On Revolution

On Revolution comparatively analyzes the 18th-century revolutions in America and France. Central to Arendt’s analysis is her argument that while the American Revolution succeeded in creating a lasting, stable government, the French Revolution ultimately collapsed due to its overreliance on idealism at the expense of creating viable political institutions.

The unrest in the American colonies began about a decade before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, as rebellious colonists protested against being taxed by the British Parliament without being represented in it. The war began when the Massachusetts colony declared a state of rebellion in February 1775. In Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, 56 self-proclaimed “Founding Fathers” gathered at the Second Continental Congress and unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, written mostly by Thomas Jefferson. In all 13 colonies, citizens immediately held conventions to produce state constitutions affirming republicanism. The Continental Congress also approved the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, which established a structure of shared sovereignty among the colonies during the course of the war.

The United States was established in 1783, when a defeated Britain acknowledged the independence of the thirteen colonies. The Constitution was authorized by delegates to the Congress of the Confederation in Philadelphia in 1787 and ratified by the states in 1788. It established a much stronger national government than had the Articles of Confederation, but in a federal framework that distributed powers between the federal and state governments and among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. The first 10 amendments to the Constitution were ratified in 1791 and became known as the Bill of Rights: They enumerated specific guarantees of civil rights and personal freedoms, imposing specific limitations on the government’s power.

Most historians agree that the French Revolution was caused by the absolute monarchy’s failure to address mounting socioeconomic inequality. Rapid population growth throughout the 18th century caused widespread unemployment and high food prices. In 1789, King Louis XVI summoned representatives of France’s three “estates”—clergy, nobility, and commoners—to convene in the Estates-General to address social unrest, budget shortfalls, and grievances about aristocratic privileges and the tax system. The Third Estate (commoners) broke away to form a new National Assembly, in which the First and Second Estates would no longer be able to outvote the Third. The King’s efforts to block the Assembly triggered widespread protests. An angry mob attacked the royal Bastille fortress on July 14—an event often described as the start of the Revolution and still celebrated annually in France as “Bastille Day.”

The Assembly abolished feudalism and expanded suffrage, publishing a Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which would subsequently influence the development of related human-rights ideas worldwide. The Assembly produced a constitution establishing a limited monarchy and forced King Louis to swear allegiance. Poor harvests and rising food prices continued to provoke unrest, however, particularly among the urban working class known as the sans-culottes.

The French Revolutionary Wars began in 1792, when the French armies attacked pro-monarchical Austrian and Prussian forces amassed at the border. Initial military successes emboldened the National Convention (the successor to the National Assembly) to abolish the monarchy and establish the First Republic. Louis was tried and executed in January 1793, alarming conservative elites throughout Europe; the Convention responded by declaring war on Britain, Holland, and other European powers. Maximilien Robespierre’s radical Jacobin faction mobilized the sans-culottes to protest the Convention. Robespierre’s forces then arrested leaders of the Girondins, the dominant moderate faction.

The Convention then created a Committee of Public Safety, headed by Robespierre, to defend the republic against domestic and foreign enemies, endowing it with near-dictatorial powers. This resulted in what became known as The Terror, in which an estimated 300,000-500,000 people were arrested within 11 months, with as many as 40,000 executed or dying in prison. The Terror and its aftermath seriously destabilized the revolutionary government, leading to growing infighting between political factions and widespread popular unrest.

General Napoleon Bonaparte, who had been promoted after defending the government from a royalist uprising, then conquered a large part of Italy and invaded Egypt and Syria with his army. In October 1799, Napoleon returned to France and was hailed as a national hero. In November he staged a coup and instituted the three-member French Consulate, installing himself as First Consul. Most historians consider this the end point of the French Revolution, as Napoleon eventually founded an imperial system of government with himself as Emperor.