More historical date

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

While the French Revolution definitely spread democratic ideals throughout Europe through documents such as The Declaration of the Rights of Man, it also did some of the opposite by fueling reactionary movements who were revolted by the violence and bloodshed of the Revolution and the subversion of royal authority. With regards to the American Revolution, it isn't clear that reactionary movements were fueled to the same extent as they were with the French Revolution. And I would argue that democratization is more historically significant than the formation of reactionary movements because such movements have existed all throughout history, while very little democracies existed in the world up to the point of the American Revolution. And while it is impossible to know which revolution had a greater effect on world democratization, I would argue that the revolution that actually succeeded in bringing about a democracy probably had a greater effect.

Keep in mind that by 1815, the Reactionary Powers (Prussia, Russia and Austria) in alliance with Britain (ever keen to be the world's policeman and arbiter of the balance of power), had snuffed out the French Revolution to the point of placing the Bourbons back on the throne in France, Naples, and Spain, and also created a Dutch Kingdom with the Orange-Nassau dynasty, which had served as leader of the Dutch Republic for much of its existence.

There were lasting imprints left on the continent, including of course stirring the raging torrent of nationalism that would eventually unite both Germany and Italy, but the continent was still largely ruled by Monarchs and landed aristocracy, as it had been prior to 1789. Whats more, Russia began to meddle in European Politics, propping up reactionary and far right governments (wait are we still talking about the 19th century here?)...

The United States though, showed an example of a stable, democratic government that was not rocked by extremes of anarchy and chaos, followed by a repressive reaction. The American Revolution was never as extreme as the French one and was followed up with a rather conservative constitution as its governing document that was just as keen on reigning in the anarchy of the multitude as it was the arbitrary governance of the ruler. It took 80 years and a division amongst the monarchist majority to make France a Republic permanently.


Absent the American Revolution, the world would likely be dominated by Monarchies, with many looking to Britain as the model for a stable representative democracy, instead of the United States. People crave both freedom and stability, the former without the latter is not sustainable.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I can understand why Americans would say their revolution, but really, the more important one was the French. It's not even a contest.

Modern democratic politics itself is a legacy of the French Revolution.

To say that modern democratic politics is a legacy of the French Revolution is not just an overstatement, but it is flat out wrong. At best, one can say that it served as a catalyst that caused a number of trends in European politics to proceed explosively but those trends had been evident well before the Revolution and considering the counterrevolutionary trends that happened in reaction, in the long term, it's doubtful the French Revolution had any long term impact save one, the Code Napoléon, and that more because it became the primary example of codified civil law rather than it being the inspiration for it.

Please read a book about modern European history before making these posts.

What do you presume he is ignorant of?  True Federalist is one of the smartest people on this forum.

One other impact that the French Revolution did have was the influence on the ideological and philosophical works that underpinned both Marxism and Non-Marxist Socialism in the mid 19th century. In terms of class struggle and class revolution, yes there is no denying that the French Revolution had a greater impact, precisely because it was a radical revolution that completely upturned the previous social order.

That circumstance though is precisely why the American Revolution has had a more lasting and positive impact. The American and British system for that matter, are built on slow change and improvement over time, which history has shown the best and most positive breeding ground for liberty and freedom to flourish.

The massive upheavals of the French and Russian Revolutions led to repressive regimes being instituted either in the name of said Revolution (Napoleon and the USSR) or as a reaction to them (The Bourbon Restoration). The stability and persistence of The US and British systems, remained a lasting example for how "it could be". Were it only the chaos and repression, and cyclical anarchy of the French Revolution as a guide, the world would be dominated by authoritarians cycled out in the next Revolution for another.

Basically the kind of Revolution panned in the movie Fistful of Dynamite, after Sergio Leone replaced idealism with cynicism as his guiding principle. "The poor people make the change...then the people who read the books sit around the big polished table and talk and talk and talk, and eat and eat and eat, and what has happened to the poor people? They're dead, That's your Revolution....Then the same...thing happens all over again".

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

That's a caricatural view of the French Revolution.

Look, as I said above: the idea that the people should rule found its first political expression in the French Revolution. I don't think you grasp how important that paradigm shift was for humanity. Suddenly, the lowest people had an interest in politics. Every single politician: Trump, Merkel, Putin, Corbyn, Abe, Modi, Xi all have to pay lip service to liberté égalité fraternité in their own way. Yes, Ernest might say "but the Enlightenment came up with the idea", but 1) this is an apples-to-oranges comparison of an a intellectual movement with a political event, 2) its implementation in actual politics is different by an order of magnitude, and 3) one can just as easily say the same thing about the American Revolution, the ideas of which were all developed in the Enlightenment too.

As to examples of its impact, the French Revolution was the catalyst for the emergence of party politics, including a popular party, in America itself, against the express wishes of the framers of the US constitution; and I could go into the French Revolution in Haiti and the impact that had on slaveholders in the American South, leading to civil war. In Britain it created the radical reform movement that roiled British politics for decades, threatening revolution several times (including an actual one in Ireland) before eventually winning in 1832. British politics, the "British system", would be unimaginable without the French revolution; there would be no Thomas Paine's Rights of Man for God's sake. Would Latin America have won its independence? Would we have German or Italian nationalism? Would we even have had the Romantic movement in the arts? Imagine how different western culture would be without Romanticism...

Yes, it's quite possible that all of the things above would have happened without the French Revolution, but form they would have taken would be completely different.

For a taste of the shock the revolution had across Europe and the Americas, Robert Burns says something of it:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

That was the impact of the French Revolution.

No one has said that the French Revolution was not important. The thread puts it up against the American Revolution and says "which was more important to history".

Yes, practical application of "the people should rule" is another matter from theorizing. The American Revolution managed to control its excesses and produced a result that was stable and slowly incorporated reforms over time. Having that example did far more to make feasible the cries for freedom across Europe.

The French Revolution did not do that. It yielded at its end the right for all men to vote, on whether or not to make Napoleon Emperor. The Soviet Union paid lip service to freedom and popular will, in an Orwellian means of distracting from the fact it had neither. People paying lip service to the notion is worthless if it is so done to facilitate a dictatorship or a Totalitarian state. It actually has to mean something. If the French Revolution was the only lesson to draw from, yes you would have many people people lip service to liberté égalité fraternité, but few that actually lived it.

And I am not usually in the business of arguing about one's own country with someone, but from my interpretation, "The British System" came to exist as a transition that began in 1689, not 1832 or 1789. It absorbed reform movements and evolved over time in reaction to demands for change. But the fundamental system was not changed, and there was no great singular social and class upheaval that sent all the British ruling classes to the block, except of course the English Civil War in the 1640's and 1650's.

Which also had the same pattern, an elected dictator followed by a restoration of the old ruling system with little or no serious change. What made the Glorious Revolution so glorious was a change so minimal as to undermine it even being called a revolution because it practically was just a procedural concession. Regular parliamentary elections and a fixed time limit on appropriations. Napoleon and Napoleon III had universal suffrage for lower house that was powerless. As the franchise was expanded in Britain, it had a real impact, because nothing could be done in Britain without the Commons going along with it.

The same is true for the United States. The House is elected by the people and all appropriations must arise from that chamber. As the franchise was expanded for both the House and President, it had a real noticeable effect.

Bottom line it wasn't just votes being cast for a meaningless election for a single candidate race pre-determined by the Communist Party, or a vote for a Napoleonic Legislature that had no power to do anything substantial or materially effect government policy. It also wasn't a vote to elect a despot with the full power to subjugate the people in name of "The Revolution". '

The pressure for liberalization, the pressure for democractization in both Britain and the UK would have been present, because these values did originate with the enlightenment. The Federalists would not have remained in power and if anything, the French Revolution prolonged their stay in office because of fear of chaos and anarchy. If anything, America would have been far less conservative as they pulled away from the chaos of the 1780's, were it not for the French Revolution. The French Revolution did not create the party system on its own, it merely served as one of many factors that put Hamilton and Jefferson at odds with one another.

This also can be observed in Britain. There were reform clubs in the 1780's and discussions which William Pitt the Younger participated in and supported. In the 1790's, he repressed them as seditious in the face of the enemy, Revolutionary France.

The French Revolution hindered Liberalism, and gave birth to Modern Conservatism, in both America and Britain in the 1790's.