American Revolution

Ke Li

American History

Comparison and Contrast between American and French Revolution

During the late 18th century, with the strong force of European Enlightenment thought, which challenged the traditional political regimes, requires people to rethink the individual rights of of life, liberty and property. It inspire revolution on both side of the Atlantic Ocean: North America and France. They are similar because they were both inspired by idea from Enlightenment. There are some differences between these two revolutions though: North America went against their mother country desired a republican form of government, while French revolution was more like a civil war that demanding an end of absolutism. Further more, American Revolution was considered successful and they gained strong support from French, while French was still in huge debt and the outcome wasn’t positive after all.

First and foremost, American revolution and French Revolution was different because they had different causations and goals. American people were against their mother country, England, who created bunch of taxations such as Stamp Act and Tea Act that annoyed their colonies in North America. Dumping the British Tea into Boston Harbor was most the evident one as a resistance. Whereas the main goal of American revolution was independence or liberty from their mother country, the French Revolution directly challenged the country’s basic political and social structure, demanding an end to absolutism and aristocratic privilege in France. For may years the kings has resisted calling the Estate General, because by doing so would question the absolute power of king. While the third estate wasn’t satisfied with the extreme taxation and unjustified social structure. Thus, American Revolution and French Revolution were different from the initial goal of the outcomes.

Besides, the French revolution experienced much more setbacks than American Revolution. Fortunately, American revolution gained great amount of support from France. The revolution was persistent, and England was consumed too much in the previous Seven’s Year War. With the participation of French army, the escalate of the conflict was threatened. American revolution went smoothly as well: representatives signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4,1776. Since British did not agree, a war followed, and eventually resulted in victory fi the colonists and a humiliating defeat for one of the most powerful empire in the world: England. The peace treaty was finally signed in Paris in 1783. While the radicals won the debate of if king’s restriction of people should be controlled, a government was formed by Maximilian Robespierre, and the massive chaos was caused. The mass execution was called the Reign of Terror by historians which was ended with the guillotining of Robespierre himself.