The "difference" is a matter of circumstance not idealogy.
The uprising of 1776, so the explanation goes, was a gesture of conservatism, in that with the help of "Nature's God" (by which could be meant only the God of the Christians), the "Founding Fathers" responded to tyrannical deviations from English constitutional tradition on the part of King George III and his sycophant Parliament; after their success at attaining independence, they gave us "a Republic, if you can keep it" (Benjamin Franklin). By contrast, continues the explanation, the French Revolution of 1789 was the demonic work of "Illuminated" Jacobins who, full of Voltaire, Rousseau, and the other "enlightened" thinkers whose theories were not worth the paper on which they were written, staged a murderous coup to replace Christianity with the "Goddess Reason," laying waste to people by the thousands before the dictator Napoleon restored "order" — his kind, of course. Usually, in these explanations, the accounts of the French Revolution are reliable: it was a murderous, power-grabbing, anti-Christian affair led by conspirators within the inner circles of Freemasonry, and the political theories it sought to enshrine are essentially worthless heaps of despotic egalitarian humanism.
The problem comes, however, in the claim that the American Revolution has no affinity with the events of 1789. One would never know that from reading American conservatives' accounts of this country's revolution, but that is because of facts that they do not either mention or even consider. In special regard to American Catholics, the myth of 1776-1789 dissimilarity is particularly pertinacious, on account of the fact that they have relied upon it through the generations to escape the stinging condemnations of the liberal ethic that thundered from Papal Encyclicals from about 1832 to 1950. Passing by such superficial likenesses as the fact that republics resulted from both revolutions, we shall concentrate here on the similitude of the guiding principles, which do much to account for the fact that today's America bears a much closer resemblance to 1789 France than it does to the America of 1776.
There is indeed a substantial similarity in the principles behind the two revolutions — both were motivated by the spirit of modern science and "fought and won for freedom and equality," observed the late Allan Bloom, a liberal scholar who supported traditional civic Americanist theory. His explanation makes the obnoxiously anti-Catholic spirit they share in common unmistakably clear.
Modernity is constituted by the political regimes founded on freedom and equality, hence on the consent of the governed, and made possible by a new science of nature that masters and conquers nature, providing prosperity and health. This was a self-conscious philosophical project, the greatest transformation of man's relations with his fellows and with nature ever affected.... [The French Revolution] was fought and won for freedom and equality, as were the English and American revolutions. It would seem to have completed the irresistible triumph of modern philosophy's project and to give a final proof of the theodicy of liberty and equality. (27)
... This project was a conspiracy, as d'Alembert said in the Preliminary Discourse of l'Encyclopédie, the premier document of the Enlightenment. It had to be, for, in order to have rulers who are reasonable, many of the old rulers had to be replaced, in particular all those whose authority rested upon revelation. The priests were the enemies, for they rejected the claim of reason and based politics and morals on sacred text and ecclesiastical authorities. The philosophers appeared to deny the very existence of God, or at least of the Christian God. The old order was founded on Christianity, and free use of reason simply could not be permitted within it, since reason accepts no authority above itself and is necessarily subversive. There was a public struggle for the right to rule; for, in spite of the modest demeanor of the philosophers, they at the very least require rulers who are favorable to them, who have chosen reason. The right to freedom of thought is a political right, and for it to exist, there must be a political order that accepts that right. (28)
... There is practically no contemporary regime that is not somehow a result of Enlightenment, and the best of the modern regimes — liberal democracy — is entirely its product. And throughout the world all men and all regimes are dependent on and recognize the science popularized by the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment inexorably defeated all opponents it targeted at the outset, particularly the priests and all that depends on them, by a long process of education that taught men, as Machiavelli put it, about "the things of this world." One need only read Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, Book V, on education, to see how the reform of universities, particularly the overcoming of the theological influence, was essential to the emergence of modern political economy and the regime founded on it.... The regime of equality and liberty, of the rights of man, is the regime of reason. (29) The "reason" to which Bloom referred is the defied "Reason," divorced from God, enthroned as its own master. Although Bloom wrote nothing about the role of the Masonic Lodges, these were the apostles of "Reason."
The similarity in 1776's and 1789's principles is traceable to their common philosophical ancestor, John Locke: he had a direct impact on the American revolutionaries, and a once-removed effect on the French Revolution via Jean-Jacques Rousseau's theories. Building upon a bogus idea invented by 16th century English theorist Thomas Hobbes, Locke taught that in a "state of nature," men were autonomous and free, a concept fully adopted by Rousseau — and which hardly has a place for God. Bloom explained:
These Columbuses of the mind [Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau] explored the newly discovered territory called the state of nature, where our forefathers all once dwelled, and brought the important news that by nature all men are free and equal, and they have rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. This is the kind of information that causes revolutions because it pulls the magic carpet out from under the feet of kings and nobles. Locke and Rousseau agreed on these basics, which became the firm foundation of modern politics. Where they disagreed, the major conflicts within modernity were to occur. Locke was the great practical success; the new English and American regimes founded themselves according to his instructions. (30)
... Hobbes discovered an isolated individual whose life was "mean, nasty, brutish, and short".... Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau all found that one way or another nature led men to war, and that civil society's purpose was not to cooperate with a natural tendency in man toward perfection but to make peace where nature's imperfection causes war. The reports from the state of nature mixed bad news and good news. Perhaps the most important discovery was that there was no Garden of Eden [i.e. no such thing as Original Sin].... Man was not provided for at the beginning, and his current state is not a result of his sin, but of nature's miserliness. He is on his own. God neither looks after him nor punishes him. Nature's indifference to justice is a terrible bereavement for man.... but it is also a great liberation — from God's tutelage, from the claims of kings, nobles and priests, and from guilt or bad conscience.... And now, possessing the truth, [man] can be even freer to be himself and improve his situation. He can freely make governments that, untrammeled by mythical duties and titles to rule, serve his interests. (31)
"Enlightened" political science pushed God completely aside and declared a new first principle: Reason (and of course, Man who possessed it). Reason was said to be the province of everyone, equally. It was to cut through all the "myths" and concern itself with what "really" concerned man: self-preservation. Nature's notorious stinginess (which is a consequence of Original Sin) tended to impel men to war, but the "Enlightened" philosophers, most especially Locke, claimed to have a better solution: instead of "ganging up" on each other, men should unite to conquer the natural world, and thanks to Modern Science, they actually can. Those who made the greater efforts in this regard would reap the larger rewards — certainly not an un-Catholic idea of itself, but in this context of a supremacist individualism and naked materialism, it becomes one. The anti-Catholic spirit of industrial capitalism is unmasked by Bloom — despite his sympathies in its favor — with these comments:
The old commandment that we love our brothers made impossible demands on us, demands against nature, while doing nothing to provide for real needs. What is required is not brotherly love or faith, hope and charity, but self-interested rational labor.... From the point of view of man's well-being and security, what is needed is not men who practice the Christian virtues or those of Aristotle, but rational (capable of calculating their interest) and industrious men. Their opposite numbers are not the vicious, wicked or sinful, but the quarrelsome and the idle. This may include priests and nobles as well as those who most obviously spring to mind. (32) We see therein a portrait of American cultural "values" induced by capitalism. The "sinners" according to this new standard: those who upset the status quo, especially by questioning its basic principles; those who do not produce material things. Priests, nobles, intellectuals — worthless. That's the American Way.
This capitalistic vision of life, in turn, is the basis of politics. "Government exists," said Bloom in explaining Locke, "to protect the product of men's labor, their property, and therewith life and liberty." This is the origin of the idea of individualistic and natural "rights" which are allegedly antecedent to civil society and the defense of which is said to be the very raison d'être of civil society. We could not have made the point any better than did the late scholar of Chicago: this whole view of rights "is an invention of modern philosophy," (33) that ultimate basis of all self-invented "realities." Furthermore, this notion of rights "is our only principle of justice. From our knowledge of our rights flows our acceptance of the duties to the community that protects them" (34) — the exact reverse of the Catholic idea that rights depend on duties (as was explained earlier). Yet this is the Lockean idea of looking after the common good. Instead of promoting virtue, it is government's place to promote an "enlightened" self-interest that benefits everyone, or at least, most everyone — individually.
Thus far were Rousseau and Locke agreed; (35) they also shared the idea that when men gave up their individual sovereignties in the "social contract," they were subsumed into the community's legislative function (which acted in the name of the people), an act that was irrevocable once done. This was an idea that was adopted by the French revolutionaries but rejected by the Americans, who were not only concerned with regal tyranny but all kinds, including that of legislatures and mobs. Likewise, the Americans were far keener on the Lockean capitalist ethic than were the French, who transferred their centralized, bureaucratic ways from the King to the Assembly (and eventually, the Directory and Napoleon); collectivist "socialism" found a receptive audience in France much sooner than it did over here. Surely, Locke was not the only influence in either revolution — both 1776 and 1789 have other ancestors as well. English constitutionalism and Puritan "covenant theology" seen through Lockean eyes largely account for our uprising, whereas in addition to Locke-Rousseau, the French revolutionaries were inspired by a virulent hatred of Altar and Throne, those twin pillars of Christian society.
We see in the previous lines some clues as to what really made the two revolutions differ, to the extent that there is a difference. The Americans cared for principles only insofar as they had seemingly beneficial practical consequences: thus, they went fully for Locke's capitalism and were slow to realize the full implications of a rhetoric of individual "rights" and "equality." The relative ease of the American Revolution (vis-a-vis the French) is owed simply to the fact that Americans were far more predisposed to a regime based upon "liberty" and "equality" — two concepts that people here were ready for thanks to Protestant individualism. There were no major institutional obstacles to such a regime. Up until the early years of the Revolution, the issue was not so much opposition to "the Crown" as it was against its current occupant --he was seen as an anomaly among English kings in his unusually heavy involvement in colonial affairs. Even when the American attitude turned against monarchy in principle, though, the impact therefrom was blunted by the fact that this was a case of a colony severing its allegiance to a king several thousand miles away.
More significantly, there was no Altar to overthrow in America — established Protestant religions are comparatively lightweight affairs, since any of them truly are just as "good" as any of the others, and also since the only hope for American national consensus lay in religious liberty. But do not think that the dispositions against the Altar were not there — they most certainly were. Any number of quotations of John Adams (the "Atlas of Independence") or Thomas Jefferson can be used to support this point. Furthermore, any good history of the American Revolution will explain that one reason why the Quebec Act of 1774 was considered one of the "Intolerable Acts" was that it granted to Catholics in Canada an exemption from the Penal Laws — which drove the already rabble-rousing New Englanders to fury. Official letters of the First Continental Congress to George III and to "the People of England," written by John Jay on October 21, 1774, openly deplored this provision. (Curiously, when this Act was cited as one of the grievances against George III in the Declaration of Independence, this aspect of it was not mentioned.) The reason why American rhetoric against Catholics cooled down after 1776 was that the revolutionaries were desperate for aid and had hopes of getting it from France's King Louis XVI, which they did. (For which service, he was "rewarded" with his own deposition and execution.)
On the part of the French revolutionaries, they had to completely destroy and reinvent the social order if they were to establish a liberal egalitarian regime in hitherto-Catholic France: hence the all-out war against Altar, Throne, and the nobility. Indeed, the "ease" of 1776 compared to the torture of 1789 is itself a telling sign of what kind of culture, Catholic or Protestant, best disposes for a liberal social order. Not only did the devils of 1789 have to totally reinvent society, their French penchant for the rigorous following-through of principles to their logical consequences made sure that they would lose no time in carrying their new ideas to extremes. Their view of individual liberty, while not perfectly following the Lockean-American model, was nevertheless truly radical in that the 1789 revolt was not just against Throne and Altar, but explicitly against God Himself, the Source and quintessence of authority. "Equality," too, was most rigorously applied: by 1840, Alexis de Tocqueville could observe that in Europe (where all revolutions followed the 1789 model), there were already people who were advocating the extreme kind of feminism that only in the last generation has become prominent in this country. (36) (The third buzzword of the French Revolution, "Fraternity," though, is an interesting anachronism, in that it reflects a uniquely Christian concept while denying the common Fatherhood of God.)
About the French Revolution, though, the central point to remember is this: because of the logical rigor of the French, little time was necessary to enable a true perspective on a society run under liberal principles. In all their ugly squalor, the fruits of liberalism were visible: mob anarchy, cutthroat competition, and a murderous suppression of the truth. Extreme individualism gave way to Robespierre and Napoleon. It is a picture of what has admittedly taken some time for America to become — but become it has: even in America, logic has to win out sometime. Nobody knows about English common law or Puritan "covenant theology" anymore. Hardly anyone believes nowadays that "separation of Church and State" merely refers to the lack of a formal State alliance with a religious group. The young generation of today understands "liberty" as "the freedom to do as I damn $#!@ing please," period — the "rights" of others simply don't enter into the equation. And people are rapidly losing belief that "equality" has its limitations, given the acceptance of women in the military, "househusbands," professed sodomites with their TV comedy programs, and — lest we forget — "the People's Princess," Disco Di, the only royalty Americans (and other moderns) can really relate to.
So the American Revolution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789 are much more closely kin than American conservatives, especially the Catholics among them, are given to believe. Whatever their other influences, they share the same dubious ancestry of John Locke's political philosophy, which is a most significant factor in the mentality of both revolutions. Particular circumstances differed between the two, but behind each one was the same assumption about the "state of nature," in which men were free, equal, and only interested in earthly survival (all else being myth). To improve the prospects of comfortable living, men form governments that exist to protect antecedent individual "rights" and promote their concept of the "common good" through "enlightened" self-interest. The Catholics, Puritans, and other religiously-minded American Revolutionaries did not share in the Locke theory's godlessness, but there were enough of his ideas with which they did agree to get them to sign onto a revolution that sang the same tune of "liberty," "equality," and the "rights of man," that was taken up by the bloodthirsty Jacobin-led mobs in France in 1789 and, after some 200 years, has produced like results.
A Catholic Response to Certain Myths of Civic Americanism You've been suckered by revisionist history.
Thank you for the aritcle, which I will have to read later. However, the Enlightenment was not entirely bad. It brought many benefits in terms of human and civil rights and freedoms. I'm sorry if you think those things in general to be bad things. And obviously one can see from the effects that the American and French Revolutions were completely different. The first did not result in the persecutions of Catholics and was relatively non-violent, whereas the latter did and was violent. The former established a stable and flourishing constitutional republic that has lasted to this day. France had an unstable series of regimes throughout the 19th Century and still to this day, while finally having settled down to a stable democratic constitution, has a troublesome history of state involvement and management of the Church in a fairly anti-Catholic way. I've always held against Jefferson that he was so enthusiastic about the French Revolution, sharing my fellow New Englander John Adams' dismay at the violence and immorality thereof. But Jefferson did not entirely have his way, and he was more moderate in power than out. I think it is incontrovertible that there were fundamental differences between the two revolutions, and I certainly would not condemn our glorious constitution because of the evils of the French. I just cannot believe the fact that sane Americans, having witnessed in the last century the evils of fascism and communism and having enjoyed the benefits of our peaceful, free and prosperous society, reject the United States constitution and the American Revolution. Frankly, I would have to say that such is not a conservative position in the American context, but rather an extreme radical position.