Something I didn’t realize: in 1776 England had a population of roughly eight million while about 2.5 million people (including 600,000 slaves) resided in the 13 colonies. At an equal level or representation, the colonies would have been due about 165 members of the House of Commons (compared to 558 from the home country). I had no idea that the populations were so close in actual numbers.
Setting that craziness aside (fun thought experiment, though), how differently might the Founding Fathers have put things together for us had George III not been an autocratic nutjob and Parliament instead been the pre-eminent democratic institution in the world? Would our emphasis still have been more on federalism and would we still have rejected a parliament with a head of state with limited power?
The idea that the Constitution, in 1784, afforded the same rights to slaves as it did free peoples is laughable given there is an actual amendment giving ex-slaves the right to vote, one which followed an amendment banning slavery! Lol!
It seems that nobody here knows much about European history. Nobody has mentioned the Revolutions of 1848.
Significant lasting reforms included the abolition of serfdom in Austria and Hungary, the end of absolute monarchy in Denmark, and the introduction of representative democracy in the Netherlands. The revolutions were most important in France, the Netherlands, Italy, the Austrian Empire, and the states of the German Confederation that would make up the German Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century.
There’s also the Risorgimento:
What about the South American wars of independence?
You know, first all all, why the hell has this thread degenerated into American slavery, like we havent had a zillion threads about it already.
Nor did I say that, Unless you think I am the reincarnation of Frederick Douglass.
*One could go even further and argue, as Frederick Douglass did in the lead-up to the Civil War, that none of the clauses of the Constitution should be interpreted as applying to slaves. The “language of the law must be construed strictly in favor of justice and liberty,” he [argued]… Because the Constitution does not explicitly recognize slavery and does not therefore admit that slaves were property, all the protections it affords to persons could be applied to slaves. “Anyone of these provisions in the hands of abolition statesmen, and backed up by a right moral sentiment, would put an end to slavery in America,” Douglass … I think Douglas’s opinion is worth hearing here.
Next, quoting someone out of contact is not right or proper, nor do i know why you see fit to make it into some sort of meme.
I wouldn’t say this at all; they went through a horrific blood letting and ended up with a megalomaniac in Napoleon. And they went through plenty of turmoil until after WWII.
The so-called color revolutions in Eastern Europe improved things, I’d say, even if sustaining the progress has proved difficult. Sustaining any progress or political achievement beyond a generation is challenging, really.
Perhaps we should start with some terminological clarifications. What is a revolution as oposed to a revolt, a rebellion or an insurrection?
I would dispute that the American War of Independence was a revolution, it was a successful secession from the English Crown. It was well branded, US-Americans are great sellers of words (and of other things too, and makers as well, no offense meant) but if that was a revolution, then the independence wars in Latin America 30 yrs. later would be revolutions as well, and they weren’t either. Was Australia’s independence a revolution? No, right? Or Ireland’s? I think a Revolution worth it’s name needs a lot of theoretical foundation, not just some fiscal grievances and ad hoc nationalism. The Russian Revolution 1917 was one, the French one too (Diderot, D’Alembert, Rousseau etc.), but the USA?
And claiming that the French Rev. did not turn out so well seems, to quote Zhou Enlai, premature (yeah, yeah, I know). The beginning was a mess but in the meantime they are making progress. Of sorts. Most of them.
I guess I was thinking of violent changes of the form of government, with some degree of popular support. The US revolution is arguable (and in the UK we do often call it the American War of Independence, one of many), but it did involve violence, popular support, and a new system of government. And if that counts then so should the Latin American independence wars. Australia’s independence no, there was no war and no great change in the form of government.
We can rule out failed rebellions, since they don’t result in change. Does that help?
The American Revolution certainly had a theoretical foundation:
By the American Revolution, the governments of the Thirteen Colonies were transformed from monarchies, with (at least in principle) a King who ruled “by the grace of God”, a hereditary aristocracy with considerable political power, and an established Christian church; to republics, in a federal union that was also a republic, and with both federal and state constitutions explicitly recognizing the principle that governments derive their power from, and are ultimately answerable to, the people: “We the People of the United States…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” (And similar statements found in pretty much all of the state constitutions.) The new republic of the United States also ditched hereditary aristocracy, and of course separated church and state (which I would argue was perhaps the most radical thing the American revolutionaries did; 18th century Europeans were familiar with republics, both ancient and contemporary, and most of the rights found in the Bill of Rights–freedom of speech, the right to keep and bear arms, trial by jury–had precedents in English law, but a state without a religious foundation was a genuinely new idea).
Apart from the question of establishment of religion it was not a terribly radical revolution, I agree, but it was still a revolution.
The Latin American wars of independence are also generally considered revolutions, are they not? There is Simón Bolívar’s famous quote “all who served the revolution have plowed the sea”. They, too, replaced monarchy with republics (although in some cases it took multiple stages–first independence, then a republic; and I don’t think the Latin Americans were necessarily as immediately radical as their northern neighbors about ending the Catholic Church’s status as an established church).
Australia’s independence came about through a gradual and negotiated settlement, so no, it wasn’t a revolution. But Ireland’s independence strikes me as being fundamentally revolutionary (albeit also quite complicated), what with the uprisings and the civil wars and all.
Well, the USA changed the government from monarchy to republic indeed, but when Spain did that (twice) it was not considered a revolution, nor was the re-instauration of the monarchy (also twice). So, not really. I would argue the USA War of Independence was a successful revolt, an armed uprising, a rebellion, but I miss something for it to be called a revolution. Mainly a theretical foundation with utopian ideals. Maybe I expect too much from revolutions.
And the Latin American independence wars were, as we learned them at shool (in Spain, so not really impartial, I see that) a rebellion by the leading caste that took advantage of the fact that Spain was busy fighting Napoleon and could not send troops: the ruling caste was in fact Spanish. No natives played a leading role and their living conditions did not improve nor were they meant to.
