Iraq War & The French Revolution
Jonathan Rowe on Nov 11th 2007
As I’ve been researching how the American Founding viewed the French Revolution, I’ve noticed some parallels between the French Revolution and the war in Iraq. The consensus in America supported the French Revolution in the beginning, and largely viewed it as an extension of America’s Founding principles. Both revolutions appealed to the same abstract Enlightenment principles of the rights of man, liberty and equality.
It was only after things started to go so wrong that many notable American figures began to jump ship, just like in Iraq. And after the fact, in hindsight, historians began to realize the subtle but profound differences between America’s and France’s Revolutions (i.e., Rousseau’s notion of the “general will” much more evident in France’s than America’s Revolution).
The backlash against the French Revolution probably contributed to the second Great Awakening in the early 19th Century. Noah Webster, for instance, when “founding” America was a much more Enlightenment influenced, rationalistic, and secular thinker. Sometime in the 19th Century he became a more traditionally minded Calvinistic Christian.
Here is Webster in 1794 in the middle of the French Revolution. His essay begins:
In the progress of the French Revolution, candid men find much to praise, and much to censure. It is a novel event in the history of nations, and furnishes new subjects of reflection. The end in view is noble; but whether the spirit of party and faction, which divided the National Assembly, sacrificed one part, and gave to the other the sovereign power over the nation, will not deprive the present generation of the blessings of freedom and good government, the objects contended for, is a very interesting question. Equally interesting is it to enquire what will be the effects of the revolution on the agriculture, commerce, and moral character of the French nation. The field of speculation is new, and the subject curious.
Filed in The Barracks, The Belfry, The Bureau
Very interesting observation, Jon, and germane to the current discussions. Webster (and the world) were quite right to be anxious to see the theories tested:
Was man good and noble [Rousseau], and convention—including religion, we might add—was holding him back, and responsible for the evils of the world?
Or was convention, whether carefully constructed through reason or simply the product of trial and error—natural selection, as it were—the only thing that had raised man from the muck [Burke], and man himself was still the same miserable creature?
Let’s defenestrate convention and find out what man is really made of! I myself would have paid to see that, although I’d have left before halftime, sick to my stomach.
I think Jefferson remained a bit of an apologist for the French Revolution even during the Terror, didn’t he?
It is critical to note the different contexts of the American and French Revolutions. The American Revolution had the luxury of extending principles that were already part of its context. There was no real entrench aristocracy. Ecclesiastical power was very limited. The institutions who would have threated the revolution had their roots on the other side of the Atlantic. The opposing forces needed to be driven away, not crushed.
In France, ecclesiastical power was firm and deeply entrenched. The artistocracy could not be sent back home to England. Liberal principles were hard to find in any practical sense. Even if there had been no real differences in principle, France would have had a much bloodier revolution than we did.
It’s worth noting that the clergy’s opposition to revolutionary reform in France was largely produced during the revolution. Most clergy were amenable to the reforms that were proposed during the first years, even to the suggestion that they owe their allegiance to the state rather than Rome.
Since Furet, historians have dispensed with the notion that the Terror was a reaction to counter-revolutionary activities. Rather, it was endogenous to France’s radical movements, which found it difficult to reconcile individual liberty with the unity of the nation.
It would be worth inquiring whether Catholic Democrats (Montalembert, Lamennais and the like) influenced American thinking on the relationship of religion and liberalism.
NDR,
Your point about the Terror is well taken (and I think correct). I am intrigued by your observation about the clergy’s position. The existence of multiple perspectives, positions, and factions within the clergy often makes an interesting study.
But the Terror, I think, remains more a matter of context than ideology. Even if there were no counter-revolutionary activity, the aristocracy and the clerical establishment had control of society in ways that a mere change in government would not address. It would have been difficult to accomplish a revolution without something approaching Deicide. Perhaps that could have been accomplished without great horrors, but revolution required a dramatic uprooting of aristocracy and of church.