American Revolution Vs French Revolution Dbq Essay

In the first global age, there were many factors that led to political revolutions. The people of the American colonies felt it was right to revolt against their owners, and the low level members of the French society also felt that it was right to do this. The main reasons why these two nations revolted against their leaders is because of political corruptness, economic instability, and civil unrest. Both nations had somewhat successful revolts; it was better in the Americas, though, because their accomplishment was more clear cut, whereas the French Revolution had more failures than that of the American’s.
The first reason why the American and French people decided to revolt was because of the amount of political complications. The first reason why Americans felt a revolt was justified was because of the sheer amount of undeserved power that the King of Great Britain had. Thomas Jefferson described these problems in the Declaration of Independence,(Document #5), when he stated: “That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right ofthe people to alter or abolish it, ad to institute a new government.” The “ends” that Jefferson is talking about here are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was very obvious that England was taking away these values from The American Colonies. In France, there was no shortage of political unfairness. In the French government, the kings were chosen by God, which meant that no one stood aside them in power, and that they had absolute rule over anyone and anything. The Kings did what they wanted, and the citizens had to follow, no matter how unjust the actions were. The second reason why the people in the American Colonies and the low level French citizens revolted against their leaders was because of economical reasons. In France, the citizens were split up into different social classes, called estates. People in the first and second estate were wealthy, land owning people, many of which didn’t have to pay taxes; the first estate encompassed around 98% …show more content…
In the third estate in France, the people were not treated as equal as the people in the estates above them. Document #5 describes this situation when it says: “Every citizen has the right to participate personally or through his representative in its formation. ...All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law … no person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views. ...Every citizen may speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of his freedom as shall be defined by law.” This quote is saying a lot of things, but the main thing that it is describing is basically how everyone should be treated equal, be able to say what they want, and that everyone should be able to believe in what religion they want to, regardless of their social class. America was also having social driven reasons for revolting against their mother country. One of these reasons is that many of the citizens began to lose ties with their mother country, or England. Over time, there eventually grew to be no allegiance, and the citizens of the colonies felt as if they had become independent. The colonists now thought of themselves as Americans, and this changed