution, Part Two: Rebellion vs. Restoration

As a lover of philosophy, I have a high regard for abstract reasoning. If an idea is worth accepting, then it should be subjected to rigorous critique by the most powerful adversaries available. However, this treatment is often rare when a given set of principles flows axiomatically from one’s worldview and presuppositions. Such was the case with the principles put forth in Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789). Revolutionary Frenchmen who were educated in the works of Rousseau, Voltaire, and Condorcet sought to realize their grand hopes for the reformation of mankind.

The past was an enemy of the present insofar as it codified privilege, social distinctions, and superstitious religion. Their rebellion wasn’t against a corrupt monarch only, but also against an entire way of life. Not against a single usurpation, but against an alienating age. It’s easy for a modern observer of the French Revolution to excuse this expansive project due to its context. The Ancien Régime had a long train of abuses which in some ways dwarfed that of the British colonials in America.

Would we really support a system in which the people had virtually no say over their state in society? Maybe not. The real question, however, is not whether there were evils inherent in the old system of France, but whether or not the alternative was better. On this point, Edmund Burke was at his most prescient. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), he elucidates the fact that society is not an abstract set of people, objects, and principles; instead society is an organic whole with roots in the primordial past. So, the preceding institutions of a society are abandoned only at great peril.

The strength of the American Revolution was its respect for the past and its privileging of legal precedent and the rights of Englishman over any ideologies. The same rights they claimed were guaranteed in the royal charters and documents of incorporation that each colony created at their inception. Before some of the charters were signed in America and after others, the English Bill of Rights of 1689 restated the common law rights of Englishmen. Yet, that document isn’t the origin of the rights fought for by British Americans. The Petition of Right of 1628 reaffirmed the controls upon the royal prerogatives at an even earlier date.

In 1399 Richard II of England was forced to abdicate due to his tyrannical usurpation of the rights of Englishmen and his misgovernment of the realm. Before that, the famous Magna Charta was forced upon King John to ensure that he upheld the rights guaranteed by his great-grand-father Henry I. So why all the history? Because it’s only through the lens of British history that the American Revolution, its success and lasting influence, can be understood.

Virtually every attempt of mankind to radically break with the past and establish a new regime based on faulty worldviews and disrespect for historical precedent has failed as badly as the French Revolution. We remember these attempts with names like “the terror,” “the killing fields of Kampuchea,” “Great Leap Forward,” and the “Five Year Plan.”  While there are radical variations in the contexts of these events, a similar thread traces through this tapestry of tragedy: man sees his existence apart from God, his family, and society. Also, he divines the just arrangement of society from his reason alone.

The genius of the American Revolution was that it was more truly a restoration than a rebellion. A restoration of the rights of Englishmen from time immemorial vivified the hearts and minds of the founders. The French, in contrast, were possessed by an innovating desire to set the world afire with “enlightening” ideals. In reality, they inflamed the baser instincts of humanity, and tried to cover the stench of burning flesh with the incense of reason.