Meeting Of The Estates General

Democracy formed in the 1700's and has opened the doors for individuals living in the United States to have a voice towards the principles established. Democracy provided freedom, representation for majority and minorities groups, and posterity.

Before the revolution France was ruled under the Ancien Regime system, meaning the country and all its people were under the reign of an absolute monarch. This was a tradition that had been upheld through the years and the Royal family had enjoyed a life funded by the people of France, the royal family’s lifestyle unaffected by the situation outside their palace. The Palace, Versailles, was built by king Louis XIV and the expenses for building this “village” was very high, and in later years the cost for its upkeep would play a significant role in Frances financial difficulties. In order for these difficulties to be overcome France needed a tax reform. The government had a very high tax rate on the poorest of their people, the Third Estate, and they were still not getting enough money to get out of their

Democracy did not occur in a matter of seconds, it took years of evolution to become what it is today. The thought of a self-government during a world ruled by monarchs would have you locked up in a mental hospital. As you can figure, democracy did not just come out of the nowhere, it had to be planned out and modified over the years. The earliest contributions and influences of The American Government came from philosophers, some of them are the part of our founding fathers and others influenced them to develop the strong nation we are today.

Do know in the late 1700s if someone disobeyed you they head got chopped off.the french revolution began in 1789 as an attempt to form a new government in france.it was a revolution that did not follow a simple path .one broadside from the time read ”unity ,indivisibility of republican liberty equality fraternity or death” .it is the last word of course that is troubling. The reign of terror was justified because the the threats to them, the method for punishment and the reasons behind the revolution The reign of terror was unjustified because of all the threats they received from inside and outside enemies. In document c it speaks of all the outside threats. ”in august 1792 an 80,000-man army marched into france.nearly half the force was prussian ,and the other half austria.austria and prussia were

King Louis XVI and Marie Antionette were two people that should not have been ruling a country. King Louis was always gone on hunting trips and Marie Antionette spent every dime of French money. Once the Monarchy ran out money, they started to tax the Third, and poorest, estate. The third estate took up 97% of the population. 97% of the population was starving and the royal family kept spending large amounts of money until the people revolted. The people of France tried to reason with King Louis, but he refused to change his ways and kept taxing the third estate. When the people revolted, they stormed the Bastille and took all of the weapons they could. The people then went to the King’s palace and demanded he fix the way he was ruling before they killed him. The King didn’t listen and was executed along with his wife. Of the three kids that Marie Antionette had, the two boys died of Tuberculosis in jail and the daughter was sent to live the remainder of her life in exile in Austria. It may seem as though the people of France had successfully overgrown their monarchy and could begin a life of freedom, however this is not the case. The French had rushed into combat too fast and did not have a plan for what to do after they had killed their rulers. The right of Terror begins where Maximilian Robespierre beheads 40,000 people in the span of ten months for speaking against the revolution. In the end, Robespierre ends up getting

The nonexistence of democracy in our nation was very evident in the beginning of the colonies with the rule being that of Britain, and the traditions and acceptance of the colonist to follow and practice those. This is evidence in writings of Mary Rowlandson and her portrayal of the Native Americans through her captivity, and through the help the colonist continued to receive from the Native Americans, however, the lack of respect the colonist had for the Native Americans, their culture and their beliefs.

The establishment of the National Assembly that integrated different classes of people into one government signifies the growing public voice in political arena as citizens urged an end to hunger and unfair taxation system. Ever since King XVI summoned the Estates General to tackle the problems of food shortage and economic crisis, the Third Estate, who represented every French except the clergies and the nobles, has been constantly demanding for more voting rights to make people’s hardship known to the king and the other two estates. They thus assembled lists of grievances from citizens throughout France which called for a limit to

The Sons of Liberty set out on a noble quest for liberty and with it came democracy. Not only democracy for the colonies, but for other countries as well. If we didn’t have a democracy then what would we have? Probably a monarchy or maybe a dictatorship. Who needs monarchs or dictators anyway? Not us that’s for sure. Using the colonies as an example, many other countries claimed their independence from England.

Before the French Revolution, there were three estates, or classes: the nobility, the clergy and the commoners. The nobility and the clergy had many more privileges than the third estate and that is what caused the French Revolution. The Third estate was composed of the peasants, the workers and the bourgeoisie; unlike the other segments of the Third Estate, the bourgeoisie was able to communicate its grievances to the public during the period after the French Revolution: 1789-1799.

Democracy was not created in a day. Instead it was made after years of monarchy where any democratic ideas were unthinkable. Luckily, for us in the seventeenth century a man by the name of John Locke reevaluated many ideas from Ancient Greek and Rome and created a stable foundation for many of our government ideas. This document was named Two Treatises of Government and though he got backlash from many people it was the structure used to create two very important documents. These two documents were The Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson and A Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen recorded by the National Assembly of France.

Democracy is “the power of the people” (McKay et al, Western Society, 69). They were actually ruled buy their citizens not by all the people. They defined a citizen as an adult man who has at least one or two parents who are citizens. Women were considered citizens but only for reproductive and religious purposes, and weren’t able to participate in government. Still this form of government let some people participate in the government which I feel is a big step for this time period.

As France’s financial crisis grew worse and worse, the more the people demanded change. In response, on May 5, 1789, King Louis XVI called the Meeting of the Estates General at the Palace of Versailles, where the First, Second, and Third Estates would discuss this problem. When voting in a meeting, each estate would get one vote. This was known as voting by order. In this system, the Third Estate was constantly outvoted by the First and Second Estate, resulting in an imbalance of power. Seeing this as unfair, the Third Estate demanded that the votes be counted by head, or in other words, each person would have their own vote. However, it was obvious that the king would not even consider changing their system of voting. But a clergyman, Emmanuel

The Royal Family of France’s attempted escape on June 20th, 1791 made many people very unhappy with the King. The mob, ever ready to exercise the uncontrolled Rights of Men, made a mock parade of the King’s Arms in the market places, and, dashing them and the figure of a crown to the ground, they trampled upon them, crying out, “Since the King has abandoned what he owed to his high situation, let us trample upon the ensigns of royalty” (Ascherson 48)! The Royal Family not only lost many of its followers through their attempted escape, but also because King Louis XVI kept making bad decisions, ones that had no benefit to France or its people. The people wanted someone who would lead them into a revolution and change France for the better, not because they wanted the power, but because they believed in France and wanted it to become a great nation. That man was Robespierre, who after the flight of the King followed the Jacobin club in its move toward republicanism. He called for universal male suffrage and the end of property qualifications for voting and office holding (Blumberg 290). Robespierre wanted to make France a republic, a government for the people and by the people, a country where everyone had the freedoms and rights they deserved. In January of 1793, Robespierre voted on whether or not he thought that King Louis should be executed for his actions. At the Convention on the trial

It was the actions of the Paris Parlement that forced Louis XVI to agree to call a meeting of the Estates-General. Explain why you agree or disagree with this view.

The highest group was the First Estate, this was the clergy, the Second Estate was the nobility and the Third Estate was everyone else. The Third Estate included; peasants, merchants, commoners, and anybody that didn't have a family generation of nobility. In the document it says “the population of the third estate was highest and they owned the most land because they did all the works. They also had to pay every cent of the tax money while the Second and Third payed not one penny” (document 2). This type of class division was extremely unfair to the Third Estate, a woman writes “the taxes and laws are crushing us” (document 3). This shows two things, one is that she is in the 3rd estate because she pays taxes and two is that this is not only her that feels this way. So many other people in the society feel this way too. After the death of King, Napoleon was the power. In the document it says “Terror used to execute enemies of the regime” (document 4). This shows that the people feared leaving their homes because they didn't want to be killed by Napoleon. When Napoleon went around killing the “enemies” this was a time called The Reign of Terror. In the document it says “We feared to go out,in case,without realizing it, we committed some transgression...we hardly spoke to anyone, for there were spies everywhere,and we jumped at each knock at the door, fearing arrest” (document 6). So this really did