Question |
| The French Revolution marked a turning point in Europe in the Eighteenth century. Using your knowledge of the time period and the documents provided, describe how the French revolutionaries were influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment. |
Document 1 |
| The English constitution has, in fact, arrived at that point of
excellence, in consequence of which all men are restored to those natural rights, which,
in nearly all monarchies, they are deprived of. These rights are, entire liberty of person
and property; freedom of press; the right of being tried in all criminal cases by a jury
of independent men - the right of being tried only according to the strict letter of the
law; and the right of every man to profess, unmolested, what religion he chooses, while he
renounces offices, which the members of the Anglican or established church alone can hold.
These are denominated privileges . . . . Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary: The English Model |
Document 2 |
| . . . . public can only arrive at enlightenment slowly.
Through revolution, the abandonment of personal despotism maybe engendered and the end of
profit - seeking and domineering oppression may occur, but never a true reform of the
state of mind. Instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones, will serve as the guiding
reins of greater, unthinking mass . . . . Immanuel Kant, What is the Enlightenment? |
Document 3 |
| . . . . Such revolutions happen not upon
every little mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part,
many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty, will be borne
by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if long train abuses, prevarications and
artifices, all tending the, same way, make the design visible to the people, and they
cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be
wondered at, that they should then rouse themselves, and endeavor to put the rule into
such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was first erected . . .
. John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, 1690 |
Document 4 |
| . . . . But the body politic, or sovereign
power, which derives its existence from the sacredness of the contract, can never bind
itself, even towards others, in any thing that would derogate from the original act; such
as alienating any portion of itself, or submitting to another sovereign: for by violating
the contract its own existence would be at once annihilated; and by nothing nothing can be
performed. As soon as the multitude is thus united in one body, you cannot offend one of
its members without attacking the whole; much less can you offend the whole without
incurring the resentment of all members. Thus duty and interest equally oblige the two
contracting parties to lend their mutual aid to each other; and the same men must endeavor
to unite under this double character all the advantages which attend it. Rousseau, Of the Social Compact |
Document 5 |
| However, it is not answered because each wishes to
answer it in his own way. Subjects vaunt public tranquility; citizens, individual liberty;
one prefers the safety of property, and the other that of the person; one thinks that the
best government is the most severe, the other maintains that it is the most gentle; that
one wishes that crimes be punished, and that one that they be prevented; one finds it
delightful to be feared by his neighbors, another prefers to be unknown to them; one is
content when money circulates, another requires that the people have bread. Even where an
agreement reached upon these and similar points, would and advance be made? Moral
qualities lacking exact measurements- if an agreement were reached as to the sign, how
could it be reached as to the estimate to be put upon them? Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762 |
Document 6 |
| There never did, there never will, and there never
can, exist a Parliament, or any description of men, or any generation of men, in any
country, possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the
"end of time," or of commanding forever how the world shall be governed, or who
shall govern it; and therefore all such clauses, acts or declarations by which the makers
of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power
to execute, are in themselves null and void. Every age and generation must be as free to
act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it. Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, 1791 |
Document 7 |
| The dead man is ancient France, and that
bier, the coffin of the ancient monarchy. Therein let us bury, and forever, the dreams in
which we once fondly trusted; paternal royalty, the government of grace, the clemency of
the monarch, and the charity of the priest; filial confidence; implicit belief in the gods
here below. . . . . They have made justice a negative thing, which forbids, prohibits,
excludes-an obstacle to impede, and a knife to slaughter Jules Michelet,The Influence of the Enlightenment in the French Revolution |
Document 8 |
| . . . . What is tolerance? . . . We are all
full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon our follies. This is the last law of
nature. . . . It is clear that every private individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. . . . Voltaire, A Plea for Tolerance and Reason |
Document 9 |
| 1. Men are born, and always continue, free,
and equal in respect of their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only
on public utility. 2. The end of all political associations, is, the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression. 3. The nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty; nor can any INDIVIDUAL or ANY BODY OR MEN, be entitled to authority which is not expressly derived from it. 5. The law ought to prohibit only actions hurtful to society. What is to prohibited by the law, should not be hindered; nor should any one be compelled to that which the law does not require. 7. Now man should be accused, arrested, or held in confinement, except in cases determined by the law, and according to the forms which it has prescribed. 10. No man ought to be molested on account of his opinions, not even on account of his religious opinions 13. A common contribution being necessary for the support of the public force, and for defraying the other expenses of government, it ought to be divided equally among the members of the community, according to their abilities. Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens |