Encyclopedia of the age of political revolutions and new ideologies, 1760-1815 vol 2 M-Z

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS AND NEW IDEOLOGIES, 1760–1815 Volume 2 Edited by Gregory Fremont -Barnes

Greenwood Press Westport, Connecticut • London

M–Z

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of the age of political revolutions and new ideologies, 1760 –1815 / edited by Gregory Fremont-Barnes. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978–0–313–33445–0 (set : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0–313–33445–5 (set : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978–0–313–33446–7 (v.1 : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0–313–33446–3 (v.1 : alk. paper) [etc.] 1. World politics—To 1900—Encyclopedias. 2. Europe—Politics and government—18th century—Encyclopedias. 3. Europe—Politics and government—1789 –1815—Encyclopedias. 4. Revolutions—History— Encyclopedias. 5. Antislavery movements—History—Encyclopedias. I. Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. D295.E53 2007 909.703—dc22 2007018269 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2007 by Gregory Fremont-Barnes All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007018269 ISBN-13: 978 – 0 –313 –33445 – 0 (set) ISBN-10: 0 –313 –33445 –5 ISBN-13: 978 – 0 –313 –33446 –7 (vol. 1) ISBN-10: 0 –313 –33446 –3 ISBN-13: 978 –0 –313 –33447– 4 (vol. 2) ISBN-10: 0 –313 –33447–1 First published in 2007 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America

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CONTENTS

Volume 1 Foreword Preface Acknowledgments

ix xiii xv

Introduction

xvii

List of Entries

xxi

List of Primary Documents

xxvii

Guide to Related Topics

xxix

Chronology for the Age of Political Revolutions and New Ideologies, 1760 –1815 Maps

The Encyclopedia, A–L

xxxvii xliii

1–438

Volume 2 List of Entries List of Primary Documents Guide to Related Topics Maps

The Encyclopedia, M–Z

vii xiii xv xxiii

439–784

vi

Contents

Primary Documents

785

Bibliography

815

About the Editor and Contributors

835

Index

839

LIST OF ENTRIES

Abolitionists Abolition of the Catholic Cult Abolition of the Monarchy (France) L’Accusateur Public Adams, Abigail (1744 –1818) Adams, John (1735 –1826) Adams, Samuel (1722–1803) Administration of Justice Act (1774) Africa, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on Albany Plan of Union (1754) Alexander I, Tsar of Russia (1777–1825) American Revolution (1775 –1783) American Revolutionary War (1775 –1781) Amis de la Constitution, Société des (1789 –1792) Anarchists Ancien Régime Anti-Clericalism Anti-Jacobin Les Arbres de la Liberté Articles of Confederation (1781–1789) Artois, Charles Philippe de Bourbon, Comte d’ (1757–1836) Assembly of Notables Assembly of the Known and Verifiable Representatives of the French Nation Association of the Friends of the People (1792–1795) Austria L’Autel de la Patrie Babeuf, François-Noel (1760 –1797) Barère de Vieuzac, Bertrand (1755 –1841) Barnave, Antoine (1761–1793)

Barras, Paul-François-Nicolas, Vicomte de (1755 –1829) Barré, Isaac (1726 –1802) Bastille, Fall of the (1789) Batavian Republic (1795 –1806) Belgium Bertier de Sauvigny, Louis-Benige-François (1737–1789) Bertrand de Moleville, Antoine François, Marquis de (1744 –1818) Billaud-Varenne, Jacques Nicholas (1756 –1819) Bill of Rights (United States) Blackstone, Sir William (1723 –1780) Bland, Richard (1710 –1776) Boissy d’Anglas, François Antoine de, Comte (1756 –1826) Bolívar, Simón (1783 –1830) Bonald, Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de (1754 –1840) Boston Massacre (1770) Boston Port Act (1774) Boston Tea Party (1773) Brissot de Warville, Jean-Pierre (1754 –1793) Brissotins Britain Brumaire, Coup d’Etat de (1799) Bull, William (1710 –1791) Burke, Edmund (1729 –1797) Butler, John (1728 –1796) Buzot, François Nicolas Léonard (1760 –1794) Cachet, Lettres de Cadoudal, Georges (1771–1804)

viii

List of Entries

Cahiers de Doléances Calendar, French Revolutionary Cambacérès, Jean-Jacques-Régis de (1753 –1824) Cambon, Pierre-Joseph (1756 –1820) Campbell, Lord William (d. 1778) Camp de Jalès, Conspiracy of the Camus, Armand Gaston (1740 –1804) Canada Carnot, Lazare (1753 –1823) Carrier, Jean-Baptiste (1756 –1794) Carroll, Charles (1737–1832) Cartwright, John (1740 –1824) Catherine II (the Great), Empress of Russia (1729 –1796) Chapelier’s Law (1791) Chase, Samuel (1741–1811) Chatham, Pitt, William (the Elder), Earl of (1708 –1778) Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard (1763 –1794) Chénier, Marie-Joseph-Blaise (1764 –1811) La Chouannerie (1793 –1796) Chouans Church, Benjamin (1734 –1776) Cisalpine Republic (1797–1802) Citizen Citizenship Civic Oaths Civil Code Civil Constitution of the Clergy Cobbett, William (1763 –1835) Cockades Coercive Acts (1774) Collot d’Herbois, Jean Marie (1749 –1796) Combination Acts (1799 and 1800) Committee of Public Safety (1793 –1795) Committee of Secret Correspondence (1775) Committees of Correspondence Common Sense (Paine, 1776) Compagnie de Jésus ou du Soleil Concordat (1801) Condorcet, Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de (1743 –1794) Congress (United States) Connecticut Connolly, John (1750 – c. 1798) Constituent Assembly Constitutional Convention (United States, 1787) Constitutions, American State Constitutions, French Revolutionary Consulate (1799 –1804)

Continental Army Continental Association (1774) Continental Congress, First (1774) Continental Congress, Second (1775 –1789) Corday d’Armont, Marie Anne Charlotte (1768–1793) Cordeliers Club Council of Five Hundred Couthon, Georges Auguste (1755 –1794) Crèvecœur, Michel-Guillaume Jean de (1735 –1813) Currency Act (1764) Danton, Georges-Jacques (1759 –1794) David, Jacques-Louis (1748–1825) Declaration of Independence (1776) Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms (1775) Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) Declaratory Act (1766) Le Défenseur de la Constitution (1792) Desmoulins, Camille (1760 –1794) Dickinson, John (1732–1808) Diderot, Denis (1713 –1784) The Directory (1795 –1799) Drayton, William Henry (1742–1779) Duane, James (1733 –1797) Ducos, Pierre-Roger (1747–1816) Duer, William (1743 –1799) Dulany, Daniel, Jr. (1722–1797) Du Pont de Nemours, Pierre Samuel (1739 –1817) Duport, Adrien (1759 –1798) Dutch Revolutions (1780 –1848) Dyer, Eliphalet (1721–1807) Eden, Sir Robert (1741–1784) Edict of Versailles (1787) Ellery, William (1727–1820) Emigrés L’Encyclopédie (Diderot and d’Alembert, 1751–1765) Enghien, Louis-Antoine-Henri de BourbonCondé, Duc d’ (1772–1804) English Militia Act (1757) Enlightenment Equality Estates-General Etranger, Conspiration de l’ (1793 –1794) The Federalist Papers (Hamilton, Madison, and Jay; 1787–1788) Fête de l’Etre Suprême (1794) Feuillants

List of Entries

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1762–1814) Fiefs First Consul First Estate Fitzgerald, Lord Edward (1763 –1798) Flood, Henry (1732–1791) Fouché, Joseph (1763 –1820) Fouquier-Tinville, Antoine Quentin (1746 –1795) Fox, Charles James (1749 –1806) France Francis II, Emperor of Austria (1768–1835) Franco-American Alliance (1778) Franklin, Benjamin (1706 –1790) Franklin, William (1731–1813) Frederick II (the Great), King of Prussia (1712–1786) French Revolution (1787–1799) French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) Fréron, Louis-Stanislas (1754 –1802) Gage, Thomas (1720 –1787) Gallicanism Galloway, Joseph (c. 1731–1803) Genet, Edmond Charles Edouard (1763 –1834) Gens de Couleur Gensonné, Armand (1758 –1793) George III, King of Great Britain (1738–1820) Georgia Germain, Lord George (1716 –1785) Girondins Goddard, Mary Katherine (1738–1816) Godwin, William (1756 –1836) Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749 –1832) Golden Hill, Riot at (1770) La Grande Chambre Grattan, Henry (1746 –1820) Grégoire, Henri (1750 –1831) Guadeloupe Guadet, Marguerite-Elie (1755 –1794) Guillotin, Joseph-Ignace (1738–1814) Guillotine Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) Hamilton, Alexander (1755 –1804) Hancock, John (1737–1793) Hanriot, François (1761–1794) Hébert, Jacques (1757–1794) Hébertistes Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770 –1831) Henry, Patrick (1736 –1799)

Hérault de Séchelles, Marie Jean (1759 –1794) Hidalgo y Costilla, Miguel (1753 –1811) Hispaniola Holbach, Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron d’ (1723 –1789) Hopkins, Stephen (1707–1785) Hopkinson, Francis (1739 –1791) Hôtel des Invalides Hôtel de Ville de Paris House of Representatives (United States) Hume, David (1711–1776) Huntington, Samuel (1731–1796) Hutchinson, Thomas (1711–1780) Idéologues Impartiaux, Club des India Ireland Isnard, Henri Maximin (1758–1825) Italy Jacobins Jamaica Jansenism Jay, John (1745 –1829) Jeanbon Saint-André, André (1749 –1813) Jefferson, Thomas (1743 –1826) Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (1741–1790) Josephine, Empress of France (1763 –1814) Journées Juries Kant, Immanuel (1724 –1804) Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich (1766 –1826) Kentucky King, Rufus (1755 –1827) Lacombe, Claire, (1765 –c. 1798) Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de (1757–1834) La Lanterne Lally-Tollendal, Trophime-Gérard, Marquis de (1751–1830) Lameth, Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, Comte de (1760 –1829) Lanjuinais, Jean Denis, Comte de (1753 –1827) La Rochejaquelein, Henri Du Vergier, Comte de (1772–1794) Latin American Revolutions Law of Hostages (1799) Law of Suspects (1793) Law of 22 Prairial (1794)

ix

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List of Entries

Lebrun, Charles-François, Duc de Plaisance (1739 –1824) Le Chapelier, Isaac-René-Gui (1754 –1794) Lee, Arthur (1740 –1792) Lee, Richard Henry (1732–1794) Legislative Assembly (1791–1792) Léon, Pauline (fl. 1793 –1794) Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (1747–1792) Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, Louis Michel (1760 –1793) Lèse-Nation, Crime de Lessart, Claude Antoine de Valdec de (1742–1792) Levée en Masse Lexington and Concord, Actions at (1775) Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity Lindet, Jean-Baptiste Robert (1746 –1825) Lindet, Robert-Thomas (1743 –1823) Linguet, Simon-Nicolas Henri (1736 –1794) Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of (1770 –1828) Livingston, Philip (1716 –1778) Livingston, William (1723 –1790) Locke, John (1632–1704) Loménie de Brienne, Etienne Charles (1727–1794) London Corresponding Society (LCS) (1792–1799) London Revolution Society Louis XVI, King of France (1754 –1793) Louis XVII, King of France (1785 –1795) Louis XVIII, King of France (1755 –1824) Louvet de Couvray, Jean-Baptiste (1760 –1797) Lovell, James (1737–1814) Lowndes, Rawlins (1721–1800) Loyalists Mackintosh, Sir James (1765 –1832) Madison, James (1751–1836) Maillard, Stanislas Marie (1763 –1794) Mainmorte Malesherbes, Chrétien Guillaume de Lamoignon de (1721–1794) Mallet du Pan, Jacques (1749 –1800) Malouet, Pierre Victor (1740 –1814) Marat, Jean-Paul (1742–1793) Marie Antoinette, Queen of France (1755 –1793) Martin, Josiah (1737–1786) Maryland Mason, George (1725 –1792)

Massachusetts Massachusetts Government Act (1774) Maury, Jean-Sifrin (1746 –1817) Maximum McKean, Thomas (1734 –1817) McKinly, John (1721–1796) Mecklenburg Declaration (1775) Méricourt, Anne-Josèphe Théroigne de (1762–1817) Merlin, Philippe-Antoine, Comte (1754 –1838) Merlin “de Thionville,” Antoine Christophe (1762–1833) Metternich, Klemens von (1773 –1859) Mexican Revolution (1810) Michaud, Joseph François (1767–1839) Mirabeau, Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de (1749 –1791) Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de le Brede et de (1689 –1755) Montmorin de Saint Hérem, Armand Marc, Comte de (1745 –1792) Morris, Gouverneur (1752–1816) Mounier, Jean Joseph (1758 –1806) The Mountain Muir, Thomas (1765 –1799) Murray, David, Earl of Mansfield (1727–1796) Murray, John, Earl of Dunmore (1732–1809) Murray, Judith Sargent (1781–1820) Naples, Kingdom of Napoleon I (1769 –1821) Napoleonic Wars (1803 –1815) National Assembly National Convention (1792–1795) National Guard Nationalism Navigation Acts Necker, Jacques (1732–1804) Nelson, Thomas, Jr. (1738 –1789) Netherlands, United Kingdom of the New England Restraining Act (1775) New Hampshire New Jersey New York Newspapers (American) Newspapers (French) Nobility Non - Importation Acts North, Frederick North, Lord (1732–1792) North Carolina

List of Entries

The Northwest Notables October Days (1789) Ogden, James (1718–1802) Olive Branch Petition (1775) Orange, Commission of (1794) Orléans, Louis Philippe Joseph, Duc d’ (1747–1793) Ottoman Empire, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on Owen, Robert (1771–1858) Paca, William (1740 –1799) Paine, Robert Treat (1731–1814) Paine, Thomas (1737–1809) Pamphlets (American) Pamphlets (French) Paoli, Pasquale (1725 –1807) Papacy Parlements Parliament Parthenopean Republic (1799) Paterson, William (1745 –1806) Patrie en Danger Patriotism Peltier, Jean-Gabriel (1765 –1825) Pennsylvania Pétion de Villeneuve, Jérôme (1756 –1793) Philosophes Physiocrats Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth (1746 –1825) Pinckney, Thomas (1750 –1828) Pitt, William (the Younger) (1759 –1806) Pius VI, Pope (1717–1799) Pius VII, Pope (1742–1823) The Plain Poland, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on Poland, Partitions of (1772, 1793, 1795) Polish Constitution (1791) Polish Revolts (1768–1772, 1794) Political Clubs (French) Pownall, Thomas (1772–1805) Prairial Insurrection (1795) Price, Richard (1723 –1791) Priestley, Joseph (1733 –1804) Prieur de la Marne (1756 –1827) Primary Assemblies Privileges Proclamation of 1763 Prohibitory Act (1775) Prussia and Germany, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on

Pugachev Rebellion (1773 –1775) Quartering Act (1765) Quebec Act (1774) Quincy, Josiah (1744 –1775) Rabaut de Saint Etienne, Jean Paul (1743 –1793) Randolph, Edmund (1753 –1813) Randolph, Peyton (1721–1775) Rankin, William (1745 –1830) Reign of Terror (1793 –1794) Religion Representatives on Mission Republicanism Revenue Act (1766) Revere, Paul (1735 –1818) Revolutionary Committees of the French Revolution Revolutionary Tribunals Rhode Island Rivington, James (1724 –1802) Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore (1758–1794) Rockingham, Watson-Wentworth, Charles, Marquess of (1730 –1782) Roland, Marie-Jeanne Philipon (1754 –1793) Roland de la Platière, Jean Marie (1734 –1793) Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778) Royer-Collard, Pierre-Paul (1763 –1845) Rule of Law Rush, Benjamin (1746 –1813) Russia, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on Rutledge, Edward (1749 –1800) Rutledge, John (1739 –1800) Saint-Just, Louis Antoine Léon Florelle de (1767–1794) Saint-Simonism Salons San Martín, José de (1778 –1850) Sans-Culottes Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von (1759 –1805) Seabury, Samuel (1729 –1796) Second Estate Senate September Massacres (1792) Sherman, Roger (1721–1793) Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph, Abbé (1748 –1833) Signers of the Declaration of Independence Slavery and the Slave Trade

xi

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List of Entries

Smith, Adam (1723 –1790) Smith, William (1727–1803) Smith, William (1728 –1793) Society of United Irishmen Solemn League and Covenant (1774) Sons of Liberty South Carolina Spain Spence, Thomas (1750 –1814) Staël, Anne-Louise Germaine Necker, Madame de (1766 –1817) Stamp Act (1765) Stamp Act Congress (1765) Stockton, Richard (1730 –1781) Suffolk Resolves (1774) Suffrage (American) Suffrage (French) Sugar Act (1764) Supreme Court (United States) Symbols (American Revolutionary) Symbols (French Revolutionary) Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles Maurice de (1745 –1838) Tallien, Jean Lambert (1767–1820) Tea Act (1773) Tennis Court Oath (1789) Thermidorian Reaction (1794) Thermidorians Third Estate Tocqueville, Alexis de (1805 –1859) Tone, Theobald Wolfe (1763 –1798) Tories Toussaint l’Ouverture (1743 –1803) Townshend, Charles (1725 –1767)

Townshend Acts (1767) Trumbull, Jonathan (1710 –1785) Tryon, William (1729 –1788) Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, Baron de L’Aulne (1727–1781) Ultramontanism Ultras United States Constitution Valmy, Battle of (1792) Varennes, Flight to (1791) Vendéan Rebellion (1793 –1796) Vendémiaire, Rising of (1795) Vergennes, Gravier, Charles, Comte de (1719 –1787) Vergniaud, Pierre-Victurnien (1753 –1793) Vienna, Congress of (1814 –1815) Virginia Virginia Resolves (1765) Voltaire, François Marie (1694 –1778) Washington, George (1732–1799) Waterloo, Battle of (1815) Whigs White Terror (1815 –1816) Wilberforce, William (1759 –1833) Wilkes, John (1725 –1797) Wilson, James (1742–1798) Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759 –1797) Women (American) Women (French) Wright, James (1716 –1785) Wyvill, Christopher (1738–1822) Yates, Abraham (1724 –1796) Yorktown, Siege of (1781) Young, Thomas (1731–1777)

LIST OF PRIMARY DOCUMENTS

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Currency Act (April 19, 1764) Declaratory Act (March 18, 1766) Association of the Sons of Liberty (New York, December 15, 1773) Circular Letter of the Boston Committee of Correspondence (May 13, 1774) Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress (October 14, 1774) Articles of Confederation (March 1, 1781) Tennis Court Oath ( June 20, 1789) Fourth of August Decrees (August 4, 1789) Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 26, 1789) Decree on the Church (November 2, 1789) Decree Abolishing Hereditary Nobility and Titles ( June 19, 1790) Decree for Reorganizing the Judicial System (August 16, 1790) Decree for the Maintenance of Public Order ( June 21, 1791) Decree Upon the Oath of Allegiance ( June 22, 1791) The King’s Acceptance of the Constitution (September 13, 1791) Brunswick Manifesto ( July 25, 1792) Decree for Suspending the King (August 10, 1792) Decree for the Levée en Masse (August 23, 1793) Law of Suspects (September 17, 1793) Decree upon Religious Toleration (December 8, 1793; 18 Frimaire, Year II)

GUIDE TO RELATED TOPICS

Austria Austria Francis II Joseph II Leopold II Metternich, Clemens Lothar Wenzel, Count

Battles Lexington and Concord, Actions at Valmy, Battle of Waterloo, Battle of Yorktown, Capitulation at

Britain and Ireland Association of the Friends of the People Barré, Isaac Blackstone, Sir William Britain Burke, Edmund Chatham, Pitt, William (the Elder), Earl of Cobbett, William Eden, Sir Robert Emmet, Robert Enlightenment Fitzgerald, Lord Edward Flood, Henry Fox, Charles James Gage, Thomas Germain, Lord George Grattan, Henry Hume, David India

Juries Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Locke, John London Corresponding Society London Revolution Society Lowndes, Rawlins Mackintosh, Sir James Muir, Thomas Murray, David, Earl of Mansfield Murray, John, Earl of Dunmore Navigation Acts North, Frederick North, Lord Owen, Robert Paine, Thomas Parliament Pitt, William (the Younger) Rockingham, Watson-Wentworth, Charles, Marquess of Smith, Adam Society of United Irishmen Tone, Theobald Wolfe Tories Whigs Wilberforce, William Wilkes, John Wollstonecraft, Mary

Colonial America / United States Adams, Abigail Adams, John Adams, Samuel Administration of Justice Act Albany Plan of Union American Revolution

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Guide to Related Topics

Bland, Richard Boston Massacre Boston Port Act Boston Tea Party Bull, William Butler, John Campbell, Lord William Carroll, Charles Cartwright, John Chase, Samuel Church, Benjamin Coercive Acts Combination Acts Committee of Secret Correspondence Committees of Correspondence Common Sense (Paine) Connolly, John Constitutions, American State Continental Army Continental Association Continental Congress, First Continental Congress, Second Currency Act Declaration of Independence Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms Declaratory Act Dickinson, John Drayton, William Henry Duane, James Duer, William Dulany, Daniel, Jr. Dyer, Eliphalet Eden, Robert Ellery, William English Militia Act The Federalist Papers Franco-American Alliance Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, William Gage, Thomas Galloway, Joseph George III Georgia Germain, Lord George Goddard, Mary Katherine Godwin, William Golden Hill, Riot at Hamilton, Alexander Hancock, John Henry, Patrick Hopkins, Stephen

Hopkinson, Francis Huntington, Samuel Hutchinson, Thomas Jay, John Jefferson, Thomas Juries King, Rufus Lee, Arthur Lee, Richard Henry Livingston, Philip Livingston, William Lovell, James Lowndes, Rawlins Loyalists Madison, James Martin, Josiah Maryland Mason, George Massachusetts Massachusetts Government Act McKean, Thomas McKinly, John Mecklenburg Declaration Morris, Gouverneur Murray, David, Earl of Mansfield Murray, John, Earl of Dunmore Murray, Judith Sargent Nelson, Thomas New England Restraining Act New Hampshire New Jersey New York Newspapers (American) Non-Importation Acts North, Frederick North, Lord The Northwest Ogden, James Olive Branch Petition Paca, William Paine, Robert Treat Paine, Thomas Pamphlets (American) Parliament Paterson, William Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Thomas Pownall, Thomas Price, Richard Priestley, Joseph Proclamation of 1763 Prohibitory Act Quartering Act

Guide to Related Topics

Quebec Act Quincy, Josiah Randolph, Edmund Randolph, Peyton Rankin, William Revenue Act Revere, Paul Rivington, James Rush, Benjamin Rutledge, Edward Rutledge, John Seabury, Samuel Sherman, Roger Signers of the Declaration of Independence Smith, William (1727–1803) Smith, William (1728–1793) Solemn League and Covenant Sons of Liberty South Carolina Spence, Thomas Stamp Act Stamp Act Congress Stockton, Richard Suffolk Resolves Suffrage (American) Sugar Act Symbols (American Revolutionary) Tea Act Townshend, Charles Townshend Acts Trumbull, Jonathan Tryon, William Virginia Virginia Resolves Washington, George Wilson, James Women (American) Wright, James Wyvill, Christopher Yates, Abraham Young, Thomas

France Abolition of the Catholic Cult Abolition of the Monarchy L’Accusateur Public Amis de la Constitution, Société des Anarchists Ancien Régime Anti-Clericalism Anti-Jacobin

Les Arbres de la Liberté Artois, Charles Philippe de Bourbon, Comte d’ Assembly of Notables Assembly of the Known and Verifiable Representatives of the French Nation L’Autel de la Patrie Babeuf, François-Noel Barère de Vieuzac, Bertrand Barnave, Antoine Barras, Paul-François-Nicolas, Vicomte de Bastille, Fall of the Bertier de Sauvigny Louis-Benige-François Bertrand de Moleville, Antoine François, Marquis de Billaud-Varenne, Jacques Nicolas Boissy d’Anglas, François Antoine de, Comte Bonald, Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de Brissot de Warville, Jean-Pierre Brissotins Brumaire, Coup d’Etat de Buzot, François Nicolas Léonard Cachet, Lettres de Cadoudal, Georges Cahiers de Doléances Calendar, French Revolutionary Cambacérès, Jean-Jacques-Régis de Cambon, Pierre-Joseph Camp de Jalès, Conspiracy of the Camus, Armand Gaston Carnot, Lazare Carrier, Jean-Baptiste Chapelier’s Law Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard Chénier, Marie-Joseph-Blaise La Chouannerie Chouans Citizen Civic Oaths Civil Code Civil Constitution of the Clergy Clubs (French) Cockades Collot d’Herbois, Jean Marie Compagnie de Jésus ou du Soleil Concordat Condorcet, Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Committee of Public Safety Constituent Assembly

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Guide to Related Topics

Constitutions, French Revolutionary Consulate Corday d’Armont, Marie Anne Charlotte Cordeliers Club Council of Five Hundred Couthon, Georges Auguste Crèvecœur, Michel-Guillaume Jean de Danton, Georges-Jacques David, Jacques-Louis Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen Le Défenseur de la Constitution Desmoulins, Camille The Directory Ducos, Pierre-Roger Du Pont de Nemours, Pierre Samuel Duport, Adrien Edict of Versailles Emigrés L’ Encyclopédie Enghien, Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon-Condé, Duc d’ Enlightenment Estates-General Etranger, Conspiration de l’ Fête de l’Etre Suprême Feuillants Fiefs First Consul First Estate Fouché, Joseph Fouquier -Tinville, Antoine Quentin French Revolution Fréron, Louis-Stanislas Genet, Edmond Charles Edouard Gens de Couleur Gensonné, Armand Girondins La Grande Chambre Grégoire, Henri Guadet, Marguerite-Elie Guillotin, Joseph-Ignace Guillotine Hanriot, François Hébert, Jacques Hébertistes Hérault de Séchelles, Marie Jean Hostages, Law of Hôtel des Invalides Hôtel de Ville de Paris Idéologues Impartiaux, Club des

Isnard, Henri Maximin Jacobins Jeanbon, Saint-André, André Journées Lacombe, Claire Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Lanterne Lally-Tollendal, Tromphime-Gérard, Marquis de Lameth, Alexandre-Theodor-Victor, Comte de Lanjuinais, Jean Denis, Comte de La Rochejaquelein, Henri Du Vergier, Comte de Law of Suspects Law of 22 Prairial Lebrun, Charles-François, Duc de Plaisance Le Chapelier, Isaac-René-Gui Legislative Assembly Léon, Pauline Lepelletier de Saint Fargeau, Louis Michel Lèse-Nation, Crime de Lessart, Claude Antoine de Valdec de Levée en Masse Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity Lindet, Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet, Robert-Thomas Linguet, Simon-Nicolas Henri Loménie de Brienne, Etienne Charles de Louis XVI Louis XVII Louis XVIII Louvet de Couvray, Jean-Baptiste Maillard, Stanislas Marie Mainmorte Malesherbes, Chrétien-Guillaume de Lamoignon de Mallet du Pan, Jacques Malouet, Pierre Victor Marat, Jean-Paul Marie Antoinette Maury, Jean-Sifrin Maximum Méricourt, Ann Josèphe Théroigne de Merlin, Philippe-Antoine, Comte Merlin “de Thionville,” Antoine Christophe Michaud, Joseph François Mirabeau, Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de le Brede et de

Guide to Related Topics

Montmorin de Saint Hérem, Armand Marc, Comte de Mounier, Jean Joseph The Mountain Napoleon I National Assembly National Convention National Guard Necker, Jacques Newspapers (French) Nobility Notables October Days Orange, Commission of Orléans, Louis Philippe, Joseph, Duc d’ Pamphlets (French) Parlements Patrie en Dange r Peltier, Jean-Gabriel Pétion de Villeneuve, Jérôme Philosophes Physiocrats The Plain Prairial Insurrection Prieur de la Marne Primary Assemblies Privileges Rabaut de Saint Etienne, Jean Paul Reign of Terror Representatives on Mission Republicanism Revolutionary Committees of the French Revolution Revolutionary Tribunals Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Roland, Marie-Jeanne Philipon Roland de la Platière, Jean Marie Royer-Collard, Pierre-Paul Saint-Just, Louis Antoine Léon Florelle de Saint-Simonism Salons Sans-Culottes Second Estate September Massacres Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph, Abbé Staël, Anne-Louis Germaine Necker, Madame de Suffrage (French) Symbols (French Revolutionary) Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles Maurice de Tallien, Jean Lambert

Tennis Court Oath Thermidorian Reaction Thermidorians Third Estate Tocqueville, Alexis de Toussaint l’Ouverture Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, Baron de L’Aulne Ultramontanism Ultras Valmy, Battle of Varennes, Flight to Vendéan Rebellion Vendémiaire, Rising of Vergennes, Gravier, Charles, Comte de Vergniaud, Pierre -Victurnien White Terror Women (French)

Legislation: Colonial America Administration of Justice Act Coercive Acts Combination Acts Currency Act Declaratory Act English Militia Act Massachusetts Government Act Navigation Acts Non-Importation Acts Prohibitory Act Quartering Act Quebec Act Revenue Act Stamp Act Townshend Acts

National Leaders Alexander I, Tsar of Russia Bolívar, Simón Catherine II (the Great), Empress of Russia Chatham, Pitt, William (the Elder), Earl of Francis II Frederick II (the Great), King of Prussia George III Joseph II, Emperor Josephine, Empress Leopold II, Emperor Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of Louis XVI Louis XVIII Marie Antoinette Napoleon I

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North, Frederick North, Lord Rockingham, Watson-Wentworth, Charles, Marquess of Washington, George

Nations and Regions Africa, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on Austria Batavian Republic Belgium Britain Canada Cisalpine Republic France Guadeloupe Hispaniola India Ireland Italy, Impact of Revolutionary Ideas on Jamaica Naples, Kingdom of Netherlands, United Kingdom of the Ottoman Empire, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on Parthenopean Republic Poland, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on Poland, Partitions of Polish Constitution Polish Revolts Prussia and Germany, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on Russia, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on Spain, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on

Poland Poland, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on Poland, Partitions of Polish Constitution Polish Revolts

Political Institutions, Parties, Clubs, and Factions Articles of Confederation Assembly of Notables Assembly of the Known and Verifiable Representatives of the French Nation Bill of Rights (United States) Brissotins Clubs (French)

Committee of Public Safety Congress, United States Constituent Assembly Constitutional Convention Constitutions, American State Consulate Continental Congress, First Continental Congress, Second Council of Five Hundred The Directory Estates-General Feuillants First Estate Girondins House of Representatives Idéologues Jacobins Legislative Assembly The Mountain National Assembly National Convention Parlements Parliament The Plain Primary Assemblies Revolutionary Committees of the French Revolution Revolutionary Tribunals Sans-Culottes Second Estate Senate Supreme Court (United States) Thermidorians Third Estate Tories Ultras United States Constitution Whigs

Political Thought, Concepts, and Thinkers Anarchists Anti-Clericalism Blackstone, Sir William Burke, Edmund Citizen Citizenship Diderot, Denis L’Encyclopédie Enlightenment Equality Gallicanism

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Holbach, Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron d’ Hume, David Idéologues Jansenism Kant, Immanuel Locke, John Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de le Brede et de Nationalism Patriotism Philosophes Physiocrats Republicanism Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Rule of Law Saint-Simonism Suffrage (American) Suffrage (French) Tocqueville, Alexis de Ultramontanism Voltaire, François Marie

Revolutions and Revolutionaries (Other than France and America) Bolívar, Simón Dutch Revolution Haitian Revolution Hidalgo y Costilla, Miguel Latin American Revolutions Mexican Revolution Paoli, Pasquale Pugachev Rebellion San Martín, José de

Russia Alexander I, Tsar of Russia Catherine II, Empress Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich Pugachev Rebellion Russia, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on

Slavery Prussia and Germany Fichte, Johann Gottlieb Frederick II (the Great) Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Holbach, Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron d’ Kant, Immanuel Prussia and Germany, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von

Religion and Religious Affairs Abolition of the Catholic Cult Anti-Clericalism Civil Constitution of the Clergy Concordat Fête de l’Etre Suprême Papacy Pius VI, Pope Pius VII, Pope Religion

Abolitionists Haitian Revolution Hispaniola Slavery and the Slave Trade Toussaint l’Ouverture Wilberforce, William

States of the United States Connecticut Georgia Kentucky Maryland Massachusetts New Hampshire New Jersey New York North Carolina Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina Virginia

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M Mackintosh, Sir James (1765–1832) Born the son of a Scottish army officer, James Mackintosh declared himself a Whig while still a schoolboy, and he remained one until his death. A graduate of King’s College, Aberdeen, he later graduated with degrees in medicine from the University of Edinburgh and in law from the Middle Temple in London. A great admirer of Cicero, he was a graceful writer and speaker, and a very sociable man who belonged to a succession of leading literary, debating, and social clubs wherever he lived. He had a wide range of friends and acquaintances who shared his reforming aims and liberal opinions. From 1788 he began a long career in journalism, writing over many years for leading newspapers and reviews. He wrote on politics, supporting the Whig case in Parliament; defending the liberty of the press; attacking slavery, capital punishment, and cruelty to animals; and showing sympathy for the United States in the War of 1812, Latin American claims for independence, and the rights of French Canadians. In April 1791 he published Vindiciae Gallicae: A Defence of the French Revolution and Its English Admirers in response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. It is regarded as second only to Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man as a response to Burke. In it, Mackintosh provided moderate reformers with an eloquent statement of the need for reform in Britain as well as in France. It did more than Paine’s work to expose the weaknesses in Burke’s arguments and evidence. More moderate than Paine, Mackintosh expressed his desire to “avert revolution by reform.” A visit to France after the September Massacres of 1792 led to his gradual disillusionment with the French Revolution. Mackintosh wrote a favorable review of Burke’s first two Letters on a Regicide Peace, and in late 1796, he visited Burke’s home to express his “veneration” for Burke’s “general principles.” He also expressed his admiration for Burke in A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations (1799) and in lectures at the Inns of Court in 1799 and 1800. Mackintosh was attacked for his apostasy, but he was never a democrat but rather a moderate, liberal reformer. At the end of 1803 he was appointed a judge in Bombay and was knighted before he sailed for India. He served in Bombay from 1804 to 1811,

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trying to reform the police, the penal law, and the prison system. He resisted imposing the death penalty as much as possible, and he tried to treat all men the same, whatever their race or status. From 1813 to his death he served in Parliament as a Whig MP, actively supporting a host of liberal causes. He was a committed supporter of both Catholic emancipation and the great but moderate parliamentary reform bills of 1831–1832. In 1818 he was appointed professor of law and general politics at the East India Company College, Haileybury, and he retained his interest in a wide range of intellectual pursuits. He produced a Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy (1830), which was critical of utilitarianism and stressed the primacy of conscience. In 1829 he started a History of England, to be published in parts in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia. He wrote four volumes but failed to complete the project before he died in 1832. His extensive notes were passed on to T. B. Macaulay, who drew on them heavily for his own famous History of England. See also Latin American Revolutions; Whigs. FURTHER READING: Haakonssen, Knud. “The Science of a Legislator in James Mackintosh’s Moral Philosophy.” History of Political Thought 5 (1984): 245–80; Mackintosh, Robert J. Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh. 2 vols. Boston, 1853; O’Leary, Patrick. Sir James Mackintosh: The Whig Cicero. Aberdeen, UK: Mercat Press, 1989. H. T. DICKINSON

Madison, James (1751–1836) James Madison, the oldest of ten children of a wealthy landowning family, was born on March 16, 1751 in Port Conway, Virginia. One of the most influential members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, he was instrumental in securing the call for the meeting in Philadelphia and in winning ratification of the charter of government it produced. In the proceedings, Madison advocated the Virginia Plan, which served as the outline for the final document. The young nationalist’s proposal called for a popularly elected two-house, or bicameral, national legislature; a chief executive elected by the legislature; and a national judiciary. After considerable debate and compromise, much of which was recorded in Madison’s notes, the Constitution was approved by the convention, and he threw himself into the battle for ratification by the states. To help win approval of the pivotal state of New York, Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton published articles supporting the United States Constitution in New York newspapers. These essays are considered collectively one of the greatest works of political thought, the Federalist Papers, of which Madison wrote 26. In his essays, most notably numbers 10 and 51, Madison contended that the Constitution was a vast improvement over the ineffectual Articles of Confederation, partly because it would have a dual source of sovereignty, giving it a federal and national character. Like the Articles of Confederation, the federal character would be derived from the states and reflected in a senate representing states. But unlike the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution would allow a national character to be derived from the people and reflected in the lower legislative house elected directly by the people. Accordingly, the new government would gain authority from the states and the people and authority to act upon the states and the people. Madison asserted that a republic—in which the people’s wishes are refined and enlightened by the collective wisdom and consultation of their gathered representatives, and that benefits from the foremost protection against abuse of power, the people

Madison, James

themselves—is the most advanced form of governance. Therefore, without faith in the good in man, a republic is impossible. He contended, nevertheless, that the Constitution improved on the republican concept by not placing too much trust in man and therefore providing what he called the “auxiliary precautions” of the separation of powers and intricate checks and balances. These precautions, he argued, honestly recognized and made good use of human nature by channeling the ambition of officeholders in each branch of government to check the encroaching power of the other branches. In other words, ambition would be used to control ambition. Madison maintained that the purpose of government is to protect the right to own property. Yet the principle danger to property rights is factions, often formed because of the varying sources and levels of property, and used to further agendas that are sometimes opposed to the interests and rights of others and the common good. He believed that the impulse to form factions is in human nature and will always exist in a free society. Since the only way to end factionalism is to end freedom, the goal of a country valuing liberty must be to influence its effects. Madison concluded that the check on an oppressive or self-interested minority faction would be democracy itself, employed to vote down the minority. The check on a majority faction would be the size of the new nation, or what he termed “the extended republic.” Madison challenged the belief of many, including Montesquieu, that only a small republic could be successful. Under this orthodoxy, for democracy to work, the people must have close influence on government and be united in their general views and interests—features only achievable within a small nation. Accordingly, many opposed to the new Constitution argued that it would be best to divide America into three or four smaller republics to achieve unity of interest, geography, and thought. Madison contended the opposite. He responded that the very problem with the illfated ancient republics was that they were too small and thus too easily dominated by a majority united by self-interest and inclined to oppress minorities and eventually destroy democracy itself. Madison stated that the United States had found the solution to the problem of republics by making it difficult, if not impossible, for an oppressive majority to be forged due to the country’s extensive size and the corresponding complexity of interests or factions. Madison further maintained that in any republic a determined and long-standing majority would eventually achieve its aims, no matter how unjust they may be. Yet under the Constitution, in a large United States of many interests, governing majorities, motivated by anything other than the common good, would be rare and short lived, if formed at all. This would be due to the presence of a multitude of interests, differing modes of selection of representatives and other officers, and their staggered terms of office of differing lengths. Madison asserted that an oppressive majority, perhaps fueled by public passions of the moment, would most likely lose momentum or disintegrate as passions cooled or other interests divided its ranks with time. This disintegration would take place before any momentary majority could secure control of all the separate branches of government due to the built-in delays or pauses of the system. And even before the collapse of such a majority, any branch of government falling under its dominance would be subject to the checks of the other independent and uninfected branches. Furthermore, if an ill-motivated legislative majority were formed, it would be subject to the hindrance of a bicameral legislature and, in a large republic, would have difficulty preserving its unity to the extent that its more extreme proposals would

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not suffer the moderating influence of compromise required because of the wide diversity of interests composing the majority. Accordingly, Madison believed that the Constitution magnified the benefits of a large republic through its structural tendency to prevent, control, moderate, and break dangerous majorities. An expansive republic offered other advantages, according to Madison. It would have a large and diverse legislature that would develop a national perspective transcending unique and petty local concerns, the assembly’s membership would be drawn from a larger pool of talent, and representatives would be elected from such large districts that the buying of votes or other electoral corruptions would be inhibited. And if an oppressive faction should seize a state or region, it would be incapable of projecting its destructive influence outward across a large republic of many interests but would be contained and subject to the remedial influences and pressures of the rest of the multi-interested and uncorrupted nation. Madison believed that the proposed governmental framework was the best protection for individual liberties. Therefore, during the ratification campaign, he originally opposed the inclusion of a declaration of specified rights as unnecessary and perilous to rights not listed. Yet he and other Federalist leaders compromised, and as a leading member of the first Congress, Madison crafted and introduced the Bill of Rights. Finally, in the Federalist Papers, Madison predicted the reverence the Constitution would gain over time and the resulting benefits of national unity, stability, and adherence to the rule of law. Although in his later political life he joined his friend Thomas Jefferson in asserting the rights of states, Madison happily saw a nationalist spirit engulf the United States during his presidency (1809–1817), particularly following the War of 1812. Sadly, however, he lived to see this unity fade and his nation descend into a bitter sectionalism he strongly denounced. See also Republicanism. FURTHER READING: Ketcham, Ralph. James Madison: A Biography. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002; Madison, James. James Madison: Writings. New York: Library of America, 1999; Matthews, Richard K. If Men Were Angels: James Madison and the Heartless Empire of Reason. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1995; Miller, William Lee. The Business of May Next: James Madison and the Founding. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1992. RUSSELL FOWLER

Maillard, Stanislas Marie (1763–1794) Stanislas Maillard was a central participant in many of the key events of the French Revolution during both its moderate and radical phases. During the attack on the Bastille in July 1789, Maillard was, by some accounts, the man who negotiated his way along a plank laid across the moat of the fortress, retrieving a written offer of capitulation from the Bastille’s governor. One man fell to his death attempting to traverse the plank before Maillard purportedly succeeded. Although it remains unclear whether it was actually Maillard who accomplished this, he nonetheless attained fame because of it. Maillard again emerged at the center of revolutionary events during the women’s march to Versailles in October 1789. As a bread riot was erupting in Paris on the morning of October 5, Maillard—as a trusted hero of the Bastille—allegedly suggested to the protesters that they take their grievances directly to the government. Maillard led a column of thousands of women to Versailles, where he gained an

Mainmorte

audience with the National Assembly, while a small group of women likewise spoke with Louis XVI. Both the king and the legislature promised to endeavor to supply Paris with sufficient quantities of food, and Maillard returned to Paris to deliver their statements in that regard to city officials. Later, Maillard played a prominent role in the September Massacres of 1792, in which imprisoned alleged enemies of the Revolution were murdered in a concerted assault upon various prisons. At the Abbaye, a seventeenth-century military prison in Paris, Maillard presided over a hastily assembled tribunal that determined the guilt or innocence of the accused in cursory hearings. Maillaird was arrested during the Reign of Terror but was not among the thousands executed on the guillotine, for he died of tuberculosis in 1794. FURTHER READING: Carlyle, Thomas. The French Revolution: A History. New York: Random House, 2002; Hibbert, Christopher. The Days of the French Revolution. New York: Quill, 1999. ADAM C. STANLEY

Mainmorte Mainmorte refers to a type of land used in ancien régime Europe, in particular the status of land held by the church and other institutions, rather than private ownership. As the church is a corporate body that continues to exist as its members come and go, it never dies, and the land that it holds is virtually lost to the market of sale and resale, as if it were held by a “dead hand” (main morte). This land was thus not only exempt from taxation and feudal dues but was also a source of deprivation to the local economy (on average, 6–10% of land in a locality was exempt). On a human level, moreover, the inhabitants of such lands continued to be subject to the same unchanging rules that had been in place since the Middle Ages. Described as mainmortable, such people represented the last vestiges of serfdom in western Europe: they were unable to sell their property without paying heavy feudal duties and were unable to pass on their property to their kin unless their heirs were direct descendants, and already living on the site. Mainmorte was therefore one of the first targets singled out for abolition by reformers in eighteenth-century France. As early as 1749, a royal edict required authorization by Parlement for the acquisition of property by the clergy and prohibited testamentary bequests to them. Similar legislation was passed in Spain, where the practice was even more widespread. In the 1770s, Voltaire himself led the crusade against the institution in the eastern provinces of France, where it was most prevalent (estimated to take place in about one-third of all villages). The Physiocrats saw it as one of the worst blocks to the importation of capitalist practices to agriculture, as a system in which change was next to impossible. In 1779, Louis XVI abolished the practice in lands owned by the crown and strongly encouraged the nobility to do the same all across France. FURTHER READING: Béaur, Gérard. “Property.” In Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, ed. Michel Delon. Vol. II. Translated by Philip Stewart and Gwen Wells. Chicago: Fitzroy-Dearborn, 2001; Mousnier, Roland. The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 1589–1789. Vol. 1. Translated by Brian Pearce. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. JONATHAN SPANGLER

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Malesherbes, Chrétien Guillaume de Lamoignon de (1721–1794) Born into a prominent family and trained as a lawyer, Malasherbes succeeded his father as president of the cour des aides in the Parlement of Paris in 1850. He was later appointed director of the press, the nation’s censor, under his father, who had become chancellor of France. Malasherbes’ liberal policies and sympathetic attitude toward literary figures such as Diderot allowed for publication of the Encyclopédie. A reformer, Malasherbes attempted to introduce reforms under the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI. In 1771, he was exiled to his country estate for opposing the dissolution of the Parlement. With the accession of Louis XVI, he was recalled and made minister of state for the royal household. During his nine months in office Malasherbes devoted considerable energy toward reform of the police. His efforts did much to limit the use of lettres de cachet, sealed communications from the king that allowed for imprisonment or exile without appeals to the courts. Malasherbes’ protest of the cours des aides of 1775, which offered sharp criticism of the king, is considered to be among the most important documents of the ancien régime. In 1776, disappointed over the failure of the reform program proposed by his friend A.R.J. Turgot, the comptroller general of finances, Malasherbes resigned his post. Over the following decade he worked in defense of the civil rights of Protestants and Jews in France before retiring from political life in 1788. In December 1792, Malasherbes voluntarily ended his asylum and, upon his request, was appointed, along with François Tronchet and Raymond Desèze, to the defense of Louis XVI at his trial before the National Convention. In December 1793, he was arrested as a royalist, along with his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren. On April 23, 1794, Malesherbes was executed by guillotine, having previously been subjected to the sight of the executions of his children and grandchildren. See also Parlements. FURTHER READING: Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. JEFF SHANTZ

Mallet du Pan, Jacques (1749–1800) Mallet du Pan was a Swiss-born political journalist and publicist who clashed with Napoleon Bonaparte. This is how many contemporary compatriots remembered Mallet du Pan. Many historians and writers argued that the clash with Napoleon left Mallet an embittered man. Views of Mallet’s legacy and stature range from the highest accolades for being “one of France’s most noted journalists” (Carla Hesse) to perceptions of the quality of his publications as “pompuous, empty and hollow” (Immanuel Kant). Mallet was born on November 5, 1749, in Celigny, close to Geneva, the son of Etienne Mallet, an exemplary and talented Protestant minister, and his wife, Hélène Rillet. Fleeing from French religious strife and persecution, the majority of the émigrés of Celigny adhered to the Christian beliefs of the Genevan French émigré John Calvin. Calvin’s doctrine of hard work, learning—in both the arts and sciences—and the notion that material wealth was a reward from God found favor with the Mallet family. Throughout his childhood years, Mallet adhered to Calvin’s beliefs.

Mallet du Pan, Jacques

Despite their aristocratic genealogy and heritage, Etienne’s household income, according to their grandson, did not exceed £300 a year. The young Mallet lost his father at the age of 12. Fortunately, all was not lost for him. Mallet was schooled at the famous College of Geneva, founded by Calvin. At the age of 15, Mallet graduated to the University Class, where, thanks to a superior quality of mind, he excelled in philosophy and law. From 1767 to 1770, Mallet witnessed the outbreak of political and social unrest in Geneva by militant Genevan natifs, sons of inhabitants who for generations had been deprived of all political privileges in the city. The morality underpinning these natifs’ protests, his love of liberty and respect for justice, would haunt Mallet, with the result that, at the age of 20, Mallet became a democratic agitator by writing a pamphlet that instantly became the gospel of the Genevan natifs. Unknowingly, Mallet had turned a corner in his life. Impressed by his early writings, Voltaire, the most powerful influence on European thought, invited Mallet to Ferney. Philosophical and religious questions, more than those of a political nature, were uppermost in Voltaire’s mind. “In politics,” Mallet argued, “Voltaire was but a flatterer.” Voltaire did not hide his rejection of Christianity and his hatred of priests and the sacrament of the mass from Mallet, d’Alembert, and Condorcet. Thanks to the generosity and influence of Voltaire, the young Mallet secured a professorship in history and literature at the University of Hesse-Kassel in Germany in 1772. On April 8, 1772, he delivered his inaugural address, “The Influence of the Philosophy on the Arts,” at the university. On many levels, Voltaire was pleased to note how passionately the young Celigny “lion” imitated him, especially in Mallet’s questioning of certain ideas and practices of the Christian Church. In a letter addressed to Voltaire in 1772, Mallet wrote that “I shall exhaust all the feeble enlightenment that I owe to you in eradicating the work of St. Boniface,” the eight-century missionary who Christianized Germany. Moreover, during the height of the French Revolution, Mallet would immerse himself in the satanic doctrines of Joseph de Maistre, a well-known Martinist. Yet his grandson believed that Mallet’s principles kept him from becoming a convert to the ideas of the Encyclopedists, to which Voltaire may have hoped to attract him. Mallet stayed little more than a year at Hesse-Kassel. At the age of 25, he broke with aristocratic tradition when he married 18-year-old Françoise Vallier, daughter of François Gedeon Vallier. Initially the marriage did not carry the approval of his father’s family, who would have rather seen him marrying a woman of a superior class. Still, Mallet was happy: he and his young bride shared a love for the performing arts and for leisure tried their hands at performing some French plays, one being the Gageure imprévue of Sedaine. In 1775 Mallet published an essay entitled “Doutes sur l’éloquence” an attack on the political and economic regimes of northern Europe. Like his 1771 debut work, the essay had one significant result: it brought him into contact with Simon-Henry Linquet, one of the most prominent figures in France during this era. For the next two years Mallet assisted Linquet in the production of the Annales politques, civiles et littéraires du XVIIIe siècle. Mallet managed the Swiss version and contributed much valuable matter, especially on economic subjects. Mallet held Jacques Necker’s financial administration in high regard, but the professional partnership between Linquet and Mallet was doomed. As a result, Mallet had no alternative but to try his hand at his own publication, entitled Mémoires historiques. Rumors of secret British support and that he was a British spymaster surfaced.

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At this time Mallet incorporated his Mémoires historiques with the Mercure de France, a famous Parisian gazette and literacy magazine that had been founded by the writer Jean Donneau de Visé in 1672. Mallet designated himself a contemporary historian and continued to appeal to the conscience of his readers with such works as his discussion of the hypocritical treatment of European Jews. Mallet set out to justify the Inquisition along with a new indictment of Galileo, claiming that Galileo had been condemned not for being a good (Copernican) astronomer but for being a bad theologian who tried to support astronomical propositions with biblical statements. The French nobles took little, if any interest, in Galileo. Rather, they were hungry to know more about court life under Louis XVI. Mallet moved intimately within court circles in general and the humanitarian-spirited king and his Austrian-born queen, Marie Antoinette, in particular. What Voltaire succeeded in achieving at the court of the Prussian king, Frederick II, might have served as a stimulus for Mallet’s visits to the palace of Versailles. Indeed, Mallet was popular at court, where he regularly interacted with royal ministers. Mallet also seems to have had restricted access to the king and queen. In 1782, Mallet’s debut essay of 1771 came back to haunt him. In April 1782 an almost bloodless revolution took place in Geneva when an armed mob threw the senatorial party and their associates into prison and set about ransacking the city. These events disillusioned Mallet with republican governments and taught him a lesson in democracy. What Mallet failed to find in Linquet he found in Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, a writer and publisher who offered Mallet the editorship of the Journal historique et politique de Genève. Mallet would tirelessly manage this publication for the next 10 years, visiting prisons and institutions of all kinds. Mallet marveled at the political challenges of his journal. He set out popularizing Adam Smith’s theory of free trade. Mallet labeled Smith “the most profound and philosophical of all the metaphysical writers who have dealt with economic matters.” He applauded the growth of religious tolerance in Europe. Mallet’s admiration for Britain in general and her political system in particular was evident. Mallet chose Britain as the place of education for his eldest son, John Lewis. During the 1780s Mallet continued to press the French government into accepting the offer made by British prime minister William Pitt the Younger of a treaty that would require France to forfeit important fiscal policies. Unashamedly, the Swissborn Mallet put the nearly bankrupt and politically vulnerable France at the mercy of Britain’s free-trade policies. To add salt to the wound, most European banking houses, led by the Swiss, promptly refused credit to the cash-stricken French government. Louis XVI had no alternative but to sign the Anglo-French treaty commercial treaty. The British trade war began almost immediately: they dumped cheap British manufactures on the French market and cut off the supply of vital Spanish wool. Mallet and the Mercure did not go uncensored. Indeed, the French government continued to exercise strict controls over all pf Mallet’s published political opinions. Within a few months of the French Revolution, the abbé Auger, a government censor, cut up one of Mallet’s manuscripts and suppressed his remarks on political affairs in Holland. Under the comte de Montmorin, who succeeded Vergennes as foreign minister, Mallet’s position became even more difficult.

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With the return of fellow Genevan Jacques Necker as the new minister of finance at the end of 1788, Mallet could reposition himself. Necker and Mallet conspired against the spread of Benjamin Franklin’s American economic and constitutional ideas. In January 1789, as Franklin’s supporters prepared to introduce the United States Constitution to France, Mallet, in an article that would see Voltaire reeling with joy, highlighted Britain’s turbulent history, not least the period of the Civil War, and suggested that France might face a similar future. Throughout the French Revolution, Mallet propagated his royalist sentiments. After Easter 1791, at a time when Louis XVI’s safety at the Tuileries was entrusted to the Swiss Guard and the tone of the French radical press was growing ever more hostile and suspicious, Mallet was instructed by the king to visit Frankfurt to secure the sympathy and intervention of royalist German states. From Germany, Mallet was to travel to Switzerland and then to Brussels. However, Mallet’s missions proved fruitless, and Louis XVI was guillotined on January 21, 1793. Mallet was relentless in his efforts to describe precisely how events developed after the death of the king. He published a number of anti-revolutionary pamphlets, and a ruthless attack on Bonaparte and the Directory led to his exile to Bern in 1797. In 1798 he moved to London, where he founded the Mercure Britannique. He died at Richmond, Surrey, on May 10, 1800. His wife was pensioned by the British government. FURTHER READING: Collison, Robert. Encyclopaedias: Their History throughout the Ages. 2nd ed. New York: Hafner, 1966; Darton, Robert. The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979; Du Pan, Bernard. Jacques Mallet du Pan and the French Revolution. London, 1902; Grant, G., and W. Temperley. A History of Western Europe, 1789–1905. London: Longman, 1984; Legg, L. G. Wickham. Select Documents Illustrative of the History of the French Revolution. Vol. 2. London, 1905; Palmer, R. R. The Coming of the French Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947; Tocqueville, Alexis de. The Old Regime and the French Revolution. London: Doubleday, 1955. RAYMOND ANTHONY VAN DIEMEL

Malouet, Pierre Victor (1740–1814) Pierre Victor Malouet was a prominent supporter of moderate monarchism during the French Revolution. Born in Rioms, Malouet began a career in royal administration in 1758 and held posts in the colonies before becoming naval intendant at Toulon in 1781. He was elected a representative of the Third Estate to the EstatesGeneral in 1789 and favored reforms to rationalize institutions and abolish aristocratic privilege under a strong monarchy. As one of the monarchiens in the National Assembly, Malouet supported the constitutional proposals of Jean Joseph Mounier calling for a royal veto and a two-house legislature. In 1790, he founded the Club des Impartiaux to identify the cause of monarchy with the Revolution. Malouet opposed the abolition of slavery and the slave trade, fearing disorder in the colonies and harm to France’s economy. He fled to England after August 10, 1792, but his moderation was unpopular with many émigrés. Malouet returned to France in 1801, held administrative posts under Napoleon, and became minister of marine in May 1814 under the restored Louis XVIII but served less than four months before his death.

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FURTHER READING: Griffiths, Robert. “Pierre-Victor Malouet and the ‘Monarchiens’ in the French Revolution and Counter-Revolution.” PhD thesis, University of British Columbia, 1975; Hampson, Norman. Prelude to Terror: The Constituent Assembly and the Failure of Consensus, 1789–1791. Oxford: Blackwell, 1988. WILLIAM S. CORMACK

Mansfield, Earl of See Murray, David, Earl of Mansfield

Marat, Jean-Paul (1742–1793) A prominent French revolutionary, journalist, and scientist, Jean-Paul Marat was born to a family of Sardinian descent at Boudry, near Neuchâtel, Switzerland, on April 13, 1742. His father, Giovanni Marra, was a local physician who fled his native Sardinia because of his Protestant faith and took up residence in Neuchâtel. Young Marat was the eldest of three sons—one brother pursued a career as a watchmaker in Geneva, while the youngest sibling, David, immigrated to Russia, where, under the title of chevalier de Boudry, he worked as a private tutor and taught French at the Imperial Lycée. Despite his weak and sensitive disposition, Marat excelled in classical studies and pursued a career in medicine, which he studied at the University of Bordeaux. He honed his skills in optics and electricity and later traveled to Paris, where he earned a reputation for curing eye diseases. After traveling to Amsterdam, Marat visited London, where he settled and opened a practice. Among his many acquaintances was Benjamin Franklin, with whom Marat conducted optical experiments. He continued to travel frequently, visiting Ireland, Scotland and France. While in London, he published his first major book, A Philosophical Essay on Man (1772–1773), in which he discussed the relation between body and mind and demonstrated his wide knowledge of classical literature as well as contemporary works of French, German, Italian, and Spanish writers. He criticized Claude Adrien Helvétius, a prominent French philosophe, for his claim that knowledge of science was unnecessary for a philosopher. Marat’s criticism drew a response from Voltaire, who wrote a sharp critique of Marat’s work. Undaunted, in 1774 Marat published his new work, The Chains of Slavery, in which he voiced his criticism of the British government. In 1775, he was given an honorary medical degree from the University of St. Andrews. In 1777, Marat was hired as a physician to the guards of the comte d’Artois, who was brother to Louis XVI and later became King Charles X. Over the next 10 years, Marat practiced medicine and wrote a number of treatises on medical subjects, including eye diseases, as well as on optics and electricity. The French Royal Academy of Sciences praised his Récherches physiques sur l’électricité and awarded him a prize for his Mémoires sur l’électricité médicale in 1783. In 1787, Marat retired from the comte d’Artois’ employment and pursued a private practice. He completed a new translation of Newton’s Opticks (1787) and wrote Mémoires académiques, ou nouvelles découvertes sur la lumière (1788), which explained new discoveries about light. Some historians argue that Marat’s failure to be elected to the Royal Academy of Sciences had a negative effect on him and caused him to imagine enemies around him and to challenge the established order.

Marat, Jean-Paul

Jean Paul Marat. Courtesy of Alexander Mikaberidze.

Marat followed the political events unfolding in France in 1787–1788 and gradually became actively involved in them. In early 1789, he published Offrande à la Patrie, the first of his many political pamphlets, in which he denounced government corruption and urged unity among the people in his cause. In the first part of his pamphlet, Marat argued that the monarchy was still capable of solving existing problems and criticized those advocating the British system of government. However, in a supplement printed several months later, he expressed more critical and radical ideas. He continued to produce political works throughout the summer of 1789 and was among the mob that stormed the Bastille fortress on July 14. He published one issue of Le Moniteur Patriote and pamphlets entitled La Constitution and Plan de legislation criminelle, which revealed his political ideas based on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s works. On September 8, 1789, Marat began publishing a new journal entitled Le Publiciste Parisien, which carried his favorite epigram, Vitam impendre Vero (Spend Life in the Cause of Truth). One week later, the journal title was changed to L’Ami du Peuple, a name that became a nom de guerre for Marat. L’Ami de Peuple proved to be a successful and influential publication, turning Marat into an influential voice that advocated radical democratic measures. His journal sought to comment on almost every event, and its size varied according on the circumstances of the moment. Marat was not a powerful speaker like Georges

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Danton, but he was very eloquent with a quill in hand, writing in a language and style that was accessible to common people. Marat refused to join any party but rather remained always suspicious of whoever was in power. To him, the governing bureaucracies were inherently opposed to the popular interest that Marat sought to protect. Claiming to be reflecting the opinions of the sans-culottes, he launched vitriolic attacks against the Constituent Assembly, ministers, the Parisian municipality, and anyone else he suspected. He called for preventive measures against aristocrats, whom he suspected of plotting to subvert the Revolution. In October, he claimed that the royal court was a nest of counterrevolutionary intrigue and urged Parisians to march on Versailles. His agitation contributed to the events of the October Days (October 5–6, 1789), when the Parisian mob attacked the Versailles palace and forced the royal family to move to Paris. As Marat’s popularity increased, the government sought to undermine his reputation by circulating spurious issues of his journal, which were excessively gory and travestied in content. Following his attack on Jacques Necker and some members of the Paris Commune, Marat was denounced in October 1789 and went into hiding for a month. Despite persecution, he continued his critique of the government, was denounced in January 1790, and narrowly escaped arrest by fleeing to London. In the safety of the British capital, Marat continued writing his pamphlets, attacking various political figures, and after returning to Paris in May 1790, he produced several issues of his popular journal. He warned against the aristocratic émigrés who were scheming to suppress the monarchy and declared to his readers that “five or six hundred heads cut off would have assured your repose, freedom, and happiness.” In August 1790, after the suppression of a naval mutiny at Nancy, Marat attacked the reputation of Louis XVI himself. Nevertheless, Marat still believed in the principle of a constitutional monarchy and was reluctant to embrace republican ideals—until the royal family’s failed flight to Varennes in June 1791 made him change his mind. He declared that the king was unworthy of holding the throne and denounced the National Assembly for refusing to depose him. In response to Marat’s continuing barrage of criticism, the Assembly outlawed his paper and requested his arrest, forcing Marat into hiding in the summer of 1791. In September the office of L’Ami du Peuple was ransacked, and two months later Marat fled to London once more, where he produced his two-volume work Ecole du citoyen. In April 1792, the Cordeliers Club invited him to return to Paris, where he resumed printing his journal after four months’ suspension. He also married Simonne Evrard, the sister-in-law of Jean Antoine Corne, the typographer of L’Ami du Peuple. With the start of the war in the spring of 1792, Marat found himself at odds with the governing Girondin party, which he criticized in his journal. In May 1792, Marat was denounced in the Assembly and was forced to go into hiding. Unable to publish L’Ami du Peuple, Marat instead produced a series of pamphlets welcoming the events of August 10, when the monarchy was overthrown. The next day, he came out of hiding and resumed publication of his journal. In early September, he became a member of the Committee of Public Safety and the Commune of Paris. Despite various claims, he seems to have had no direct connection with the infamous the September Massacres, when summary executions took place in various Parisian prisons. However, his radical rhetoric certainly shaped public opinion at the time. In October, Marat was elected to the National Convention, where he sided with the

Marat, Jean-Paul

Montagnard deputies. He suspended publication of L’Ami du Peuple and instead commenced a new venture, the Journal de la République Française. As a deputy to the Convention, Marat proposed several reforms, including shorter terms of military service and a graduated income tax. Enjoying support in the streets of Paris, he quickly became one of the leading Montagnard deputies. His work, however, was overshadowed by his antagonism with the Girondin party. The trial and eventual execution of Louis XVI only increased the rift between the Montagnards and Girondins. Marat likened the king’s execution to a religious festival and believed the event would terrorize the enemies of the Revolution and embolden the genuine patriots. Throughout the winter and spring of 1793, Marat fought bitterly with the Girondins, whom he believed to be false patriots and covert enemies of republicanism. He accused them of siding with suspect generals, capitalists, speculators, monopolists, and merchants of luxury, whom Marat despised. The Girondins accused him of inflammatory rhetoric and demanded his trial by the revolutionary tribunals. However, in his much-publicized trial in April 1793, Marat was acquitted on all charges and returned to the Convention with even greater popular support. This was the climax of his career. In April, he was elected president of the Jacobin Club. Between May 31 and June 2, Marat played an important role in the Montagnard insurrection that resulted in the expulsion of the Girondin deputies from the Convention. However, a worsening of the skin disease that he had contracted during his numerous hidings in the Parisian underworld forced him to remain at home, where he sought to alleviate the discomfort by taking regular hot baths. It was while sitting in his bathtub on July 13, 1793, that Marat received a young woman named Charlotte Corday who claimed to have compromising information on the Girondin deputies. Corday was in fact a Girondin supporter and held Marat responsible for recent events. Upon entering the bathroom, she stabbed him in the chest. At her trial two days later, she proudly announced, “I killed one man to save 100,000.” Remarkably, Marat’s assassination became his apotheosis, proved to be a rallying cause for the Jacobins, and turned Marat into a martyr for the revolutionary cause. The Jacobins used his state funeral, choreographed by the famous French painter and fellow Montagnard deputy Jacques-Louis David, to great advantage to create a cult figure of Marat. David also produced his famous painting of Marat lying dead in his bathtub. Prints depicting his assassination were popular throughout France. The assassination seemingly validated the Jacobin claims about traitors within the very bosom of the nation, where, it was claimed, they posed a far more insidious threat than the foreign foe. Marat’s body was first buried in the Couvent des Cordeliers but was later transferred to the Panthéon. In the wave of outcry against Marat’s murder, some towns changed their names to honor him, while Montmartre in Paris became Mont Marat. The infamous dechristianization campaigns saw Marat converted into a quasi saint whose busts often replaced religious statues and crucifixes in former churches and whose bloody shirt was likened to a holy shroud. Marat’s popularity, however, waned after the Thermidorian Reaction of 1795, when the Jacobin dictatorship was overthrown. In February 1795, Marat’s coffin was removed from the Panthéon and buried in the cemetery of the Church of Saint-Etienne-du-Mont. Numerous busts and sculptures of him were destroyed. Marat’s name and legacy were and still are hotly debated. To some, he is a radical revolutionary who thirsted for the blood of traitors. To others, he was a true

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champion of the people. Suspicious and irritable, excitable and sensitive, Marat was a good-natured and educated man in private but had a violent public persona and often attacked with exceptional violence. See also The Mountain. FURTHER READING: Conner, Clifford D. Jean Paul Marat: Scientist and Revolutionary. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1997; Coquard, Olivier. Jean-Paul Marat. Paris: Fayard, 1993; Gottschalk, Louis R. Jean Paul Marat: A Study in Radicalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967; Marat, Jean-Paul. Œuvres politiques, 1789–1793. Brussels: Pole nord, 1989–1995. ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France (1755–1793) A member of the Austrian imperial family, Marie Antoinette was queen of France during the French Revolution and thus became the scapegoat for the revolutionary events that enveloped French during the reign of her husband, Louis XVI. Maria Antonia Josepha Joanna, the fifteenth child and eighth daughter of Emperor Francis Stephen and Maria Theresa, empress of the Holy Roman Empire, was born on November 2, 1755, at the Hofburg palace in Vienna. The pretty petite archduchess was known as Antoine within the family circle. Although she felt closest to her mother, she only saw the busy empress for a few minutes every week. She was brought up in her own five rooms at the palace of Schönbrunn. Her father died on August 18, 1765, when she was nine years old. This plunged the empress into grief and automatically made Antoine’s eldest brother, Joseph, co-emperor, though the family was never the same. The empress wanted her daughters to shine at court events and never to express fear. Antoine’s education was focused on manners, docility, and submission. She learned to dance, play the harp, and enjoy music and the fine arts in early childhood. Although spontaneous, she grew up to be gentle, innocent, dependent, and inclined to timidity, especially when surrounded by intellectuals. Her inadequate upbringing would serve her badly. A politically arranged marriage of one of Maria Theresa’s daughters was a condition of the Austro-French Treaty of Versailles, signed on May 1, 1756; consequently Antoine was to marry the future Louis XVI. As the marriage arrangements were being finalized, Maria Theresa suddenly realized the shortcomings of Antoine’s education and hastily attempted to rectify this deficiency. At age 14, Antoine underwent rigorous training in the arts of being a queen, which allowed her to gain a polished graciousness, to learn the history of France, to write legibly, and to improve her French language skills. Her tutor was amazed at her good judgment in their history discussions. She was also inculcated with her mother’s absolutist ideals. After a proxy marriage on April 21, Antoine left Austria. On the way to Paris, on a neutral island on the Rhine, she was divested of all her Austrian accoutrements. She was dressed in French garments and gained a completely new French identity and a new name—Marie Antoinette. She met the timid, shy, and clumsy 15-year-old Louis for the first time on May 16 and became dauphine when she married him on May 16, 1770. Louis had an inferiority complex that would never abate, and she was the strong partner in the marriage. Louis was well meaning but weak and lacked drive and initiative; he preferred hunting and forging above all other pursuits, including his marriage. He also told by his advisors never to trust Marie Antoinette

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completely. Even though the couple were amiable and they learned to care for one another, the marriage remained unconsummated for seven years due to Louis’s sexual inadequacies. Although a grace period followed her marriage, it only took three months for Marie Antoinette to become unpopular at court, mostly because she was Austrian and consequently deemed a foreigner and an enemy, and thus not trustworthy. Consequently, she was exposed to character assassination through a variety of calumnies, slanders, and defamations that would continue until her death. Marie Antoinette’s most serious enemy at court was the uncouth and common Madame du Barry, mistress of Louis XV, whom Marie Antoinette detested. Du Barry publicly castigated Marie Antoinette over minor details. During this unhappy time in her marriage, the teenage Marie Antoinette occupied herself with the same opulent lifestyle that previous members of the French royal family members had enjoyed. Having grown up at the Austrian court, she had no idea of the costs or the values of goods. Marie Antoinette felt trapped performing endless royal appearances, enduring the infinitesimal details and the stultifying centuries-old etiquette of the court. She decided to be herself rather than a conventional dauphine. To escape from the tedium, she mixed with a risqué crowd known as the Queen’s Secret Society, an association that further damaged her image. She continued to suffer from salacious gossip and lurid tales about her alleged depraved sexual behavior; the stories spread throughout France and damaged the prestige of the monarchy. Louis XV died of smallpox at Versailles on May 10, 1774. He left a legacy of insurmountable and complex political, social, and financial problems that required serious reform. France had lost the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), a conflict that had cost the treasury millions of livres. Much of its empire vanished as a result of the Treaty of Paris. The situation was exacerbated because the clergy and the nobility were exempt from paying taxes, leaving France financially dependent on the poor working class. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were crowned at Rheims on June 17 1774. The people were ecstatic and envisaged a new era. However, Louis was only 20 years old and unsuited to the monarchy. His interests focused on his own simple pleasures, and although he cared about his subjects, he proved himself totally incapable of dealing with the fundamental problems facing France. The peasants resented their heavy tax burden and the excessive spending of the court. Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, a trained economist and minister of finance, tried to implement some radical reforms—the abolition of feudal privileges constituting one such reform—but the nobles balked at the suggestion. He was dismissed and replaced by Jacques Necker in October 1776. Marie Antoinette was 500,000 livres in debt by this time; indeed, most members of the royal family were heavily in debt at this time. In 1778 Louis began to provide financial aid to the American colonists in their war of independence from Britain, but France did not gain anything by it apart from helping to divest its traditional enemy of its 13 colonies in North America. The treasury was soon drained. Once Louis’s impotence was resolved, Marie Antoinette had four children within six years. Marie Thérèse Charlotte, known as Madame Royale, was born on December 19, 1778. On October 22, 1781, she gave birth to the dauphin, Louis Joseph; Louis Charles, duc de Normandie, on March 27, 1785; and Sophie Hélène Béatrice

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on July 9, 1786. Once Marie Antoinette became a mother, she focused most of her energy on her children. This resulted in a noticeable decline in the lavishness that had characterized her youth. She no longer bought jewelry or wore elaborate wigs. Nevertheless, her household consisted of 500 people who jealously guarded their little empires. Despite the marked decrease in her social activities Marie Antoinette was known as the “Austrian she-wolf.” Slander about her spread, and scandalous stories were freely invented, many of them believed. Her reputation was already at a low ebb when she was unjustly implicated in the swindle known as the Diamond Necklace Affair. Cardinal de Rohan was the Grand Almoner, but Marie Antoinette had distanced herself from him because he had run afoul of the Austrian court during her youth. Rohan had a rococo diamond necklace of 2,800 carats and 657 brilliants that had been made with Du Barry in mind, but Louis XV had died in the meantime. On behalf of the jewelers, he delivered it to Marie Antoinette, despite the fact that she had not ordered it and had previously declined to buy it several times. Rohan took the lead in the swindle. In the presence of Louis, Marie Antoinette, and several court officials, he insisted on receiving the first payment. He later declared that he had been duped by Jeanne St. Remey, who had deceived him about Marie Antoinette’s interest in the necklace. Rohan was arrested. However, the people believed that Marie Antoinette, whose passion for diamonds was undeniable, must have been aware of the plot all along. Rohan went to trial in May 1786 but was acquitted by the Parisian Parlement on May 31, 1786. Jeanne St. Remey was found guilty and imprisoned. The beleaguered Marie Antoinette received a major blow to her integrity from the affair and never recovered her reputation. In 1781, Necker resigned and was replaced by controller general of finances Charles Alexandre de Calonne, who asked for approval to reform French finances, as the country was bankrupt. He believed the nobles’ rejection of any financial reform was the major problem facing France. The Assembly of Notables met on February 22, 1787, and rejected the financial reforms. Calonne resigned and was replaced by Cardinal Loménie de Brienne, archbishop of Toulouse. Despite the lack of deep systemic financial changes, Louis felt sorry for himself and let down, not only by his ministers but also by his “uncooperative” subjects. He confided in Marie Antoinette and received her sympathy. The Notables insisted on summoning the Estates-General, resulting in the dissolution of the Assembly by Brienne on May 25, 1787. Louis was unable to face this crisis as a leader. While Marie Antoinette was much more intelligent than her husband, she had no leadership qualities and no concept of change, especially regarding monarchical privileges, and was entirely devoid of political expertise. Like Louis, she believed that the ministers were responsible for the crisis and that they had failed to do their jobs. The ministers had to see her directly because the frightened Louis could not cope. The populace accused her of meddling, calling her Madam Deficit. Marie Antoinette’s personal life troubled her considerably. Baby Sophie had failed to thrive and died on June 19, 1787. Marie Antoinette went into seclusion at Trianon. The dauphin was also seriously ill, with a malformed spine, and could not enjoy a normal childhood. The queen’s lengthy friendship with a Swedish count, Hans Axel von Fersen, encouraged a considerable amount of gossip. They often went riding together and developed a friendship that gave her a respite from her

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France

troubles. She was accused of an adulterous affair with him and of lesbian affairs with her friends at court. Marie Antoinette was often given children, who were raised in her household from her personal budget. To economize, she reduced her entourage and household by 200 staff to lower her household expenses. This offended those who lost their positions. Marie Antoinette discontinued holding balls and large dinners. She ordered her used gowns to be mended rather than ordering new gowns. Her slippers were resoled. While her personal economies affected her household, they made little difference in the overall budget crisis. Brienne could not obtain consensus from the Paris Parlement to the reforms. Ministers resigned. It was obvious new mechanisms of governance were required. However, in August 1787 Louis banished the Paris Parlement, hoping it would become compliant. Instead this initiated major protests. The Parisians hated Brienne and looked toward the shallow and undisciplined Louis Philippe, the duc d’Orléans, as their spokesman. As usual, Louis was plodding, vacillating, fearful, and obstinate. In November 1787 Louis summoned the Paris Parlement to Versailles. He addressed them in his royal finery and asked them to approve a loan of 40 million livres so that France could continue to function and avoid bankruptcy. A seven-hour debate resulted in no clear answers, and he stormed out without officially ending the Royal Session. He exiled Orléans. Louis withdrew into passivity and failed to take any initiative. Consequently Marie Antoinette was forced to meet with her advisor, Florimond Claude, the comte de Mercy-Argenteau, and together they decided to recall Necker as controller general. Necker found some funds to help France continue functioning. However, no long-range plan was implemented, mostly because Marie Antoinette lacked the expertise to make systemic changes. Her total and unqualified belief in absolutist monarchy also stood in the way of any major reform at a time of changing ideological thought. The winter of 1788–1789 was especially cold, so people remained in their homes. The Seine froze up, preventing all goods from entering Paris. A shortage of grain exacerbated the situation, famine was looming, and the price of bread increased. Although Louis and Necker made grain available to the poor, at huge expense to the treasury, the people were more appreciative when Orléans sold his paintings to supply food. Marie Antoinette’s efforts—her contributions to many charitable endeavors from her own household funds—were ignored. The royal couple wished to increase the amount of deputies to the Third Estate. Louis asked the deputies to indicate their grievances in order to be prepared for the convocation of the Estates-General. The first session of the Estates-General was held on May 5, 1789. Since he was incapable of deriving new ideas, Marie Antoinette wrote his speech advocating the obedience required to an absolute monarchy. She had wanted the Estates-General to meet far outside Paris, but he paid no attention to her suggestion. Instead Louis took Necker’s advice, and the session was held at Versailles. When he addressed the 1,200 deputies, Louis discarded her speech. These points clearly indicate that she had little influence over his decisions. The dauphin’s increasingly poor health preoccupied Marie Antoinette, and her motherly duties now took precedence. The youngster’s deformed body eventually crushed his lungs and he died on June 3, 1789. He was buried at Saint Denis among his royal ancestors.

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The Third Estate renamed itself the National Assembly. Louis finally asserted himself on June 18 and wished to hold a special royal session of the Estates-General. Since the meeting hall was not ready, it was held at the tennis court. The deputies vowed to continue meeting despite Louis’ orders to the contrary. Necker resigned. The First and Second Estates flocked to the National Assembly, whereupon all the deputies were ordered by Louis to join the National Assembly. Marie Antoinette, always an absolutist, was upset that Louis forgot his royal role, his dynastic heritage, and failed to imprison the deputies when his own family was placed in danger. Louis remained immobile. Everyone knew that revolution threatened. On July 14 a huge, unruly crowd stormed the Bastille, a fourteenth-century prison and military fortress that had become a military warehouse and was supposedly filled with hundreds of prisoners subjected to torture. The Swiss Guards who protected the Bastille were quickly overpowered and killed with horrendous ferocity. Only seven prisoners were found and released. The capture of the Bastille became a powerful symbol deemed an act of liberty against a tyrannical monarchy. Many members of the royal family left France after the fall of the Bastille, but Louis insisted his people would not harm him; Marie Antoinette would not leave without Louis. All royal authority was lost. On October 5, 1789, some 6,000 angry Parisians, mostly women, marched from the Hôtel de Ville to Versailles, ready to kill the queen, whom they held responsible for the rise in bread prices and whom they generally blamed for all of France’s troubles. The National Guard, commanded by the Marquis de Lafayette, was to guarantee the family’s safety. Some members of the crowd carried axes, cudgels, and knives; they murdered two guardsmen and displayed their severed heads on poles. The royal couple went onto the balcony, where a dignified Marie Antoinette curtsied to the crowd, who were impressed with her lack of fear. The royal family was taken to Paris and imprisoned in the Tuileries, a dilapidated former palace nearly in ruin. Freedom of the press exacerbated the slander already associated with Marie Antoinette’s character; she was denounced as the enemy of the people, a Judas who would betray France to the Austrians. The rumor was spread that Emperor Joseph II would send his army to invade France. On June 20, 1791 the royal family escaped and nearly crossed the border but were caught at Varrennes when Louis’ face was recognized. They were returned to Paris by the National Guard. A new constitution was promulgated in 1791. Although Marie Antoinette was contemptuous of the idea of a constitutional monarchy, Louis had no choice but to swear loyalty to it. Fear of a royalist backlash was strengthened by the publication on July 25, 1792, of the Brunswick Manifesto, issued by the Duke of Brunswick on behalf of Austria and Prussia, which were not at war with France, which threatened the Parisians with extreme vengeance if the royal family were harmed. It also threatened the French people with strong punishment if the Prussian and imperial armies were defied. Brunswick also demanded the restoration of the monarchy. French people understood the manifesto to mean that Louis and Marie Antoinette had colluded with the duke. Louis was formally arrested on August 12, 1792. Prison life at the Tuileries was horrendous. The family was besieged by the violent fury of the Parisian crowds, and no one defended them during the September Massacres. The horrific slaughter included the decapitation of Marie Antoinette’s friend the Princesse de Lamballe. The royal family was moved to the Temple. The Legislative Assembly met on Sep-

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tember 20 and declared France a republic on September 21. On September 22 the Assembly became the Convention, and France was jubilant when her forces invaded Belgium. While Louis fell ill in the Temple, Marie Antoinette nursed him back to health. He occupied himself with reading and teaching his son Latin. Louis was put on trial on December 11, 1792, and found guilty of high treason. He was guillotined on January 21, 1793. Marie Antoinette was devastated but never held Louis responsible for the family’s circumstances. Marie Antoinette was separated from her children, whom she never saw again, and moved to the Conciergerie as prisoner 280. She was charged on August 2, 1793, with being an enemy of the Revolution and conspiring against France. Despite her degrading circumstances, she never lost her dignity and never let her royal composure desert her. Likely suffering from the early stages of cancer, she endured severe menstrual bleeding and suffered from severe privation, including lack of blankets and light. Her alleged crimes ranged from bankrupting France and threatening its security with plots that involved Joseph II to starving the French people and massacring Parisians. The court had no documentation to prove the charges against her. She won the courtroom crowd over to her side when she denied the accusation of committing incest with her son. When the two-day trial ended with a guilty verdict, Marie Antoinette was not surprised. On October 16 she was conveyed to her execution under the most humiliating circumstances for a queen: in a cart, with her hands bound behind her back. Although only 38 years old, she gladly welcomed her death. Her head and body were placed together with those of her husband in a local cemetery. Madame Royale witnessed the removal of her parents’ corpses and their reburial at Saint Denis on January 21, 1815. See also First Estate; Second Estate; Tennis Court Oath. FURTHER READING: Cadbury, Deborah. The Lost King of France: A True Story of Revolution, Revenge and DNA. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002; Cronin, Vincent. Louis and Antoinette. New York: William Morrow, 1974; Erickson, Carolly. To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie Antoinette. New York: William Morrow, 1994; Fraser, Antonia. Marie Antoinette: The Journey. Toronto: Doubleday, 2001; Hibbert, Christopher. The French Revolution. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1982; Moore, Stanley. The Fatal Friendship: Marie Antoinette, Count Fersen and the Flight to Varrennes. New York: Doubleday, 1972; Zweig, Stefan. Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Ordinary Woman. Paris: Editions B. Grasset, 1933. ANNETTE RICHARDSON

Martin, Josiah (1737–1786) Born in Antigua, in the West Indies, one of 23 children of a British colonel stationed there, Josiah Martin entered the British Army in 1757. In 1769, Martin sold his commission as lieutenant colonel in order to move into a civil appointment as royal governor of North Carolina, a post he assumed in 1771. Among his early actions was the continuing repression of the Regulator uprising, a process begun by his predecessor, William Tryon. His actions in putting down the revolt were seen as even handed and won him some acceptance in the colony. As the colonial crisis worsened, Martin tried to keep North Carolina in the imperial fold. He requested arms and munitions from General Thomas Gage in Boston. He likewise called upon local Loyalists to come out in support of the Crown. Eventually, he was forced to flee North Carolina by the Whigs in the state. His efforts at keeping North Carolina in

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the British Empire led to the rising of Loyalists, which was crushed at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge on February 27, 1775. Martin returned to the Carolinas in 1779 with the expedition led by General Charles Cornwallis. He served the British general as a volunteer during his campaign until poor health forced Martin to leave Cornwallis at Wilmington, North Carolina, in April 1781. Martin continued to draw his salary as royal governor until October 1783. Poor health kept him from serving in any new posts. He died in London in 1786. FURTHER READING: Butler, Lindley S. North Carolina and the Coming of the Revolution, 1763–1776. Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 1976; Lee, Wayne E. Crowds and Soldier in Revolutionary North Carolina. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. JAMES R. MCINTYRE

Maryland While some colonies such as Massachusetts were leaders in the independence movement, ambivalence characterized Maryland’s actions during the American Revolution. At no time did Maryland attempt to establish a position of leadership. The state did, however, participate in initiatives that eventually led to the Constitutional Convention. The Sons of Liberty were active in Baltimore and organized opposition to the Stamp Act and other parliamentary legislation. Other issues, however, took precedence and drew attention. Maryland was a proprietary colony. As chief proprietors, the Calverts wielded enormous influence over every facet of colonial life. Thus, a great deal of energy and political capital were spent in attempting to curb their influence. Although Maryland participated in the First Continental Congress, its commitment to independence was questioned. Maryland’s delegates were not instructed to vote for independence until June 28, 1776. Thomas Jefferson had expressed concern as to what Maryland would produce, and John Adams commented that no one knew which way Maryland would decide on an issue. Later, when the Articles of Confederation were drawn up, Maryland did not adopt them until 1781, the last state to do so. Maryland and Virginia helped to start a precedent that would eventually become the process that led to the drafting of the United States Constitution. Because of similarities in their concerns about rivers and access in the Chesapeake region, delegates from both states met at the home of George Washington in 1785 to draw up agreements concerning access and trade. The result encouraged some political thinkers to believe that all the states might join together to replace the Articles. Maryland ratified the United States Constitution in 1788 by an almost 6–1 majority vote. Washington himself had personally lobbied (or “meddled,” as he described it) to encourage the document’s ratification there. See also American Revolutionary War; Carroll, Charles; Committees of Correspondence; Constitutions, American State; Galloway, Joseph; Paca, William. FURTHER READING: Brugger, Robert J. Maryland, a Middle Temperament, 1634–1980. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988; Burnard, Trevor. Creole Gentlemen: The Maryland Elite, 1691–1776. New York: Routledge, 2002. ROBERT N. STACY

Massachusetts

Mason, George (1725–1792) George Mason was a Virginia planter who served before the American Revolution as a magistrate and a member of Virginia’s House of Burgesses. He became a leader of the Patriot forces in Virginia and drew up the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776. This document influenced the Declaration of Independence and became a model for the later Bill of Rights. Mason continued to serve in the Virginia legislature throughout the Revolution. Throughout his career, he was a correspondent and alternately a difficult ally and an opponent of other Virginia planter-statesmen, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Mason retired from statewide politics after the war but was an active and vocal delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He refused to sign the final document, citing the lack of a bill of rights and what he claimed was the excessive power of the federal judiciary and executive over the legislature and the states. (Mason consistently viewed an overpowerful executive as the greatest threat to republican government.) He strongly opposed the creation of the District of Columbia, suggesting that it might become a haven for criminals, and was also frustrated by the Convention’s willingness to allow the importation of slaves for 20 years, despite the fact that he was a slaveholder himself. After the Convention, Mason continued to oppose the United States Constitution both as a writer in his memorandum “Objections to this Constitution of Government” and as a politician in the Virginia Ratification Convention. The adoption of a bill of rights did not fully reconcile Mason to the Constitution, and he retired to his estate at Gunston Hall, declining an offer to serve Virginia in the United States Senate in 1790. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade. FURTHER READING: Broadwater, Jeff. George Mason, Forgotten Founder. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. WILLIAM E. BURNS

Massachusetts Of all of Britain’s colonies in the years before the American Revolution, one of the oldest, most vocal, and most politically developed was the colony of Massachusetts. In the 1760s and 1770s, Massachusetts, which then included the area that would become the state of Maine in 1820, provided the most articulate and consistent leadership toward independence. Leading the opposition to the Stamp Act, the colony was also the site of some of the earliest and most dramatic incidents leading to the Revolution, including the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, and the first battles of the Revolution. The Boston Port Act, the Coercive Acts, and the New England Restraining Act were all enacted to punish Massachusetts for its political activity. Participating in the Stamp Act Congress as well as the First and Second Continental Congresses, its representatives were active and articulate. Finally, it was a rebellion in western Massachusetts in 1786 that underscored the weakness of the Articles of Confederation, which helped to lend a sense of urgency to measures that would replace the Confederation with a new system of government. The population exhibited a high degree of literacy and a history of political and religious activism and a tradition of dissent. The first Massachusetts settlers had

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arrived in 1620, establishing Plymouth Colony. Three years later, with the settlement of Boston, the colony of Massachusetts Bay came into existence. These two were combined by the Crown into one colony in 1691. While there were some differences between Plymouth (sometimes referred to as the Old Colony) and Massachusetts Bay, the real fault line lay not between these two formerly separate entities, but between the communities on the coast and those in the interior as the colony expanded. Massachusetts then began to display many of the same political, geographic, and economic divisions that existed in the other colonies. Distance was part of the reason but there were cultural and economic factors as well. The western communities along the Connecticut River were not only far from Boston but had been settled principally by people from the colony of Connecticut. Thus, there was a different focus in those settlements. The differences showed themselves in various ways, including ideas of safety and welfare. As early as King Philip’s War in the 1670s, there was a serious plan to create a stockade to protect Boston, leaving the outer communities to fend for themselves. As time passed, these differences became more centered on specific issues, often economic. In addition, there was disagreement over degrees of representation. Attitudes hardened between east and west, although not to the extent that existed among the colonies. In other words, while there was serious disagreement, there was never an armed group from the western communities opposed to the colony’s ruling elites, as occurred in other colonies. That remained true until after the Revolution. Prior to the Revolution, the greatest base of pro-British support was in the central and western parts of the colony, especially in centers such as Worcester and Springfield. Contention and political activity were not only a function of regional differences. Massachusetts had first been settled by dissenters who relied heavily upon the Bible to inform much of their thought. That dependence on the Bible was the product of, as well as the impetus for, a very high degree of literacy. That literacy, in turn, encouraged discussion on many issues. Factionalism and politics in the town meetings and between towns and the colonial government became a staple part of Massachusetts life. Although the ideal of towns being “Peaceable Kingdoms” was the model, this seldom occurred and towns often became divided, with new towns being formed out of the original town boundaries. The town of Marlborough evolved into the towns of Marlborough, Westborough, Southborough, and Westborough in the years before the Revolution. According to some historians, the Salem witch trials of the previous century had been the result of political conflict between the port of Salem Town and the interior Salem Village. It was a natural progression from local issues to issues touching the colony to questions of how the British Empire should be run in relation to its colonies. From 1763 on, the views toward home rule, taxes, and the sense of rights began to complicate and deepen the already existing divisions as Parliament began to search for ways to pay for the recently concluded Seven Years’ War. In 1764, Parliament passed the Sugar Act as a means of collecting revenue. The response was the Braintree Instructions, drafted by John Adams. The Instructions stated that the Sugar Act was to be opposed because there had been no colonial representation in the decision making. It was eventually adopted by other Massachusetts towns. Then, the Stamp Act was passed by Parliament on March 22, 1765, and would take effect one year later. The gap in time between enactment and the date it would

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start gave opposing parties in the colonies the opportunity to sharpen the debate and rouse wide-ranging opposition. Discontent and agitation against the Stamp Act existed in some measure in all the colonies. It was, however, perhaps greater in Massachusetts than anywhere else. Further, those opposed to the act in Massachusetts successfully agitated beyond their immediate area, spreading opposition to other colonies, culminating in the Stamp Act Congress that took place in New York in October of that year in New York City. Before the Stamp Act Congress convened, local opposition to the act was marked not only by the increased frequency of opposition but increased violence as well. In August 1765, Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson’s house in Boston was destroyed, as was the home of a stamp tax official. Hutchinson had actually opposed the act, but as lieutenant governor, he was seen as an agent of the Crown enforcing a law that was violently opposed. The Stamp Act was repealed and was soon replaced with the Townshend Acts, which sought to raise revenue by taxing imports. These acts, while opposed everywhere, were most violently opposed in Massachusetts. While all but the taxes on tea would eventually be repealed, Boston had become such an active center of discontent that in 1768 that troops were sent to keep order in the city. In this same year, the Massachusetts House of Representatives drafted a protest against the Townshend Acts, known as the Massachusetts Circular Letter, which was sent to other colonies on the strong suggestion of John Adams. The repeal of most of the duties did not bring peace. Resentment at the presence of British soldiers in Boston eventually resulted in the Boston Massacre, an altercation in the streets of Boston, where several Americans were killed. In 1772 the Crown decided that the salaries of governors and judges would no longer be paid by the colony, but directly by the Crown. This action removed all accountability of these officials to the colony and was strongly opposed. It was that same year that the committees of correspondence, a Massachusetts innovation, began to spread throughout the colonies. The original Committee of Correspondence had been organized by Samuel Adams with the intent of spreading news and shaping opinion. Within a very short time this network would have a significant political effect throughout the colonies. On December 16, men dressed as Indians boarded ships in Boston Harbor loaded with tea that could not leave the harbor until the tea tax was paid. They smashed the chests and dumped the tea overboard. The British response came in the form of the Boston Port Act, which closed Boston Harbor beginning June 1, 1774. Boston port would remain closed until the East India Company was reimbursed for its losses from the Tea Party. In 1774 there was also a great deal of antigovernment activity in the western and central parts of Massachusetts, particularly in Springfield and Worcester, even though there was generally greater support for the Crown in that region. Courts were closed as a result, making the act of governing more difficult for Hutchinson’s replacement, General Thomas Gage. The Port Act was followed in close succession by other parliamentary legislation aimed specifically at punishing Massachusetts. Labeled collectively as the Coercive Acts, these included the Administration of Justice Act (royal officials being tried for capital crimes were to be taken to Britain and not tried in Massachusetts), the Massachusetts Government Act (which revoked the charter of 1692), and the Quartering

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Act. These acts were the immediate cause for the calling of the First Continental Congress, held in Philadelphia in September 1774. The situation was very tense and it seemed that it would not take a great deal to begin an armed conflict. In September of that year, there was a rumor that Gage had ordered his forces to shell the city of Boston. Militia units from all over New England left their homes and marched on Boston. When it became known that the alarm was false, they returned home. Estimates of the number of men that participated in this movement vary, but the actual turnout to meet this perceived emergency was large enough (perhaps as many as 30,000 men) to let both the British and Americans know that a significant response could be mounted to any British action. That so many men could mobilize so quickly with a single objective gives an idea of how close both parties seemed to war. In April 1775, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War were fought in Massachusetts. British troops from Boston marched into nearby Middlesex County to confiscate stores of arms that the local militias had been collecting. The result was the fighting at Lexington and Concord and the pursuit of the British into Boston by local militia units that put Boston under siege. In June 1775, the British attacked American positions in Charlestown, across the river from Boston, and defeated the Americans at what was subsequently known as the Battle of Bunker Hill. It was in Cambridge and in the lines surrounding Boston that George Washington took command of and formed what would become the Continental Army. The British garrison evacuated Boston in March 1776, and the center of military conflict moved south, never to return to Massachusetts, which would see no more fighting for the rest of the war. Throughout the conflict, however, Massachusetts provided not only logistical support but troops in what was commonly referred to as the Massachusetts Line of the Continental Army. In providing supplies for the army and through trade and privateering, Massachusetts prospered during the war. There was, however, a split in the state between those doing well from the conflict and those who did not, and this split ran rather sharply between the ports and the interior, east and west. That disparity would play a most critical part in politics after the conclusion of the war. In a state so politically aware and, in many respects, so divided over the question of who would rule at home, it is no surprise that Massachusetts did not draft a state constitution until 1778. Further, this constitution, with revisions largely made by John Adams in the following year, was not approved until 1780. Property qualifications for voting and holding office were among the most controversial issues. As might be expected, this economic-based question about the exercise of political power reflected the economic state of east versus west, with one region doing significantly better than the other. The Massachusetts constitution was finally approved in 1780 by a very narrow margin. Although there had been much compromise, many still believed that the property qualifications were still too high. In other, more subtle ways, the westerners felt excluded from the political process and that their participation was not desired by a government dominated by the eastern communities. The failure of Massachusetts to provide adequate travel expenses for western representatives traveling to Boston was seen as further proof that their opinions and participation were not valued. Significantly, unlike the constitutions of many colonies, the Massachusetts constitution created a powerful executive branch. That distinction would be critical

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when the government faced a major crisis in the mid-1780s. John Hancock, the first to sign the Declaration of Independence, became the first Massachusetts governor under the new constitution. In 1786, a few years after the adoption of the state constitution and the end of the Revolution, Massachusetts was the scene of a dramatic display of civil disorder. The Hampshire County Rebellion, more often known as Shays’s Rebellion, underscored not only regional differences but also the potentially bitter conflict between the haves and have-nots. Further, it showed how those differences could play out when the government was not strong enough to impose order. In the years after the Revolution, Massachusetts, as well as other colonies, was undergoing a great deal of financial distress. While this was true throughout the state, it was particularly true in the western portion, where farmers were often on a subsistence level and often heavily in debt. In 1786, a convention was held in the town of Hatfield, which drew up a list of complaints, mostly economic but also having to do with the judiciary that was to be sent to Boston. Opposition to the courts spread and western farmers began to coalesce as a group under the leadership of an ex-army officer, Daniel Shays. They began to occupy local courthouses to stop the proceedings against farmers being prosecuted for debt. The militia was called out to keep these courts functioning but so far there had been no armed confrontation. A second convention was called later on in the same year by these disaffected farmers in which they essentially declared war against the state government. Again court houses were occupied and the court sessions prevented from taking place. The militia was once again called out and in January 1787 was sent from Boston to Worcester in central Massachusetts, and then farther west. The first real conflict occurred on January 25, when three of Shays’s men were killed. Shortly after, Shays himself surrendered. Although there was some small-scale fighting afterward, the rebellion effectively ended. The state government had been shaken and the lessons led people to fear what would happen under the weak Articles of Confederation. Many western towns could not afford to send delegates to the sessions to ratify the Constitution. This tipped the scales in favor of ratification because the sentiment in western Massachusetts was very much against adopting the United States Constitution. When combined with eastern Massachusetts opposition (including Elbridge Gerry, who had been a delegate to the Constitutional Convention), it seemed that Massachusetts might not ratify the Constitution. That it was ratified was largely due to the efforts of Samuel Adams, who had lobbied very hard for ratification, and John Hancock and a proposal known as the Massachusetts Compromise. The compromise stipulated that there would be amendments to the Constitution to mitigate the perceived concentration of power by the central government. With this agreement, Massachusetts ratified the Constitution on February 6, 1788. See also Adams, Abigail; Chase, Samuel; Church, Benjamin; Constitutions, American State; Continental Congress, First; Continental Congress, Second; Continental Association; King, Rufus; Loyalists; Navigation Acts; Non-Importation Agreements; Proclamation of 1763; Quincy, Josiah; Sons of Liberty; Whigs. FURTHER READING: Bourne, Russell. Cradle of Violence: How Boston’s Waterfront Mobs Ignited the American Revolution. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006; Brown, Robert Eldon. Middle-Class Democracy and the Revolution in Massachusetts, 1691–1780. Ithaca, NY: Cornell

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University Press, 1955; Dufour, Ronald P. Modernization in Colonial Massachusetts, 1630–1763. New York: Garland, 1987; Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere’s Ride. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994; Gross, Robert A. The Minutemen and Their World. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001; Labaree, Benjamin Woods. The Boston Tea Party. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1979; Pencak, William. America’s Burke: The Mind of Thomas Hutchinson. Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1982; Richards, Leonard L. Shays’s Rebellion: The American Revolution’s Final Battle. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002; Shy, John W. Toward Lexington; the Role of the British Army in the Coming of the American Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965; Tyler, John W. Smugglers and Patriots: Boston Merchants and the Advent of the American Revolution. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1986; Walmsley, Andrew S. Thomas Hutchinson and the Origins of the American Revolution. New York: New York University Press, 1999; Young, Alfred F. The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999; Zobel, Hiller B. The Boston Massacre. New York: W. W. Norton, 1970. ROBERT N. STACY

Massachusetts Government Act (1774) The Massachusetts Government Act (enacted May 20, 1774; effective August 1, 1774, for an indefinite period) was one of five acts Parliament drafted during the spring of 1774 collectively known in Britain as the Coercive Acts, and in its American colonies as the Intolerable Acts. The act followed a decade of resistance in Massachusetts that had been punctuated by riots against the Stamp Act (1765) and the Townshend Acts (1768). The Boston Tea Party (December 16, 1773) prompted Parliament to draft the Massachusetts Government Act, which seized control of Massachusetts’s provincial and local government. Until August 1774, Massachusetts’s 1691 charter had granted its constituents greater political autonomy than enjoyed by Britain’s other American colonies. The Massachusetts Government Act revoked those passages of the 1691 charter that regarded the colony’s self-governance, including the General Court’s (elected legislature) authority to appoint the governor’s councilors. This enabled the royally appointed governor to appoint councilors who would support imperial policy rather than obstruct it (as had become the norm in the preceding decade) and placed this aspect of provincial governance on a par with that of the other colonies. In response, spontaneous crowds formed throughout Massachusetts and forced many of these “mandamus councilors” to publicly renounce their appointments. Some of the mandamus councilors fled to Boston, where they were protected by the British Army. Continued provincial opposition, however, persuaded General Thomas Gage, governor of Massachusetts, that he could not convene his council lest it incite further violence. The Massachusetts Government Act also shifted the authority to appoint all provincial magistrates from the General Court to the royal governor, who did not require the consent of his council. Further, juries would no longer be elected by provincials but would instead be selected by Crown-appointed sheriffs. Massachusetts provincials objected to these changes because they believed the province’s officers would no longer feel obliged to act in a manner consistent with the interests of local constituents. Finally, the Massachusetts Government Act severely restricted the latitude of each town’s selectmen to call town meetings. Historically, this forum had provided

Maury, Jean-Sifrin

Massachusetts provincials a venue for direct democracy. During the preceding decade, however, the towns had expanded their agendas from the discussion of local issues to debating and passing resolutions regarding the relative merit of imperial policies. Parliament interpreted this as an abuse of the 1691 charter’s provision for town meetings. Of all the Coercive Acts, the Massachusetts Government Act was most responsible for mobilizing support for the revolutionary movement in Massachusetts’s two western counties—Berkshire and Hampshire. Before the Coercive Acts were imposed, this more recently settled area had largely ignored provincial Whigs’ resistance to Parliament’s taxation measures. With the Massachusetts Government Act, though, Parliament revoked the province’s authority to govern itself. This directly affected every Massachusetts resident and proved to be more effective than the efforts of Samuel Adams and the Boston Committee of Correspondence to secure provincewide and intercolonial support for the revolutionary movement. See also Committees of Correspondence. FURTHER READING: Pencak, William. War, Politics, and Revolution in Provincial Massachusetts. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981; Raphael, Ray. The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord. New York: New Press, 2002; Reid, John Philip. Constitutional History of the American Revolution. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986. CHRISTINE LAHUE

Maury, Jean-Sifrin (1746–1817) Prior to the French Revolution, Maury had won acclaim as a preacher and writer, most notably for his elegy on Fénelon and a panegyric on Saint Louis as well as his Lent sermon before Louis XVI in 1781. In 1789, Maury was elected a member of the Estates-General by the clergy of Pérrone. He soon showed himself to among the wittiest and most vigorous and defenders of the ancien régime. The nobility and clergy found in Maury a persistent adversary for Mirabeau. His reputation as a defender of the church and the king was ensured through his vocal stance in the Constituent Assembly against the alienation of the property of the church. In 1792, Pope Pius VI called Maury to Rome, where he was named archbishop of Nicaea. In 1794 he was named a cardinal. With the invasion of Italy in 1796, Maury fled to Venice. In 1800 he returned to Rome to serve at the papal court as ambassador of the exiled Louis XVIII in the conclave that elected Pius VII. In 1804, Maury wrote to Napoleon to congratulate him for restoring religion to France. He returned to France in 1806 and in 1810 was made archbishop of Paris. When ordered by the pope to surrender his office, Maury refused. In 1814, after the fall of Napoleon, Maury was suspended by the pope and returned to Rome, where he was imprisoned in the castle of St. Angelo for six months for disobeying papal orders. Following his release, he reconciled with Pius VII and his position as cardinal was restored. The time in prison had left Maury in ill health, however, and on May 10, 1817, he died. FURTHER READING: Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. JEFF SHANTZ

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Maximum Maximum refers to a law passed on September 29, 1793, during the radical phase of the French Revolution, also known as the Reign of Terror. The law established price ceilings on various necessary and eventually secondary goods. Included in the necessary items on which the Maximum set prices were bread, wheat, and eventually meat. The Thermidorian Reaction and the fall of the Jacobins from power led to the dismantling of many of the more radical policies, the Maximum among them. By 1793, France had endured years of bad harvests dating back to 1788. The poor harvests in turn led to shortages of grain, causing a steep rise in the price of bread, the principal staple food for the bulk of the French people. While the harvest of 1793 certainly constituted a major improvement over those of past years, yields were not consistently high in all the departments. In the cities, especially Paris, there arose grave concerns among the members of the working class segment of the populace that the government would provide them with enough flour for their daily ration of bread. Conversely, there also existed a great fear that hoarders and speculators in this commodity would artificially drive up prices. Accordingly, the people began to exert pressure on the government. This pressure bore fruit on September 29, 1793, when the government enacted the Law of the Maximum. The law set the maximum price for various grains at the lowest price at which those respective grains stood between January 1 and May 1, 1793. In addition, these prices were to be reduced by increments until September 1, 1793, with a fine imposed on anyone who bought or sold grain above these prices. Likewise, anyone caught destroying grain during the period of dearth would suffer the death penalty. Thus, prices were fixed under the law in an attempt to give relief to urban dwellers and to allow for the safe supply of the army. Another effect of this law was the removal of the middlemen from the gain trade, as now the people could buy directly from farmers, with the grain sold in the central marketplaces of the cities. Though the authorities made a concerted attempt to impose the legislation in practice, it proved impossible to do so. At the same time, denunciations for hoarding became a means for the people to exact vengeance for past slights, real or imagined. But with the fall of the Jacobins from power, and the dismantling of the apparatus of the Terror, the Maximum was eventually revoked in December 1794. The Maximum stands as one of the first attempts at a government-controlled economy of the modern era and has been linked by some historians to the socialist strain of the French Revolution. FURTHER READING: Hibbert, Christopher. The Days of the French Revolution. New York: Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1981; Soboul, Albert. The French Revolution, 1787–1799. Translated by Alan Forrest and Colin Jones. New York: Vintage, 1975. JAMES R. MCINTYRE

McKean, Thomas (1734–1817) Thomas McKean (pronounced “McKain”) was an American lawyer who was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence and the second president of the U.S. Congress under the Articles of Confederation.

McKinly, John

Born on March 19, 1734, at New London Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, McKean was the son of a local tavern keeper, who, along with his mother, had come to Pennsylvania from Ireland when they were children. McKean attended the New London Academy of Rev. Francis Allison and then went to New Castle, Delaware, to study law. He was admitted to the bar in the lower counties (Delaware), and in Pennsylvania, becoming the deputy attorney general for Sussex County in Delaware. Soon afterward, he became a member of the general assembly of the lower counties, its speaker, and then judge on the court of common pleas. Politically, McKean was a member of the Country Party, which was dominated by Ulster-Scots and was keen on independence from Britain. Serving in the Stamp Act Congress of 1765, he then represented Delaware in the First and Second Continental Congresses. McKean urged Delaware congressmen to vote for independence. It was McKean who managed to persuade Caesar Rodney to ride over from Delaware to take part in the vote and give those in favor of independence a majority among the delegates from Delaware. In the famous painting by John Trumbull of the presentation of the Declaration of Independence to Congress, McKean is shown second from the right. As the president of the Continental Congress that functioned during the American Revolutionary War, he was the first person ever referred to as president of the United States in an official document. It was during his term in office that the British under Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. From 1777 until 1799 McKean was chief justice of Pennsylvania, during which time he was regularly criticized for controversial decisions. However, he did much to establish an independent judiciary in the United States. Indeed, 10 years before the U.S. Supreme Court established its doctrine of judicial review, McKean argued that courts could strike down laws they felt were unconstitutional. A member of the convention of Pennsylvania, he took part in the ratification of the United States Constitution and was governor of Pennsylvania from December 17, 1799, until December 20, 1808. During that period he tried to increase the powers of the executive arm of government. He also managed to extend free education to all children in the state. However, McKean was not as progressive with respect to the rights of women or slaves. In 1804, McKean County in Pennsylvania was formed, and in the War of 1812 he was active in urging people in Pennsylvania to enlist to fight the British. He spent his retirement writing, having made a small fortune through real estate and investments. He died in Philadelphia on June 24, 1817, and was buried at the First Presbyterian Church Cemetery before his body, in 1843, was moved to Laurel Hill Cemetery, also in Philadelphia. See also Continental Congress, First; Continental Congress, Second; Signers of the Declaration of Independence. FURTHER READING: Coleman, John M. Thomas McKean: Forgotten Leader of the Revolution. Rockaway, NJ: American Faculty Press, 1984; Rowe, G. S. Thomas McKean: The Shaping of an American Republicanism. Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, 1978. JUSTIN CORFIELD

McKinly, John (1721–1796) An American physician and politician from Delaware, John McKinly, the only chief executive of Delaware born overseas, was the first elected president of Delaware.

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Born on February 21, 1721, in Ireland, his parents were Ulster-Scots who migrated to Wilmington, Delaware, in 1742. Five years later, McKinly was commissioned a lieutenant in the New Castle County militia and fought during the French and Indian War (known in Europe as the Seven Years’ War), which lasted from 1756 until 1763. He was involved in building defenses at the site of Fort Christina. A devout Presbyterian, McKinly became an adherent of the Country Party faction of Delaware politics. As such he gradually came to oppose British rule and became active in politics. He was sheriff of New Castle County from 1757 until 1760, and also chief burgess of Wilmington in 1758–1761, 1766–1769, 1770–1773, and 1774–1776. He also served in the Delaware legislature for New Castle from 1771 until 1775. In 1776 when Delaware elected its first House of Assembly, McKinly was elected by New Castle County and was then chosen by the assembly to be the Speaker. In the following year, as Delaware’s first chief magistrate, he faced a Loyalist insurrection and then was captured after the British, fresh from their victory at the Battle of Brandywine, took Wilmington. McKinly was held a prisoner on a ship in the Delaware River. He was later taken to Flatbush, New York, and was finally exchanged for William Franklin, the pro-British governor of New Jersey (and son of Benjamin Franklin). Returning to Wilmington, McKinly built an extremely successful medical practice. Much of his attention was occupied by his work on the Delaware Medical Society, which he co-founded in 1793, and the Academy of Newark (later the University of Delaware). He subsidized the salaries of some teachers there and sponsored a number of students. He died on August 21, 1796, at Wilmington. He had married Jenny Richardson, the daughter of a local Quaker miller. They had no children. FURTHER READING: Rowe, G. S. “The Travail of John McKinly, First President of Delaware.” Delaware History 17 (1976): 21–36. JUSTIN CORFIELD

Mecklenburg Declaration (1775) The Mecklenburg Declaration, also known as the Mecklenburg Resolves and Charlotte Town Resolves, was a series of 20 resolutions passed by a committee in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on May 31, 1775. However, there is one technical difference between the terms. The Mecklenburg Declaration refers to an actual declaration of independence by the county, while the Mecklenburg Resolves refers to a series of resolutions that may or may not have included a direct act of declaring independence from Britain. Despite the controversy, the various resolutions passed by Mecklenburg County illustrate that anti-British sentiment existed in the backcountry of the southern colonies as well as in New England. Mecklenburg County passed the resolutions after receiving news of the clash between colonists and British troops at Lexington and Concord. Considerable controversy over the existence and exact content of the Mecklenburg Declaration has existed since the nineteenth century and erupted into a major academic debate at the opening of the twentieth century. It is generally agreed that the Mecklenburg Committee of Safety met on May 31, 1775, and passed a series of resolutions that included voiding all laws issued by the British government, suspending the actions of royal military and civil officials, arresting all royal officials who continued to carry

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out their duties as appointed by the British government, and calling for greater cooperation among the colonies and the forming of provincial congresses. In 1819, a claim emerged that the Committee of Safety also met on May 20, 1775, and passed a county declaration of independence from Britain. However, documentary evidence to prove the assertion did not exist, since the records of the original meeting were destroyed in a fire in 1800. Participants to the event who were still living in the early nineteenth century offered claims and counterclaims to a declaration of independence. Regardless of whether an actual declaration of independence existed, the various resolutions were forwarded to the North Carolina delegation at the Second Continental Congress. Although not presented publicly to the Congress, many claim that they were privately circulated among some of America’s Founding Fathers. See also Declaration of Independence; Virginia Resolves. FURTHER READING: McNitt, V. V. Chain of Error and the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. Palmer, MA: Hampden Hills Press, 1960. TERRY M. MAYS

Méricourt, Anne-Josèphe Théroigne de (1762–1817) Anne-Josèphe Théroigne de Méricourt was a feminist who played an important role in the French Revolution. She was born Anne-Josèphe Terwagne in Marcourt, Belgium. At first, she led the life of a part-time courtesan in Paris, London, and Rome, but upon her return to Paris in 1789, she became interested in revolutionary ideals. Dressed in masculine attire, she attended daily sessions of the National Assembly, and her apartment became a salon attracting members of the Constituante. In January 1790, she created the Society of the Friends of Law, which, though lasting only three months, afforded her some notoriety. Because she demanded freedom for Jews, women, and the press, she became a target of vicious attacks from the royalists. Wrongly suspected of having participated in the violent October Days, and fearing arrest, she returned to Marcourt in August. In January 1791, she was kidnapped by the Austrians and jailed on suspicion of spying for France. Freed in August, she had to remain in Vienna, but in October, after meeting with Emperor Leopold II, she regained her full liberty. In January 1792, she returned triumphantly to Paris and became an ally of JeanPierre Brissot de Warville. On August 10, she incited and led a crowd to murder members of the royalist press. In 1793, she composed an anonymous pamphlet calling for the creation of all-women battalions, and for peace inside France, but war against aristocrats and foreign armies. On May 13, 1793, a group of female extremists accused Théroigne de Méricourt of being a moderate, accosted her, and beat her soundly. After this public humiliation, her role in the Revolution ended and she started showing signs of madness. In the spring of 1794, she was jailed until September for being a friend of Brissot and for making suspicious remarks. In 1795, she was locked in a mental hospital, never to be released. She died in La Salpêtrière Hospital on June 8, 1817. FURTHER READING: Roudinesco, Elisabeth. Théroigne de Méricourt. London: Verso, 1991. GUY-DAVID TOUBIANA

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Merlin, Philippe-Antoine, Comte (1754–1838) Philippe-Antoine, the comte Merlin, was a French politician and lawyer during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. He supported the abolition of feudal and seigniorial rights and reformed the French justice system. While he received honors from Napoleon’s government, Merlin ran afoul of Bourbon authorities during the Restoration as a result of his vote in favor of Louis XVI’s execution more than 20 years earlier. Merlin was born in Arleux, Nord, to a wealthy family in 1754. He studied at the College of Douai and was admitted to the bar in the Parlement of Flanders in 1775. During his career, Merlin contributed to important legal compilations. In April 1789, the bailliage of Douai elected Merlin as a representative of the Third Estate in the Estates-General. From 1789 to 1791, Merlin served in the National Assembly. He attacked the privileges of the nobility under the ancien régime and presented reports on manorialism and the notion of redistribution with compensation. Merlin advocated legislation abolishing the practice of primogeniture to secure equal distributions of inheritance for relatives of the same degree, and for men and women. From 1791 to 1792, Merlin served as president of the criminal tribune for the department of Nord, later serving as the region’s representative in the National Convention. During the king’s trial, Merlin voted in favor of execution. In September 1793, he contributed to the elaboration of the Law of Suspects. Following the demise of Maximilien Robespierre during the Thermidorian Reaction, Merlin became president of the National Convention and, in 1795, became a member of the Committee of Public Safety. He worked to prevent radical groups from gathering power and convinced the committee to close the Jacobin Clubs on the grounds that it was an administrative, rather than a legislative, measure. Merlin encouraged the Girondins’ readmission to the Convention and curbed the right to insurrection. In 1794, he had been commissioned to report on the civil and criminal legislation of France. After an 18-month investigation, he developed a code, based on the penal code of 1791, abolishing confiscation, branding, and life imprisonment. Later, under the Directory, Merlin declined a seat in the Legislative Assembly to serve as minister of justice and minister of the general police. Following the coup d’état of Fructidor (September 4, 1797), Merlin was elected member of the Directory, serving presidential terms in 1798 and 1799. Merlin resigned his seat amidst accusations of corruption. Although he did not participate in the coup d’état of Brumaire (November 9–10, 1799), Merlin prospered through his position as deputy commissar in the tribunal of appeals (1801) and later as procureur général in the Court of Appeals (1804). In 1806, Merlin was named a councilor of state for life. Napoleon granted Merlin the Legion of Honor and bestowed upon him the dignity of count in 1810. Merlin fell out of favor following Napoleon’s demise, but during the emperor’s brief return during the Hundred Days (March–June 1815), Merlin resumed his former status. Following the second Bourbon restoration after Waterloo, Merlin, proscribed as a regicide, fled France. In exile, he published some legal works. He returned following the 1830 revolution, which overthrew the Bourbon monarchy. Merlin died in Paris in 1838. FURTHER READING: Andress, David. The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005; Bergeron, Louis. France Under Napoleon.

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Translated by Robert R. Palmer. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981; Cobb, Richard. The French and Their Revolution: Selected Writings. Edited by David Gilmour. New York: New Press, 1999; Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002; Popkin, Jeremy. A Short History of the French Revolution. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. ERIC MARTONE

Merlin “de Thionville,” Antoine Christophe (1762–1833) A legislator during the French Revolution, Antoine Christophe Merlin was born on September 13, 1762, in Thionville in northeastern France. The son of a procureur, he was later called Merlin de Thionville to distinguish him from Philippe-Antoine Merlin de Douai, who was a French politician during the same period. Antoine Christophe Merlin studied theology and then went into the law, becoming an attorney at Metz in the east of France, close to the border of Luxembourg, in 1788. Two years later he was elected to run the Thionville municipality and then represented Moselle in the Legislative Assembly in Paris. It was there that, on October 23, 1791, that he argued in favor of the establishment of a committee of surveillance. This was approved, and Merlin became a member of the committee. In that position, he proposed that the property of all émigrés be seized by the French revolutionary government. He also supported war with Austria. There was an attempt to have him arrested soon afterward, but it failed. He was active in the émeute (riot) on June 20, 1792. By August, Merlin de Thionville, observing that the French Republic was under threat of subversion by émigrés, argued that their wives or children should be seized as hostages. After being elected to the National Convention, Merlin supported the execution of Louis XVI, but a commission in the French army stopped him from attending the trial. His task at the time was to defend Mainz, which had declared itself a republic and was then attacked, and eventually occupied, by the Prussians. Merlin was credited with acting with great bravery during the siege. On his return to Paris, he was involved in the machinations that followed the overthrow of Maximilien Robespierre, and he served on the Council of Five Hundred, which operated under the Directory. Merlin took part in the coup d’état of 18 Fructidor (September 4, 1797) and urged for the deportation of some parliamentarians. He left the council in 1798 and took up a position as director general of posts and then was involved in the French army in Italy. When the Consulate was proclaimed in 1799, Merlin went into retirement. He died on September 14, 1833. FURTHER READING: Patrick, Alison. The Men of the First French Republic: Political Alignments in the National Convention of 1792. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972. JUSTIN CORFIELD

Metternich, Klemens von (1773–1859) A conservative Austrian statesman, Count Klems von Metternich restored Austria as a leading European power in the post-Napoleonic era and led the Congress of Vienna, which restored the Old Order of conservative politics that would govern Europe until 1848. Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich-Winneberg was born at Coblenz, in the Rhineland, on May 15, 1773. He was the second child and first son

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of Count Franz Georg Karl von Metternich, an envoy of the court of Vienna at Coblenz, and his wife, Maria Beatrix, who was born Countess von Kageneck. The vain young Metternich received an extremely conservative upbringing and education from his mother, who homeschooled him and taught him French and German. Religious instruction was provided by Abbé Bertrand. A private tutor, John Frederick Simon, entered the household in 1784; he had taught in a school established by Johann Bernard Basedow and introduced Metternich to physical education, which he continued throughout his life. The family believed Catholicism was the foundation for order. Metternich maintained a superior attitude toward the lower classes and carried the arrogance of his conservative views throughout his life. He read philosophy at the University of Strasbourg at age 15. Metternich remained immune to the revolutionary spirit that was rampant not only in Strasbourg but throughout Europe. He moved to the University of Mainz, where he studied diplomacy and law, and learned that a stable social equilibrium was required for good government. Metternich also traveled to Britain on a special mission and socialized with the upper echelons of British society. He was enthusiastically accepted, for his tall physique, exquisite manners, and conversational ability appear to have pleased most of those he met. The French Revolution had a profoundly traumatic effect on Metternich. His hereditary estates were confiscated, and the family lost its impressive annual income. Metternich thrived on the conservative institutions that traditionally governed society; thus, the excesses of the Revolution turned his world upside down. He firmly opposed liberal ideas and devoted himself to the reduction of the Jacobin threat wherever and however he could. In short, Metternich spent his entire life trying to reverse the principles of liberté, equalité, and fraternité and maintain Austria’s position as a leading power in Europe. Metternich’s mother arranged a marriage for him with 19-year-old Maria Eleonora von Kaunitz, whose grandfather was the highly influential Austrian chancellor Count Wenzel von Kaunitz. The marriage took place on September 27, 1795, and brought him vast wealth. The couple had seven children: Marie, Francis Charles, Clement, Francis Victor, Clementine, Leontine, and Hermin. The first five children preceded their father in death. Metternich had numerous affairs throughout the course of his marriage. One affair resulted in the birth of an illegitimate daughter, also named Clementine. Caroline Murat, Napoleon’s sister, was one of his mistresses. Metternich’s innate diplomatic skills were soon recognized by highly placed officials in the Habsburg court. He represented the Westphalian College of Counts at the Congress of Rastatt in 1797, a task that bored him. He became Austrian ambassador to Saxony, residing in Dresden in 1800, and his distinguished service brought him the elevated position of ambassador to the Prussian court in Berlin in 1803. The French emperor, Napoleon I, was at the height of his power when he requested that Metternich be appointed ambassador to France in 1806. Metternich loathed Napoleon’s growing influence and inwardly deemed the emperor an ambitious upstart. Although Metternich accepted the position, he maintained a strong personal hatred for Napoleon, who had confiscated his holdings and workers in 1796. Yet Metternich dealt admirably with Napoleon’s repeated threats against Austria. He managed to uphold Austrian interests while Napoleon pushed those of France. However, the thousand-year-old Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, with Francis II maintaining his throne as Emperor Francis I of Austria.

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Metternich’s lengthy audience with Napoleon at Saint-Cloud on August 15, 1808, gave the Austrian a clear understanding of Napoleon’s grandiose ambitions. He did not yield to the emperor, who was exasperated by Metternich’s utter indifference. Francis had great respect for Metternich’s diplomatic skills and appointed him minister of state in August 1809, and jointly as minister of imperial affairs and of foreign affairs in October 1809. By this time Metternich considered himself infallible, and those who opposed him sometimes found him brusque and terse. Nevertheless, he would retain his position as foreign minister until 1848—an impressive period of tenure. In 1809, war broke out between France and Austria. Vienna was captured by the French in May, but Napoleon suffered a defeat at the hands of the Austrians a few days later at the Battle of Aspern-Essling, though their subsequent loss at the Battle of Wagram in early July obliged them to sue for peace. Metternich became a prisoner of state but was released a few months later. Peace was declared and completed on October 14 with the humiliating Treaty of Schönbrunn, by which Austria was forced to cede extensive territories. Metternich saw a positive outcome from the humiliation. Napoleon wanted to remarry after divorcing Empress Josephine. Although several princesses refused Napoleon’s marriage proposals, Metternich arranged the marriage of Francis’s daughter, Archduchess Marie Louise, to Napoleon, who desperately wanted a link to a legitimate royal dynasty. They married on March 11, 1810. The couple soon had a son, who was named the king of Rome. The marriage was also the basis of an alliance between France and Austria, which was soon directed against Russia. In 1812 Metternich signed a treaty with Napoleon, who was preparing to invade Russia; he promised Napoleon military assistance in exchange for some territorial concessions for Austria, should he be victorious. Meanwhile, Metternich also secretly negotiated with Britain, Russia, and Prussia on the possibility of establishing a new coalition against France. Following Napoleon’s horrendous retreat from Russia in 1812, Metternich, who had secretly rearmed Austria during the spring of 1813, withdrew from the alliance and prepared to join the Fourth Coalition. Metternich and Napoleon met at a lengthy audience in Dresden on June 26. Metternich offered Napoleon humiliating and ultimately insulting proposals that the French emperor could only refuse. The meeting resulted in a stalemate, with war against France only a matter of time. By early 1814 Metternich realized that any type of peace with Napoleon would be unattainable. In lieu of a negotiated peace with the emperor, Metternich supported a Bourbon restoration, with the throne offered to Louis XVIII, the younger brother of the guillotined king, Louis XVI. This policy shift led to Metternich’s close contact with Viscount Castlereagh, the British foreign secretary, as well as other important British political and military figures. Castlereagh and Metternich negotiated the alliance of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Britain that led to Napoleon’s final downfall and the conclusion of the Treaty of Paris in April 1814. Later that year, the Congress of Vienna—a gathering of diplomats and European heads of state—met to solve the political and territorial problems created by the two decades of war. France was treated fairly, for the victors had no desire to cripple her. The reactionary Metternich was the foremost negotiator at the Congress of Vienna, which continued until June 1815. His goal was to reverse the lingering aftereffects of the French Revolution and recreate the Old Order. He accomplished his goal, in conjunction with Castlereagh, by creating the Kingdom of the

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Netherlands, composed of Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium. Austria would control Lombardy-Venetia; Prussia received territories, Britain received various overseas possessions once held by the French or their allies; the Papal States reverted to the papacy; Sweden and Norway were united; Finland was granted to Russia; Switzerland regained its independence; France, Tuscany, Naples, Spain, and various parts of Italy were restored under legitimate monarchs; and Jews received extended rights. By the shifting of frontiers, particularly along the frontiers with France, the balance of power was restored. Metternich made an enemy of Russian Tsar Alexander I, who wished to create a Kingdom of Poland under Russia’s aegis and to undo the partitions of Poland. Metternich, Castlereagh, and the Prussian chancellor Karl von Hardenberg opposed this proposition, known as the Polish-Saxon Question. On January 3, 1815, Metternich, together with Castlereagh and the French representative, Prince Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, concluded a treaty of alliance intended to prevent Prussian annexation of the whole of Saxony. Ultimately parts of Poland were granted to Prussia and to Russia. Austria lost the Polish territories it had gained from an earlier partition. The Congress of Vienna also gave life to what became known as the Congress System, by which the Great Powers agreed to meet at specific intervals to discuss European affairs of mutual concern. Ultimately it meant that Austria, Prussia, and Russia agreed to quash all nationalist movements. The British and French never entirely supported the Congress System. Although the parties met numerous times between 1815 and 1822, the Congress System eventually failed due to a result of clashing political differences between the various Great Powers. Metternich was also instrumental in reorganizing Germany. Some 38 German states, with Austria exercising considerable influence over them, agreed to form a Germanic Confederation. Metternich wanted to establish a similar arrangement in Italy, but that never materialized. Tuscany, however, was reappropriated and the kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was created under the aegis of the Austrian Empire. When Joachim Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law attempted to assert Naples’s independence, Metternich crushed the movement and restored a Bourbon monarch on the throne. Metternich also subscribed to the Holy Alliance, an agreement among Austria, Russia, and Prussia based on an initiative brought forward by Tsar Alexander at Vienna on September 26, 1815. The purpose of the Holy Alliance was to prevent revolutionary fervor and liberal tendencies from influencing European politics, in short, as a bulwark of the old social order. Only the Vatican, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire refused to join the Holy Alliance, which represented a reactionary cause that Metternich dominated. Ultimately it amounted to very little because national self-interest always proved paramount. Further conferences at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, Troppau in 1820, Laibach in 1821, and Verona in 1822 solidified Metternich’s goal of creating a conservative Europe. Metternich continued to play an active part in Austrian and wider European affairs down to the revolutions of 1848. Although revered by some and vilified by others, he became known as the Coachman of Europe as a result of his masterly diplomatic skills and gave his name to the Age of Metternich (1815–1848). Although his main objective was to halt the spread of liberalism and nationalism, in which he failed, he held it in check for four decades.

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FURTHER READING: De Bertier de Sauvigny, G. A. Metternich and His Times. London: Darton, Logman & Todd, 1962; Fichtner, Paulla Sutter. The Habsburg Empire: From Dynasticism to Multinationalism. Malabar, FL: Krieger, 1997; Kissinger, Henry. A World Restored: Europe After Napoleon. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973; Nicolson, Harold. The Congress of Vienna. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1946; Palmer, Alan. Metternich. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972; Taylor, Alan J. P. The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809–1918: A History of the Austrian Empire and Austria Hungary. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1957. ANNETTE RICHARDSON

Mexican Revolution (1810) The conditions that gave rise to Mexican independence found their origin in the political and economic changes in Europe and its American colonies during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Since its inception, the colonial government of Mexico—then known as New Spain—reflected four distinct social classes. Dominant were the peninsulares, those individuals born in Spain, who held most of the leadership positions in the church and government through various arrangements with the Spanish crown. Second were the Mexican-born criollos, those of European descent, who largely controlled the colony’s commercial and economic life. Mestizos, people of mixed race, represented a large working class of artisans, farmers, soldiers, and small businessmen, while Indians, the descendants of Mexico’s original inhabitants, occupied the fourth and lowest level of the social scale. Together, they formed a population base of some seven million people. By the end of the eighteenth century, problems relating to social position and political and economic standing had spawned a growing sense of restlessness in the people of New Spain. The local criollo elite, for example, resented the patronizing attitude and monopoly on appointed offices maintained by the peninsulares, as well as the commercial restrictions imposed by imperial regulations. Mestizos felt similar hostilities, as well as resentments over racism among criollos and peninsulares. Indians were resentful due to their poverty and the rampant racism directed toward them by the other social classes in New Spain. Adding to the unrest was the matter of the Napoleonic Wars, which only served to further divert the attention of Spain from its North American colony, therein leaving a political vacuum in Mexico and a corresponding increase in dissatisfaction with colonial rule from the non-peninsulare population. When Napoleon’s armies occupied Spain in March 1808, forced Ferdinand VII from the Spanish throne, and crowned Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother, king of Spain, the criollos seized the opportunity to move toward autonomy. In July 1808, they presented their petition to the viceroy of New Spain, José de Iturrigaray. The criollo appeal was surprisingly conservative; it requested that the viceroy assume leadership of a junta—a temporary, provisional governing body—composed of himself, the archbishop of Mexico, and representatives from the army, Mexico City, and the principal families, and that criollos be afforded equality with the peninsulares. The implicit assumption was that the junta would come into existence due solely to the temporary absence of royal leadership from Spain and would step down when the king was restored to the throne. But rather than call the junta, Viceroy Iturrigaray instead convoked an assembly of representatives in Mexico

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City. A contentious atmosphere dominated the meeting, and arguments arose as to whether Mexico would recognize Bonaparte in Spain or establish a junta in New Spain acting in the name of Ferdinand VII. The peninsulares also began to fear that, with criollo support, Iturrigaray might even attempt to install himself as king of an independent Mexico. Motivated by the acrimonious debate and Iturrigaray’s criollo sympathies, the peninsulares decided to act. On the night of September 15, 1808, a select group of peninsulares launched an armed attack on the viceroy’s palace, arrested Iturrigaray, and shipped him to Spain. Pedro de Garibay, an elder peninsulare statesman and retired field marshal, assumed control of the government pending the arrival of the new viceroy. But while the drift toward criollo domination over the government was, at least for the time being, suppressed, this first violent overthrow of a viceroy in New Spain’s history had profound repercussions on the country’s struggle for autonomy in that it was to be the first of several events that began to erode the legitimacy of royal authority. A case in point is that of Garibay himself. Elderly, lacking energy, and having lived more than half his life in Mexico, he was regarded by many as more criollo than peninsulare. Soon the same peninsulares who had placed Garibay in power replaced him with Francisco Javier de Lizana y Beaumont, whom they believed was more sympathetic to their worldview. But even while experiencing a series of reprisals at the hands of the peninsulare controlled central administration, the criollos continued to plan the establishment of a government of their own. They formed literary societies and correspondence clubs and sent emissaries to the provinces and principal cities to spread their ideas among the people. Among these clubs were those at Queretaro and Dolores. The president of the latter was the parish priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, who took the matter in hand so passionately that he persuaded many of his predominantly Indian parishioners to plot independence and had arms prepared for their use. Having grown up on a hacienda where his father acted as superintendent in place of the absentee owner, Hidalgo had always had sympathy for the illiterate and unskilled Indian workers who provided the field labor. His father, a poor criollo in a society of poorer Indians and mestizos, worked to ensure his three sons would rise above his own modest station in life. All attended college, and Miguel and an older brother entered the ranks of the clergy, while the third brother studied law. In Queretaro, Hidalgo met Captain Ignacio Allende, a revolutionary Creole thinker in the Spanish army. Although both favored revolution, their visions differed considerably. Allende’s image of the revolt was that of himself riding at the head of a triumphant rebel army of trained royalist soldiers who had defected from the provincial regiments. Upper-class criollos, Allende anticipated, would flock to join an openly anti-Spanish crusade. Hidalgo, on the other hand, envisioned machetewielding Indians overthrowing the Spaniards and chose to ignore the possibility that the formation of such an Indian army would likely alienate most propertied criollos, thus degrading the revolution’s potential. Nevertheless, by the spring of 1810, Allende and Hidalgo agreed to coordinate and to foment in an uprising for December of that year. But in the early morning hours of September 16, 1810, a courier brought Hidalgo and Allende the news that their secretly planned revolt had in fact become public knowledge. On the previous day, one of their co-conspirators had panicked and divulged the arrangements they were making for the December uprising. The

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messenger advised them to flee before the peninsulares arranged for them to be hanged for treason. Hidalgo, sensing that they must act at once, rang the bell of his church to summon his parishioners. However, instead of celebrating mass for the assembled crowd of Indians, he told them that this was their opportunity to fight for independence. The parishioners enthusiastically followed Hidalgo, and additional bands of Indians arrived from the countryside to join Hidalgo’s army of independence, which, as it advanced, swelled in numbers, soon reaching some 30,000 insurgents who were primarily armed with spears, machetes, and other homemade weapons. At the head of the revolutionary army, Hidalgo waved the banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe, one of Mexico’s holy symbols, to further inspire his followers. City after city in the state of Guanajuato fell into Hidalgo’s hands, for the attacks came so suddenly that no one was prepared to resist. Moreover, Indians continued to join the standard of the Virgin of Guadalupe. But, shouting the battle cry, “Death to all Spaniards,” the Indians soon failed to discriminate between criollos and peninsular Spaniards, thus turning what had begun as a civil war between criollos and peninsulares into a race war between Indians and whites. Since his only aim was independence and the return of the lands to the Indians, Hidalgo had no wish to bring about this indiscriminate slaughter of the whites and tried in vain to control his army. Instead, he found himself swept along by the will of his followers. From Guanajuato, Hidalgo’s forces marched on to Mexico City after capturing the towns of Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, and Valladolid. On October 30, 1810, they encountered resistance at Monte de las Cruces, and despite a victory, Hidalgo lost momentum and failed to take Mexico City. After a few additional minor victories, in March 1811 the insurgents were ambushed and taken prisoner in Monclova. Excommunicated by an ecclesiastical court, Hidalgo was then found guilty of treason. He and his compatriots were beheaded, and their heads were placed on pikes on the granary walls in Guanajuato to serve as a reminder of the consequences of treasonous behavior. After the death of Hidalgo, Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon assumed leadership of the revolutionary movement. A priest who had studied under Hidalgo and had been among the first to join the revolution, Morelos took charge of the political and military aspects of the insurrection and planned a strategic move to encircle Mexico City and to cut communications to the coastal areas. In June 1813, Morelos called together a national congress of representatives from all the provinces, which met at Chilpancingo to discuss the future of Mexico as an independent nation. The major points included in the document prepared by the congress were popular sovereignty, universal male suffrage, the adoption of Roman Catholicism as the official religion, abolition of slavery and forced labor, and an end to government monopolies and corporal punishment. Yet despite initial successes by Morelos’s forces, the colonial authorities broke the siege of Mexico City after six months, captured positions in the surrounding areas, and finally invaded Chilpancingo. In 1815, Morelos was captured, tried, and executed. From 1815 to 1821, most of the fighting by those seeking independence from Spain was conducted by isolated guerrilla bands. These bands produced two insurgent leaders—Manuel Felix Fernandez in Puebla and Vicente Guerrero in Oaxaca— but after 10 years of civil war and the death of two of its founders, by early 1820 the independence movement had reached a stalemate with government forces. In December 1820, in what was supposed to be the final government campaign against

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the guerrillas, Viceroy Juan Ruiz de Apodaca sent a force led by a royalist criollo officer, Agustín de Iturbide, to defeat Guerrero’s army in Oaxaca. Iturbide, a native of Valladolid, had gained renown for the zeal with which he persecuted Hidalgo and Morelos’s rebels during the early independence struggle. A favorite of the Mexican church hierarchy, Iturbide appeared to be the personification of conservative criollo values. And while he was indeed devoutly religious and committed to the defense of property rights and social privileges, privately he was also disgruntled by his lack of promotion and wealth. Iturbide’s assignment to the Oaxaca expedition unexpectedly coincided with a successful military coup d’état in Spain against the monarchy of Ferdinand VII, who had been restored to the Spanish throne in 1814. To resolve their differences, the leaders of the coup had compelled a reluctant Ferdinand to sign the liberal Constitution of 1812. When news of the liberal charter reached the colony, Iturbide saw in it an opportunity for the criollos to gain control of Mexico, and after an initial clash with Guerrero’s forces, Iturbide switched allegiances and invited the rebel leader to meet and discuss a doctrine that would support a renewed struggle for independence. With Guerrero’s counsel, on February 24, 1821, Iturbide promulgated the Plan de Iguala, which proclaimed three principles, or guarantees, for Mexico’s independence from Spain: Mexico would be an independent monarchy governed by the transplanted King Ferdinand or some other conservative European prince, criollos and peninsulares would henceforth enjoy equal rights and privileges, and the Roman Catholic Church would retain its privileges and religious monopoly. Politically, the proposal was so broadly based that it pleased both patriots and loyalists, while the goal of independence and the protection of Roman Catholicism largely brought together all remaining factions. After convincing his own soldiers to accept the principles, Iturbide then persuaded Guerrero’s forces to support the new conservative independence movement. A new military force, the Army of the Three Guarantees, was then placed under Iturbide’s command to enforce the Plan of Iguala. Iturbide’s army was soon joined by rebel forces from all over Mexico, and when an insurgent victory became certain, the viceroy resigned. On August 24, 1821, near Vera Cruz, Juan de O’Donoju, a representative of the Spanish crown, and Agustin de Iturbide signed the Treaty of Cordoba, giving Mexico its independence from Spain. Riding a wave of popularity, on July 21, 1822, Iturbide and his imperial court traveled to the National Cathedral in Mexico City, where he was crowned Agustin I, emperor of Mexico. See also Latin American Revolutions. FURTHER READING: Anna, Timothy E. The Fall of the Royal Government in Mexico City. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978; Cary, Diana Serra. “Failed First Step Toward Mexican Independence.” Military History 17 (2000): 34–41; Hamill, Hugh M. The Hidalgo Revolt: Prelude to Mexican Independence. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966; Hasbrouk, Alfred. “The Movements for Independence in Mexico and Central America.” In Colonial Hispanic America, ed. A. Curtis Wilgus. Washington, DC: George Washington University Press, 1936; Kinsbruner, Jay. Independence in Spanish America: Civil Wars, Revolutions, and Underdevelopment. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994; Kirkwood, Burton. The History of Mexico. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. BRETT F. WOODS

Mirabeau, Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de

Michaud, Joseph François (1767–1839) An important French editor and historian, Joseph François Michaud was born on June 19, 1767, at Albens, Savoy. He was educated at Bourg-en-Bresse and then took up work as a writer in Lyon. He was quickly critical of the French Revolution and in 1791 went to Paris, where, at great risk to his life, he edited several journals that supported the royalist cause. Five years later he became editor of La Quotidienne and was subsequently arrested. However, he managed to escape and was sentenced to death in absentia. With the establishment of the Directory, Michaud returned to editing La Quotidienne but ran into trouble when the Consulate took over from the Directory. Michaud’s sympathies with the French royalist cause led to his arrest and subsequent imprisonment in 1800. He then moved from journalism to writing several books. With his brother and two friends, in 1806, he wrote Biographie moderne ou dictionnaire des hommes qui se sont fait un nom en Europe, depuis 1789 (Modern Biography, or a Dictionary of Men Who Have Made Their Name in Europe since 1789). Five years later he completed his first volume of the history of the Crusades. With the restoration of the monarchy in 1814, Michaud returned to work on La Quotidienne. Michaud’s books met with some success. One, Histoire des quinze semaines ou le dernier règne de Bonaparte (History of Fifteen Weeks, or the Last Reign of Bonaparte) went through 27 editions. Elected to the French Academy, he was also made an officer in the Legion of Honor. In 1830–1831, he went to Syria and Egypt to collect information for his history of the Crusades, a work that was not published until a year after his death, when it appeared in six volumes. Michaud died on September 30, 1839. FURTHER READING: Bordeaux, Henry. Voyageurs d’Orient. Paris: Les petit-fils de Plon at Nourrit, 1926. JUSTIN CORFIELD

Mirabeau, Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de (1749–1791) Honoré-Gabriel de Mirabeau featured prominently in the early years of the French Revolution as men of noble birth participated in the efforts of the Third Estate as it became the National Assembly. As much as anyone, he wished for an end to inherited privilege in all its guises, and he dreamed of a revolution that would make all French people truly free. He equally hoped that the French monarchy could be saved through the passage of a constitution that would protect the people and elicit the best from a strong executive. His Enlightenment faith in education and the possibility of reforming society by altering the political system guided his thought and actions during the Revolution. Born to the noted Physiocrat Victor Riqueti, the Marquis de Mirabeau, the author of the best-selling L’Ami des hommes (1756), which called upon the French government to undertake a program of economic improvement, Honoré-Gabriel grew up among thinkers such as François Quesnay. Even though he later criticized the Physiocrats quite sharply, he nonetheless appreciated their emphasis on the moral and economic value of work; he shared their opposition to unearned privilege. The

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Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau. Courtesy of Alexander Mikaberidze.

brief influence of the Physiocrats on the French crown, effected through the ministry of Turgot, came to an abrupt end in 1776, but that did not terminate the interest of the male members of the Mirabeau family in politics, economics, philosophy, history, and the social problems of the day. By age five, Honoré-Gabriel’s intelligence had become well known among Parisian elites. The facial disfigurement caused by childhood smallpox meant that he would likely not receive praise for his appearance, though it hindered neither his career as a revolutionary nor his ability to attract female companionship. While his father separated from his mother and formed a household with his mistress, Honoré-Gabriel went to a Paris academy run by the abbé Choquart, where he received an excellent education with a fairly broad scope. In the decades prior to the French Revolution, Mirabeau managed to spend immense quantities of money and fell deeply into debt. His marriage in 1772 to a well-born heiress provided him with his first excuse for profligacy, but he continued to find it difficult to live within his means, and he never discharged his personal bankruptcy, declared when he was 25. His father hoped to impose discipline on his son at various points, usually by having Honoré-Gabriel arrested under lettres de cachet meant to preempt attempts by government officials or fellow nobles to have him arrested.

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While detained at the Château d’If in 1774, Mirabeau wrote his first treatise, Essai sur le despotisme. In this text, he revealed his inclination to seek concrete, practical reforms rather than to indulge in vague fantasy. Unlike Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he preferred man’s nature in society to that characteristic of man in a supposed state of nature, since he believed that society was formed as a consequence of an individual’s conscious acceptance of an authority who would serve his interests. The king, according to Mirabeau, enjoyed his position so that he could enact the mandate given by his people: to serve their interests as individuals and as a collective. If, however, he came to forget that his power originated with his people, then he was likely to become a despot. Foreseeing the consequences of misrule in mid-eighteenth-century France, he warned the new king, Louis XVI, that “if you make men conscious of their chains, if you insanely devour the riches your insatiable tyranny has seized from them, they will remember that they are stronger and more numerous than you, and that you have only as much power as they choose to give you.” Mirabeau recommended widespread education and freedom as the keys to ensuring that the people could resist despotic tendencies in their king, just as the king needed a similar education to train him to control the despotic potential latent in every human being from birth. In between causing various scandals, such as running away to Amsterdam with the teenage wife of an extremely elderly nobleman, and spending time under arrest at Vincennes in 1780, Mirabeau honed his skills as a journalist and read abundantly in history, economics, politics, and law. In 1782, he published Des letters de cachet, a denunciation of a law that lacked “general consent.” His wife Emilie, with whom he had little in common and who had been unfaithful to him, won an absolute separation by exploiting personal connections and manipulating the corrupt parlement in Aix. Meanwhile, people of the town had come to identify with Mirabeau as a consequence of his dazzling oratory in his own defense and his engagement in a battle against privilege akin to their own. The end of his marriage capped off decades during which he steadily lost status, wealth, and reputation. He had, in many respects, become an outsider to the privileged society into which he had been born. Mirabeau spent some time in Neuchâtel, then under Prussian control, where he met with various Genevan dissidents whose revolutionary hopes had been frustrated. His subsequent time in Britain did little to alter his opinions about the country: he remained a determined Francophile and rejected everything but the beef in Brighton, the beauty of the farms in the Home Counties, and the stability of the British government. He continued to struggle for a living as a journalist and translator, though he started to earn a reputation following his return to Paris in 1785. In his articles, he drew attention to the financial problems that ultimately crushed the French state. His understanding of economics allowed him to explain the deep roots of the obvious crisis. In order to get their talented critic out of the country, the French government employed Mirabeau as a secret correspondent in Berlin, where Frederick the Great’s successor, Frederick William II, remained a somewhat unknown entity. As soon as he returned again to Paris in January 1787, Mirabeau reentered the journalistic and political fray against the king’s ministers Calonne and, later, Necker. He watched the new minister Loménie de Brienne vainly struggle to control the Paris Parlement, and he refused the offer of a job, preferring “obscurity . . . until an orderly state of affairs emerges from the tumult we are in now, and until some great revolution compels every responsible citizen to raise his voice. This revolution cannot be delayed.” As much as he disliked the obvious despotic inclinations of the

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Paris Parlement, he also criticized the king for his unwillingness to summon the Estates-General. In May 1788, Mirabeau anonymously published the important Réponse aux alarmes des bons citoyens, in which he averred that the parlements did not defend the people’s interests, given that the people had no voice in them. He advised citizens to focus their hopes on the upcoming meeting of the Estates-General, conceded to by the king in August and set for 1789. Mirabeau wanted the Estates-General to tackle an agenda that included consent to taxation and loans, the establishment of civil liberty, and a provision to ensure regular assemblies. These would all rest on a “precise declaration of national rights,” in which he included the end of absolutism and the defense of liberty. Despite his dislike of privilege, he did not embrace republicanism: the French would enjoy liberty only if they had both a constitution and a monarch, he believed. Mirabeau’s Réponse preceded similar pamphlets by men such as the abbé Sieyès and helped the public to comprehend the potential import of the Estates-General and of the Third Estate in particular. Yet his monarchism irritated the radicals, who favored a republic, while his suggestions about the power of the people worried conservatives. His blend of democratic monarchism puzzled many of his colleagues and ultimately made him unsuited for a long-term leadership role during the Revolution. Mirabeau turned to the people in order to attend the Estates-General. His father refused to yield the fiefs that entitled him to a place in the Second Estate. HonoréGabriel determined to wage an election campaign in Aix and Marseilles. In both cities, he received great acclamation, much to the dismay of the local nobility, which attempted to prevent him from acquiring a seat in the Second Estate because he did not actually own any property. Mirabeau responded in print, pondering the nature of representative government and rejecting the notion that the right of election should belong only to property owners. He warned the nobles, “Take care, do not disdain the people who are the producers of everything, who have only to remain immobile to become formidable.” Yet the famine and food shortages in Provence did not incline the people toward passive resistance, and violence broke out in various cities of the region as the elections approached. Mirabeau came to the aid of the citizens of Marseilles as vigilante groups began to form against the rioters. He organized the first civil militia in France from a number of dock workers. With the violence temporarily calmed, Mirabeau distributed a pamphlet explaining the causes of high prices and proposing a reasonable price that all shopkeepers should maintain during the crisis. He provided a similar service in Aix. The nobility blamed Mirabeau for causing the riots, but this did not stop him being chosen representative from both Aix and Marseilles; he declined the latter, though he lived up to his promise to support their interests in the National Assembly. As he left Provence for Paris, supporters crowded around his carriage in each village. He had become “the Friend of the People.” In the early days of the Estates-General, he attempted to keep the Third Estate unified so that it could act as a single focus for public opinion. To that end, he avoided affiliating himself with any particular faction or tendency. He created the Journal des Etats-Généraux (later renamed Lettres du comte de Mirabeau) to publicize the cause of the Third Estate and gather support for its reconstitution as the National Assembly. Within the Assembly, though, his noble birth, his writings, and his enormous personal popularity made him suspect among many of his fellow

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deputies. Further, his enemies spread a libelous characterization of Mirabeau as venal and in the pay of the crown. His effectiveness as a revolutionary was ultimately limited mainly by the combination of a determined preference for a constitutional monarchy over a republic and a strong sympathy for the popular demonstrations that became common in the streets of Paris in the early 1790s. He worried only that these movements would inspire counterrevolutionary activity in response. In the year and a half prior to his death, Mirabeau led the committee that produced a draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Although vehemently criticized when initially introduced, the draft became the basis for the first version of the declaration, which was adopted by the National Assembly. Conservatives labeled Mirabeau an atheist after he pushed for the abolition of tithes, as a form of privilege, in favor of state compensation for clergy. He was a member of both the Jacobin Club and the Société de 89, the group of moderates who had split from the Jacobins in 1790; he became president of the former group in November 1790. Although he disliked Maximilien Robespierre’s demagogic tendencies, he shared his opposition to the principle that distinguished between “active” and “passive” citizens based upon property ownership. Mirabeau was also a founding member of the Société des Amis des Noirs, which sought the abolition of slavery in all French-controlled territories. In December 1791, Mirabeau published Aperçu de la situation en France et des moyens de concilier la liberté publique avec l’autorité royale. This pamphlet represented his last effort to convince his fellow Assembly members and the public that the king could play a vital role in defending public liberty. His influence steadily declined as the Revolution grew more radical. Yet he never stopped hoping that the Revolution would provide for a constitutional government, for a just and compassionate society, for protection of the poor against the wealthy, and for peace. His death, due to natural causes, on April 1, 1791, may have protected him both from disappointment and from the guillotine. FURTHER READING: Furet, François. Interpreting the French Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981; Grindon, Oliver John Welch. Mirabeau: A Study of a Democratic Monarchist. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1968; Hall, Evelyn Beatrice. The Life of Mirabeau. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912; Luttrell, Barbara. Mirabeau. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1990. MELANIE A. BAILEY

Monarchy See Abolition of the Monarchy (France)

Montagnards See The Mountain

Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de le Brede et de (1689–1755) Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de le Brede et de Montesquieu, was born on January 18, 1689, at the castle of La Brede, near Bordeaux. He was the son of

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Jacques de Secondat and Marie Françoise de Pesnel. His father was a soldier and of long noble ancestry. His mother inherited the barony of La Brede, but she died when Montesquieu was only seven. In 1700, Montesquieu entered the Oratorian College de Juilly at Meaux, where he received a classical education. In 1705 he went to Bordeaux to study law. In 1708 he was admitted to the bar before the Bordeaux Parlement, which was at the time one of the most venerated in the country. The Bordeaux Parlement has been one of the agencies that had enabled the French monarchy to outmaneuver the church and the feudal nobility. It seats were acquired by hereditary right, which enabled it to act with more independence than the successive French kings had wished. This air of independence was imparted to Montesquieu during his experience serving the Bordeaux Parlement. From 1708 to 1713, Montesquieu continued his legal education in Paris. His negative experiences led to a rejection of the Parisian lifestyle. In 1715 he married a wealthy Protestant, Jeanne de Lartigue. That same year he was elected to the Academy of Bordeaux. In 1716 he inherited the barony of Montesquieu and the presidency of the Bordeaux Parlement from his uncle Jean-Baptiste. The presidency was essentially the post of chief justice of a local court. In this role for some years he championed provincial rights against the centralized power of the king. However, in 1721, uninterested in the routine of legal practice, he sold his office as president of the Bordeaux Parlement. He was now wealthy enough that he could afford to study the law as a social phenomenon and to give up its active practice. In 1721, despite warnings against publishing, Montesquieu anonymously published on a Dutch press, with a fictional imprint attributed to Pierre Martineau, The Persian Letters (Les lettres persanes), which was an immediate and sensational success. However, because it was a clandestinely published anonymous book, it was to have a complicated publication history. It would sell steadily for the remainder of the eighteenth century. Montesquieu’s authorship of The Persian Letters was soon revealed. It gained him public acclaim and made him some highly placed enemies. He soon made frequent trips to Paris salons, where he mixed with admiring supporters. However, others were outraged by the book. Cardinal André Fleury was angered enough by the book that he successfully blocked Montesquieu’s induction into the French Academy until 1728. Problems connected with the book would continue to arise for the rest of his life. The Persian Letters reflected Montesquieu’s reading of travel literature, such as Johann Chardin, Voyage en Perse, and works of fiction from the Middle East such as The Thousand and One Nights. The book pretended to be a collection of letters written by two Persian travelers, Usbek and Rica, to family and friends back in Persia. In some places the letters were spiced with titillating sexual innuendos about life in a Persian harem. This gave a sensual quality to the severe social criticism of Europe and France that was the motivation for the book. The book was actually making use of perceived Persian innocence and wonder as a mirror for a witty criticism of the corruptions that Montesquieu found obnoxious. The weaknesses of the Persians were, in fact, meant to be those of Europeans, as well. In 1729, Montesquieu began a series of journeys in search of liberty. After travels in Italy, the Netherlands, and elsewhere in Europe, Montesquieu went to Britain, where he discovered the sort of liberty he was seeking. In Britain he was well received not only as a nobleman, but because his literary fame had preceded him.

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For two years he was feted and celebrated. He was elected to the Royal Society and was given extensive tours of Britain and guided explanations of its system of government. It was at this time that he began to develop his ideas on the separation of powers as a solution to the problem of despotic government. In 1731 Montesquieu returned to Bordeaux. He began a lengthy study of the history of the Roman Republic and its subsequent empire. In 1734 he published Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur of Rome and Its Decline (Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur decadence). The book was not a history in the sense of a narrative story. Instead Montesquieu was trying to discover the natural causes for historical events. Montesquieu wrote that Rome had risen to power because its martial qualities had made its citizen virtuous. In addition it contained institutions that were flexible enough to change so that political and social abuses could be corrected. On the other hand, Rome failed because it allowed imperialism to corrupt its basic virtues. Fourteen years later (1748), Montesquieu published his monumental work, The Spirit of the Laws (De l’esprit des lois). The book presents Montesquieu’s views on the environment and social relationships. The Spirit of the Laws is one of the greatest books in the history of political theory and jurisprudence, exercising enormous influence on historical method and sociology. However, it was to gain from the Jesuits, the philosophes, and others a mixture of opposition and support. Scholars have differed greatly in their interpretations of Montesquieu’s organizational scheme for The Spirit of the Laws. Some have found a rigid order, while others have found none. Despite its apparent lack of a clear structure, which makes it difficult to reduce to an orderly interpretation, it was read widely in the eighteenth century. The Laws is divided into 33 books (livres) of chapter length beginning with a short book about laws in general. For Montesquieu the “spirit” of the law lay in the origin and development of the law through custom. This included the development of the meaning of legal terms, rules, and the adoption of laws. After discussing general matters, Montesquieu used Books II–VIII to address numerous issues and laws regarding monarchy, republics, and despotism and their relationship, sumptuary legislation, problems of luxury, and the condition of women. In Books XI and X he discussed the laws of war and defense. These laws recognize the army and navy as means for the protection of the individuals. Book XI discusses the protection of individuals and the meaning of political liberty, including the form known in England. Books XII–XIII discuss domestic security, protection of property, justice, courts, public finances, and taxes. Books XIV–XIX discuss the concept of space and its relationship to government. Montesquieu wrestled with two problems first noted by Plato and Aristotle. The problems of space and of numbers had to be met by every government. Not every type of government was capable of ruling beyond a certain size territory, nor beyond a certain size population. The principal form that had historically ruled great numbers of people in vast territories was the empire. However, great empires, while providing peace, economic opportunity and security, and other benefits did not provide liberty, which was Montesquieu’s goal. Books XX–XXV discuss economics and religion. Montesquieu, in Book XX, reviews the laws related to commerce and poverty—how these differ in various legal systems and among different persons, such as merchants or nobles—and the impact they have upon them and they upon the political system. In Books XXI–XXV he

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discusses the impact of the natural environment on commerce and links this to the impact of money, usury, wars, and political changes. His discussion of religious laws and practices and their impact upon civil laws and practices covers a wide range of historical examples. In Books XXVII–XXXI Montesquieu discusses a number of matters dealing with the founding of political institutions, the Roman law of succession, and other matters. He then discusses the origin and development of French civil laws. The discussion reveals his lengthy study of Roman history because the discussion is entirely focused on the Roman roots of French laws, which were in Montesquieu’s day composed of a mosaic of conflicting systems. Montesquieu then discusses the development of law among the Franks versus the Germans. His discussion of trial by combat and its relationship to duels is quite extensive. He finishes with discussions of French feudalism and an explanation on how laws are made. After the publication of The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu, whose eyesight was failing him, retired to La Brede. He died on February 10, 1755, during a trip to Paris. Montesquieu’s political discussions essentially focused upon the issue of the relationship of the individual to the state. For Montesquieu the question was how to achieve a balance between order and liberty. For him, the local judge from Bordeaux, the threat of monarchial absolutism was real; a solution to the problem had to be found. He determined that the kind of political system that employed the separation of powers as existed in Britain proved to be an important mechanism for reducing the coercion inherent in the state. Apart from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu was the most important French political philosopher in the eighteenth century. His study of government to satisfy a love of liberty provided materials that were used to bring liberty to millions in both Europe and the Americas. For Montesquieu the key to liberty lay in the separation of powers. In Book XI, section 4, he states that political liberty can be found only in moderate governments. In section 6 of Book XI, he discusses separation of powers, that is, the division of government into three branches with legislative, executive, and judicial powers only. He describes this as he thought he had found it in the laws of England. He concludes Book XI with a mild rebuke to James Harrington, who in Oceana had discussed the separation of powers, for being too utopian. Montesquieu’s ideas had a major impact in France, but also a lasting impact in the United States. To the Americans who wrote the United States Constitution, Montesquieu was an important source of political wisdom. In section 5 of Book XI of The Spirit of the Laws, he had observed in passing that the central responsibility of all governments, the protection of persons and property, was always accompanied by additional ends such as expanding dominion (Rome), war (Sparta), or religion (ancient Israel). To Montesquieu, each government desired this additional goal. The authors of the American Constitution chose political liberty as the American goal. Indeed, Montesquieu’s work had a profound influence on the those who drew up the U.S. Constitution. The Federalist Papers, a series of 85 newspaper articles, were written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. Published in a New York City newspaper, they persuaded the people of New York to ratify the Constitution. Montesquieu’s ideas are discussed in three articles. In Federalist nos. 9 and 43 his ideas are used to expound the idea of a federal union. The most famous of Montesquieu’s political ideas that influenced the U.S. Constitution were those bearing on the separation of powers. Montesquieu’s conception

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of the separation of powers as refined by the Framers of the Constitution is embodied in the Legislative Article (Article 1), the Executive Article (Article 2), and the Judicial Article (Article 3), as well as institutionally in the Congress, the presidency, and the judiciary. His views are discussed at length in Federalist no. 47. FURTHER READING: Cassirer, Ernst. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment. Boston: Beacon Press, 1951; Courtney, Cecil Patrick. Montesquieu and Burke. Oxford: Blackwell & Mott, 1963; Montesquieu, Baron de. Cahiers, 1716–1755. Edited by Bernard Graset. Paris: Grasset, 1941; Montesquieu, Baron de. Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and the Decadence of the Romans. Translated by Jehu Baker. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1894; Montesquieu, Baron de. The Spirit of the Laws. Translated by Thomas Nugent. New York: Hafner, 1965; Montesquieu, Baron de. The Persian Letters. Translated by George Healy. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educational, 1964; Sabine, George H. A History of Political Theory. 3rd ed. New York: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 1961; Shackleton, Robert. Montesquieu: A Critical Biography. London: Oxford University Press, 1961. ANDREW J. WASKEY

Montmorin de Saint Hérem, Armand Marc, Comte de (1745–1792) A prominent French politician, Armand Marc, the comte de Montmorin de Saint Hérem, was from the cadet branch of a noble family from Auvergne. Montmorin was born on October 13, 1745, in Paris. He became a gentleman-inwaiting to the dauphin (later Louis XVI) and in 1777 was appointed ambassador to Madrid. At the court of King Charles III, he helped persuade Spain to enter the American Revolutionary War. After such a successful posting, he was recalled to become governor of Brittany. In 1787 Louis XVI named him as the successor of Charles Gravier, the comte de Vergennes, at the ministry of foreign affairs. Montmorin became a close friend and political ally of Mirabeau and strove hard to try to work out a compromise between the ardent royalists and the revolutionaries. He tried to persuade Louis XVI to accept the inevitability of change but failed. After Mirabeau died in April 1791, Montmorin was placed in a difficult position when the royal family fled to Varennes, where they were captured and brought back to Paris. He did not know of the escape attempt but there was always suspicion despite his being cleared by an investigative committee of the National Assembly. After the event, he continued to serve as an adviser to Louis XVI. In June 1792 officials seized his papers but could find no incriminating material in them. He was, however, denounced and fled. Captured and brought before the Legislative Assembly, he was taken to the Abbaye, where he died in the September Massacres. His distant cousin Louis Victor Henri, Marquis de Montmorin de Saint Hérem, leader of the senior branch of the family, was also killed in the same massacres. FURTHER READING: “Correspondence of the Comte de Moustier with the Comte de Montmorin.” American Historical Journal 8, no. 4 (1903): 709–33. JUSTIN CORFIELD

Morris, Gouverneur (1752–1816) An American politician, Gouverneur Morris served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention and later as minister plenipotentiary to France.

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Born in New York City to a wealthy couple, Lewis Morris Jr. and his second wife, Sarah Gouverneur, Morris inherited not only wealth and privilege, but also a tradition of service to the state; his father was a judge of the court of vice admiralty, his grandfather, governor of New Jersey; and his mother, the daughter of the Speaker of the New York Assembly. He attended the Academy of Philadelphia and King’s College (now Columbia) and was admitted to the bar in 1771. Because he was the youngest of three sons, his inheritance was limited. As a young man he was tall, handsome, self-assured, and a gifted, if somewhat verbose, speaker. When the American Revolution broke out, Morris initially urged compromise with the British but soon joined the Patriot cause. In 1775, he was elected to the New York Provincial Congress, where he advocated the issuance of a paper currency and the abolition of slavery. An enthusiastic supporter of George Washington, he served in the Continental Congress (1777–1779). Thrown from a coach in 1780, Morris had to have his leg amputated below the knee and replaced with an oak limb, a feature that became his trademark. Robert Morris (no relation), then superintendent of finance, appointed him his assistant from 1781 to 1785. As such, Gouverneur Morris urged the adoption of a decimal system and of the terms “cent” and “dollar,” essentially the basis of the American financial system. He continued his career as a businessman, buying property and investing in companies before his election in December 1786 to the Constitutional Convention, where he defended the principles of both property ownership and civil rights and argued for an independent executive. A skilled writer, he served on the committee that drafted the United States Constitution. In 1788, Morris traveled to Europe on business and while there was appointed minister plenipotentiary to France (1792–1794). During this time mobs invaded his home, and officials searched his mail and arrested him twice. Morris, who detested the French Revolution and the carnage of the Reign of Terror, was eventually recalled. In 1798, he returned to the United States and reentered politics, serving as a senator from New York (1800–1803). He later supported the Louisiana Purchase (1803), championed plans for an Erie Canal, and opposed the War of 1812. He married Anne Cary Randolph late in1809 and died seven years later. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade. FURTHER READING: De Conde, Alexander. Entangling Alliance: Politics and Diplomacy under George Washington. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1958; Mintz, Max M. Gouverneur Morris and the American Revolution. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970; Morris, Gouverneur. The Diary and Letters. 2 vols. Edited by Anne Cary Morris. 1888. Reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1970; Morris, Gouverneur. A Diary of the French Revolution. Edited by Beatrix Cary Davenport. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1939; Roosevelt, Theodore. Gouverneur Morris. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1888. LINDA S. FREY AND MARSHA L. FREY

Mounier, Jean Joseph (1758–1806) French revolutionary and statesman, Mounier was born to a merchant family in Grenoble. He initially dreamed of a military career but his non-noble origins presented a major obstacle to this pursuit. Instead, young Mounier chose to study law at the Collége Royal Dauphin and the University of Orange, receiving the

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bachelor of law in 1776. In 1779, he was admitted as an advocate at Grenoble and, in 1783, purchased the office of juge royal, one of the two criminal judgeships of his province. Over the next five years, he studied politics and English institutions, of which he became a profound admirer. In 1788, he participated in the meetings of the Estates of Dauphiné at Grenoble, Vizille, and Romans, where he served as a secretary of the Assembly of the provincial Estates-General of Dauphiné province, drafting the cahiers of grievances and enhancing his political reputation. After the king summoned the Estates-General, Mounier was elected deputy of the Third Estate from the Dauphiné in January 1789 and published Nouvelles observations sur les Etats-Généraux de France, in which he criticized the ancient constitution and the procedures of the Estates-General, and campaigned for more powers to be granted to the new deputies. As the Estates-General gathered at Versailles in May 1789, Mounier played a prominent role in the ongoing dispute over the issue of voting and was in favor of the union of the Third Estate with the two privileged orders, the First Estate and the Second Estate. On June 17, the Third Estate made the bold move of declaring itself the National Assembly. Three days later, when the deputies of the Third Estate gathered for a regular meeting, they found the doors of their assigned meeting hall closed and guarded by royal troops, a sign of King Louis XVI’s resolution to use force to dissolve the seditious estate. As the deputies moved to a nearby empty hall, which was often used to play tennis and was known as jeu de paume (tennis court), some of them called for moving the Third Estate to Paris, where the population would defend them from any actions on the part of the crown. However, Mounier eloquently opposed this motion and instead proposed staying at Versailles and swearing an oath not to separate until a new constitution for the kingdom was accepted. As a result, the famous Tennis Court Oath was pledged by the deputies. On June 23, Mounier was among the few who protested against King Louis XVI at the séance royale. He took active part in the work of the Constituent Assembly and was elected to the first Constitutional Committee, where he proposed establishing a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislative branch—a system similar to that of the British. On September 28, 1789, Mounier was elected president of the Constituent Assembly and served as a leader of liberal monarchists. After the events of October 5–6, 1789, he disapproved of the treatment of the king and clashed with more radical deputies. In protest, he resigned both as president and deputy and returned to Dauphiné, where he published an exposition of his conduct, Exposé de la conduite de Mounier dans l’Assemblée nationale et des motifs de son retour en Dauphiné, which was critical of the radical tendencies he observed in Paris. His conduct, however, branded him as a traitor to the revolutionary cause, and Mounier was forced to seek refuge in Switzerland in 1790. He remained in exile for the next decade, publishing several works concerning revolutionary events in France, among them Appel au tribunal de l’opinion publique sur le décret rendu par l’Assemblée nationale le 3 octobre 1790 (1792), Recherches sur les causes qui ont empeché les Français de devenir libres (1792), and Adolphe ou principles élémentaires de politique et résultats de la plus cruelle des experiences (1795). In 1793, Mounier traveled to London, where the British government offered him a lucrative position and salary in Canada, which he refused, as he still entertained the hope of returning to France. In 1795, with Switzerland in the midst of revolutionary upheaval, Mounier retired to Germany, where he was sheltered by the Duke

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of Weimar and established a school for young noblemen at the castle of Belvedere. While staying here, he produced De l ’influence attribuée aux philosophes, aux francsmaçons et aux illuminés sur la Révolution française, which was published in Tubingen in 1801. After General Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9–10, 1799), Mounier was included in the amnesty of émigrés and returned to France in 1801. First Consul Bonaparte named him a prefect of the department of Ille-etVilaine in 1803, and Mounier reorganized and directed this department for the next three years. In 1804, Mounier was appointed to the Senate and then, in 1805, made a councilor of state. However, already in poor health, he died at the age of 48 in Paris on January 26, 1806. See also Cahiers de Doléances. FURTHER READING: Egret, Jean. La révolution des notables, Mounier et les monarchiens 1789. Forlag: Armand Colin, 1950; Lanzac de Laborie, Léon de. Un royaliste libéral en 1789. Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et cie. 1887; Robert, Adolphe, Edgar Bourloton, and Gaston Cougny, eds. Dictionnaire des parlementaires français. Paris: Bourloton, 1889–1891. ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE

The Mountain The name “the Mountain” (La Montagne) was given to a political group of radical left-wing deputies during the French Revolution who sat on the highest benches in the Manège, where the National Convention met in 1792–1795; its members were known as the Montagnards. The Mountain emerged as a radical group known for its democratic ideals in the fall of 1792 and opposed the moderate Girondin deputies in the Convention. In 1791–1792, many future Girondin and Montagnard deputies belonged to the Jacobin Club but became split in the subsequent disagreement between Jacques-Pierre Brissot and Maximilien Robespierre. The support base for the Mountain was among the sans-culottes (radical elements of the poorer classes) of Paris, as well as the petty bourgeoisie, who welcomed radical changes. Despite consisting of about a third of the 749 deputies of the Convention, the Montagnards exercised a dominating influence over many moderate deputies, jointly known as the Plain or Marshes, and had close connections with the Paris Commune. In the Convention, the Mountain was engaged in a bitter fight with the Girondin faction, which initially controlled the government from September 1792 to June 1793. This conflict proved to be a driving force behind many events of the Revolution, including the trial and execution of King Louis XVI. The Mountain proved successful in the end and overthrew the Girondins in the insurrection of May 31 to June 2, 1793. It then dominated the Convention and effectively controlled the French revolutionary government for the next year, a period sometimes referred to as the Montagnard Dictatorship. The Montagnards’ temperament was democratic, and they drafted the Constitution of 1793, which was the most democratic constitution at the time. The Mountain also implemented radical policies to stabilize the country in the midst of civil strife and foreign invasions. They employed terrorist measures widely to fight political enemies and perceived counterrevolutionary activities and established strict state control of the economy through the Law of the Maximum, which benefited the poor. To fight the very real threat of

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foreign invasion, the Montagnard government declared the levée en masse that transformed the nature of military conflict and helped turn the tide of the war. Nevertheless, these policies, especially the use of terror, backfired by early 1794, when a series of intra-Montagnard conflicts took place. The spring of 1794 saw the fall and execution of the Hébertiste and Dantonist factions as Robespierre became more isolated and conspicuous, insisting on a continuation of the Reign of Terror. By June 1794, the Mountain, never a solid block, disintegrated and collapsed in the coup of 9 Thermidor, or the Thermidorian Reaction. Following this coup, the Mountain itself ceased to be an influential political force. The Jacobin Club was closed in November 1794, and the Montagnards were purged from the Convention, where the remaining deputies organized a minority faction known as the crête (crest). The Germinal-Prairial uprisings in April to May 1795 were the last powerful show of force by the former Montagnards, and they were suppressed and persecuted throughout the country. Nevertheless, some Montagnards made a successful comeback during the period of the Directory, though their brief neo-Jacobin revival in 1799 ended with the coup of the 18 Brumaire and the establishment of the Consulate under Napoleon Bonaparte. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Danton, Georges-Jacques; French Revolutionary Wars; Hébert, Jacques; Hébertistes; Jacobins. FURTHER READING: Bouloiseau, Marc. The Jacobin Republic 1792–1794. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983; Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002; Lefebvre, George. The French Revolution. Translated by John Hall Stewart and James Friguglietti. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1962–1964. ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE

Muir, Thomas (1765–1799) Muir, the son of a devout Presbyterian father who was a hop merchant and grocer, was born in Glasgow. He started reading law at Glasgow University but transferred to Edinburgh University after getting into trouble for urging university reform. He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in November 1787 and soon built up a successful legal practice in Edinburgh, though he sometimes waived his fees when pleading for poor clients. He sat in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland as an elder and supported the more popular evangelical party. In late 1792, inspired by events in France, he helped found the Scottish Association of the Friends of the People in Edinburgh. He became a vice president, promoted reform societies elsewhere in Scotland, and made contact with leading United Irishmen. At a convention of reformers held in Edinburgh on December 11–13, 1792, to promote a petition for parliamentary reform, he supported reform, read out a printed address from the Society of United Irishmen, and called for reformers throughout the British Isles to support similar conventions. On January 2, 1793, Muir was arrested on a charge of sedition, but released on bail. He went to London to meet Whig leaders and then on to France, where he arrived too late to remonstrate against the execution of Louis XVI. When war broke out in February 1793, he was unable to return home. He eventually took an American ship bound for

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Baltimore but left it at Belfast and returned to Scotland to stand trial. His trial on August 30 was before the harsh judge Lord Braxfield. He unwisely chose to defend himself, which he did with spirit, vigor, and dignity, but, in a trial that was far from impartial, he was convicted and sentenced the next day to be transported. He was imprisoned for some months in a prison hulk on the River Thames, which badly affected his health, before sailing to Australia on May 2, 1794, with three other political prisoners convicted by the Scottish courts. Muir was not incarcerated in Australia but was allowed to buy a small farm. In February 1796 he was picked up off shore by an American trading ship that took him to Nootka Sound on the Pacific coast of North America. He made his way down to California, crossed Mexico, and reached Havana, where he was imprisoned for a time. Taking a Spanish ship, he crossed the Atlantic, but off Cadiz, this ship was attacked and captured by two Royal Navy warships on April 26, 1797. During the battle, a flying splinter removed Muir’s eye and part of his cheek, leaving him heavily bloodied and severely disfigured. Not recognizing him, the British sent him on shore with the rest of the wounded. The Cadiz authorities promptly imprisoned him, but efforts made by the Directory in France secured his release in September. Muir set off for France, reaching Paris in December, and was welcomed by government officials. In poor health and in financial difficulties, he was involved in petty intrigues, wrote some essays for De Bonneville’s Le Bien Informé, and met Thomas Paine and various British exiles, including several United Irishmen. He dropped out of sight in September 1798, and his death was recorded in Le Moniteur in late January 1799. See also Whigs. FURTHER READING: Bewley, Christina. Muir of Huntershill. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983; MacMillan, Hector. Handful of Rogues: Thomas Muir’s Enemies of the People. Glendariel, UK: Argyll Books, 2005. H. T. DICKINSON

Murray, David, Earl of Mansfield (1727–1796) David Murray, seventh viscount Stormont and second earl of Mansfield, was a British diplomat and Northern secretary of state during the second half of the American Revolution, from 1779 to 1782. Born in Scotland, he was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, and largely owed his career to the influence of his uncle William Murray, first earl of Mansfield, who became lord chief justice of England. Mansfield secured Stormont’s first appointment to Saxony-Poland, then jointly ruled by Augustus III, in 1755. His marriage to a Saxon aristocrat in 1759 afforded Stormont entry into the Habsburg family circle when he was appointed ambassador to Vienna in 1763. Largely responsible for the Anglo-Austrian rapprochement after the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), his long-standing regard for Stanislaw Poniatowski, elected king of Poland in 1764, led Stormont to publicly oppose the first partition of Poland in 1772. Failing to prevent Austrian involvement, Stormont nonetheless attempted to mobilize British public opinion against partition by sponsoring John Lind to publish Letters concerning the Present State of Poland, in 1773. Appointed ambassador to Paris in 1776, Stormont unsuccessfully attempted to prevent French involvement in

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the American Revolutionary War, and in October 1779 he was appointed secretary of state for the Northern Department. Stormont was undoubtedly intelligent, diligent, and vastly experienced, but he proved to be rather rigid in his outlook and clung to the old system of diplomacy in a rapidly changing world. While firm in protecting British interests during the American Revolution, his Anglocentric vision, especially over neutral trading rights, not only helped provoke the Anglo-Dutch War of 1780 but also alienated Catherine II of Russia, who played a leading role in the creation of the League of Armed Neutrality in 1780. Leaving office with the fall of the Lord North ministry in March 1782, Stormont was later an important supporter of William Pitt the Younger. Stormont supported his country’s participation in the war against revolutionary France that began in 1793 and returned to office as lord president of the Council, which he held until his death in Brighton in 1796. See also Franco-American Alliance; French Revolutionary Wars; Poland, Partitions of. FURTHER READING: Horn, D. B. British Public Opinion and the First Partition of Poland. Edinburgh, UK: Oliver and Boyd, 1945; Scott, H. M. British Foreign Policy in the Age of American Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. RORY T. CORNISH

Murray, John, Earl of Dunmore (1732–1809) In 1769, John Murray, fourth earl of Dunmore, was appointed governor of New York and, in 1772, governor of Virginia. During his tenure as governor of Virginia he helped initiate a war against the Ohio Valley Indians. He also recruited a regiment of slaves to oppose Whigs in the early stages of the War of Independence. It is unclear whether the conflict with the Ohio Indians, known as Dunmore’s War, was motivated by a desire to distract Virginians’ revolutionary politics or a genuine interest in expanding the colony. It ended with a disadvantageous peace for the colony in the autumn of 1774. When armed defiance of the mother country began in 1775, Dunmore raised and led several loyalist units. On November 7, 1775, Dunmore proclaimed freedom to all slaves who took up arms in support of the king. His proclamation led to the creation of the Royal Ethiopians, a unit consisting of freed slaves who, in the event, achieved little militarily. Dunmore returned to Britain for a brief time before taking up his post as royal governor of the Bahamas, which he filled from 1787 to 1796. He died at Ramsgate in May 1809. See also American Revolution; American Revolutionary War; Loyalists. FURTHER READING: Hintzen, William. The Border Wars of the Upper Ohio Valley (1769–1794). Manchester, CT: Precision Shooting, 1999. JAMES R. MCINTYRE

Murray, Judith Sargent (1781–1820) Judith Sargent Murray is regarded as America’s first feminist. She was born in 1751 in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She married John Stevens in 1769. Both she and her husband strongly supported the American Revolutionary War. In 1784, she

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began to write poems and essays. Her husband died in 1786. She and her family had a long-standing friendship with the Reverend John Murray, a Universalist. After her husband died, she converted to Universalism, and in 1788 she married John Murray. They had a daughter named Julia in 1791. She continued to write poetry, essays, and plays and became a regular contributor to Massachusetts Magazine in the 1780s. She published an essay entitled “On the Equality of the Sexes” in 1790. In the essay, Murray championed equality for women. The essay compared the intellectual abilities of men and women and concluded that while men were superior to women in regard to reason and judgment, this was simply because men were permitted to obtain an education, while women were not. In other essays, she supported the education of women, as well as greater economic autonomy and political participation for women. Owing to her writings, she is considered to be the earliest public feminist in America. A collection of Murray’s essays was published in 1798 in book form under the title The Gleaner. Many prominent people, including George Washington and John Adams, read her book. Following the death of her second husband, she edited and published his sermons, letters, and autobiography. Murray was a frequent letter writer herself. She seemed to understand the importance of leaving behind a written historical record, so at the age of 23, she started copying her letters to family and friends into books. Murray copied over 2,500 letters, creating an important record of eighteenth-century America. Judith Sargent Murray died in 1820. FURTHER READING: Smith, Bonnie Hurd. The Letters I Left Behind: Judith Sargent Murray Papers. Salem, MA: Curious Traveller Press, 2004. GENE C. GERARD

N Naples, Kingdom of The Kingdom of Naples was formed after the division of the Kingdom of Sicily in 1282. During its long history, the Kingdom of Naples had come under the governance of the French, the Spanish, and, from 1714 after the Treaty of Rastatt, Charles VI of the Holy Roman Empire. However, in the decades following the French Revolution, the Kingdom of Naples was subject to much instability, and from 1798 to 1816 the territory was governed by a succession of leaders with affiliations with the Spanish and British monarchy, as well as to Revolutionary and Napoleonic France. In 1798, the Bourbon dynasty led by Ferdinand VI was overthrown and replaced by the French-led Parthenopean Republic, although in 1799 Bourbon rule was reestablished thanks to the intervention of British forces. Ferdinand VI remained in power until 1806, when the French invaded the south of Italy and reshaped the political landscape of the peninsula. Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother, was installed as king of Naples, although upon his crowning as king of Spain, he was replaced in 1808 by Joachim Murat, one of Napoleon’s marshals. Murat’s grip over Naples was firmly maintained in the succeeding years, although following the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, he switched allegiance from the French to the Austrian cause to save his throne. However, during the Hundred Days (March to June 1815), Murat deserted his Austrian allies and reverted back to the French side, in an attempt to strength his rule within Italy. His defeat, however, at the Battle of Tolentino on May 2–3, 1815, led to his removal from power in Naples. His successor, the restored Bourbon king Ferdinand VI, in the following year merged the Neapolitan mainland possessions with that of Sicily, thus forming the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. FURTHER READING: Croce, Benedetto. History of the Kingdom of Naples. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972. IAN MORLEY

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Napoleon I (1769–1821) Napoleon I, emperor of France, whose full name was Napoleon Bonaparte, is generally acclaimed as one of the greatest military leaders of all time. He changed the face of warfare forever, but his political legacy was equally important and helped shape the modern world. He is often dismissed as a precursor to Stalin and Hitler by his critics or hailed by his admirers as a enlightened liberator. Neither polarized view does complete justice to the emperor, his effect on the political stage, and his flair for administration. As Max Sewell, among others, noted, Napoleon’s achievements lay in his ability to dovetail the achievements of the French Revolution with the needs of a country torn apart by war and internecine strife. His involvement in the codification of the law, which resulted in the Civil Code of 1804, which endures to this day, embodied France’s social changes and gave the country a muchneeded element of stability. He also formed an uneasy peace with the Catholic Church under the Concordat, making it subordinate to the state, and allowing religion to exert a steadying influence on society. Philip Dwyer calls Napoleon a ”consolidator” who managed to rein in the Revolution by helping eliminate the factionalism that had split France asunder. He facilitated a rapprochement with Catholics, royalists, and émigrés; codified the aforementioned laws; and introduced monetary reforms (such as the creation of the Bank of France in 1800) in a bid to develop the socioeconomic and political stability that the country so badly needed. As Tulard said, “The only way in which the Revolution could be brought to a close was through an alliance of the bourgeoisie and the peasantry around one or another principle. The man was found: Bonaparte.” The emperor set stable government above much else, as his admiration for Maximilien Robespierre, the Revolution’s arch ideologue, shows. His affinity with the revolutionary disciple stemmed not from a liking for the former lawyer’s zeal or modus operandi but from a desire for strong government. Englund shows the incongruity of the link between the two men and their shared vision for a strong, unified France: “The first Emperor of the French is generally regarded as the last word in pragmatic governance and the French Revolution’s great stifler, while the ‘Incorruptible’ is construed as its most advanced avatar, a Jacobin illumine who put ideology ahead of everything.” To achieve a strong government, Napoleon also strengthened a massive administrative and judicial apparatus, which ensured that all roads figuratively led to Paris. The highly centralized system of appointed officials (prefects, subprefects, mayors, and judges) took the onus away from the people who been such a prominent (and fearful) part of the Revolution. The elite, from which Napoleon sprang, was simultaneously strengthened by these changes. As Dwyer points out, despite his early flirtations with Jacobinism, Napoleon was not a true revolutionary. As an ancien régime noble, he had a nobleman’s contempt for that nebulous concept, the people. Wealth and property, therefore, were an integral part of the Empire, although they did not totally eclipse the Revolution’s meritocracy, which left some careers and positions open to talent. To ensure the smooth operation of the state and its branches, the emperor’s pragmatic, conciliatory approach extended to landowners, government officials, professionals, and businessmen. In 1808, he even went so far as to create a new tier of notables supposedly based on merit in contrast to the

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ancien régime’s emphasis on birth and privilege. However, more than one-fifth of the Napoleonic nobility were made up of remnants of the Old Regime. The Legion d’Honneur was created in 1802 to reward servants of the state. Napoleon wanted to form entire echelons of society, which remained entirely devoted to him and the Empire. Considering Napoleon’s reputation among some historians as a dictator and precursor of Hitler, it is little surprise that he also used repression to consolidate society and state in the aftermath of the Revolution. The period when Napoleon became First Consul for life in 1802 coincided with a time when, according to Dwyer, “traditional methods of repression were used on an unprecedented scale to restore order in large areas of endemic lawlessness so that more modern methods of surveillance, policing, and control could maintain order thereafter.” However, it is worth noting that repression was on the rise well before Napoleon took power. In 1799, some 40 percent of the country was under the control of generals who could and did use extreme methods to stifle unrest. Napoleon used the army to instill order at the point of a bayonet and continued the Directory’s strategy of using military, extrajudicial measures, especially in the rebellious countryside. In 1801, Napoleon resurrected Special Tribunals, with civil and military judges, which had been a feature of the Reign of Terror and, indeed, they became a central part of his criminal justice framework. But the Napoleonic regime largely adhered to the rule of law, and comparisons to Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia are somewhat spurious. Repression during this period was also not restricted solely to the Napoleonic regime, although he, as leader of an authoritarian state, made his own ambitions synonymous with those of France. As Sewell makes clear, almost all the European states reflected the egos of their monarchs, and few of them were intent on fostering democracy, limiting their borders, or improving civil rights. Nations were not averse to pursuing their own agendas, satisfying their ambitions, expanding their borders, and increasing their control over the populace. Considering Napoleon’s reputation as one of history’s foremost military leaders, it comes as little surprise that his rule led to a general militarization of society. He was primarily a soldier, not a statesman, so the advent of the Legion d’Honneur was just one aspect of a much wider phenomenon. The demands of Napoleon’s war machine were far reaching and added the woes of requisitioning and conscription to the scars left by the Revolution. Bonaparte’s ascent to power came through the army, and it was arguably with the military that he felt most comfortable. As Forrest shows, it was almost inevitable that the military should play such a prominent social and political role, considering not only Napoleon’s background but the fact that the country was almost continually at war. In a style similar to the army, the country was run in a linear, hierarchical fashion. The state was highly centralist, with a clear chain of command in which, Dwyer says, “everyone reported up to the ministries and the ministers in turn reported to Napoleon. Little was left to local consultation.” Napoleon’s educational policy, based on the lycées and the University of France, was also geared toward the military and creating the next generation of technocrats. In the beginning, the quest for la gloire had an unmistakable attraction for many, but as the depredations of years of war took their toll, this quickly dimmed. The bourgeoisie could secure an exemption for their sons, but poorer sections of society

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were not so lucky. In 1809, after the brief war against Austria, as many as 100,000 men were pardoned for failing to take part in the campaign. Bonaparte emerged as more of a pragmatist than an idealist. Despite his attempts to rewrite history during his exile on St. Helena, his reputation remains open to interpretation. He is often blamed for the wars that bear his name, as critics argue that he should have prevented conflict through negotiation and persuasion and more subtle diplomacy. However, the Revolution had set off cataclysmic changes that aggravated centuries-old rivalries. Napoleon’s use of “war as a continuation of politics by other means” à la Clausewitz was not necessarily unique, nor was his single-minded determination to defend and enrich the state of France. It was often successful, something his Bourbon forebears may have envied. Napoleon’s downfall is well documented and his ego, perceived megalomania, and contempt for political institutions and democracy are often cited as lying at the heart of his hubris. However, as Sewell points out, this theorizing with the lucidity of hindsight is perhaps too straightforward: “If Bonaparte was indeed unique, and expected to accomplish deeds other men could only dream of, would he not need an ego as large as his ambitions? Achieving democracy in France and peace for Europe is not a task for a modest man, so was Napoleon’s ambition simply a sin because it pursued goals we disapprove of, or that it pursued those goals using methods we disapprove of ?” Napoleon would probably enjoy a better historical and political reputation had he perished before 1804. He would possibly have been remembered as a representative of the armed wing of the Enlightenment. His eventual denouement, including factors such as the disastrous Continental System, the division of Europe among his troublesome siblings, and the adoption of de facto monarchical garb, has tarnished his legacy. Even his staunchest advocate would not argue that he was placid, pure, modest, democratic, and a peacemaker, but he is nonetheless interesting and important for that. He holds a special place in the collective political consciousness, especially in France. For all his flaws, he was a political and military genius but was still human. Today, much of the legal structure of the nations that Napoleon helped to define are based on the precepts laid down in his Civil Code. Considered to be his greatest legacy, Napoleon’s Civil Code ensured the spread of the ideals of the French Revolution long after the end of his rule. But it was through the image he presented of himself that the people of Europe found a symbol of revolutionary change. Debate still rages about Napoleon and the period of his rule. Students of the period should avoid seeing the politics of the era as a monolithic whole. Bonaparte was many things to many people: Jacobin, republican, reformer, consolidator, liberal, and despot. Few figures can claim such a diverse legacy. The historiography of Napoleon has been subject to huge differences in interpretation. Anglo-Saxon authors, on the whole, have been more prone to point out his dark side and that of the regime. Some have argued that the country changed less between 1800 and 1825 that it did between 1795 and 1800. Napoleon’s life, career, and politics were fascinating but deceptively multifaceted. Two things remain clear: first, his influence is difficult to underestimate. His wars and conquests, particularly in Italy and Germany, fuelled the nascent passions of nationalism and exacerbated a Franco-German enmity, which was to have enormous ramifications for Europe and the world. He changed the map of Europe and swept away a plethora of feudal duchies and principalities. Unlike the totalitarian rulers of more recent times and

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despite the bloodshed and war carried out in his name, Napoleon is still acclaimed for his political and legislative feats. Secondly, the controversy over what Napoleon meant for Europe and the world will continue to rage as it has done for the last 200 years. In a world where politics has been largely sanitized, his legacy assumes even greater significance and is undoubtedly very much alive today. FURTHER READING: Dwyer, Philip G., ed. Napoleon and Europe. London: Longman, 2001; Englund, Steven. Napoleon: A Political Life. New York: Scribner, 2004; Tulard, Jean. Napoleon: The Myth of the Saviour. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984; Wilson-Smith, Timothy. Napoleon: Man of War, Man of Peace. London: Constable, 2002. WEB SITE: Sewell, Max. What Kind of Leader Was Napoleon Bonaparte? Napoleon Series.org. http://www.napoleonseries.org/faq/leader.cfm. STEPHEN STEWART

Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) The Napoleonic Wars comprise a series of campaigns fought between 1803 and 1815, and, in every case, pitting France and her allies against various shifting alliances involving one or more of Europe’s great powers, including Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, and lesser nations. The War of the Third Coalition, 1805 Following the signature of the Treaty of Amiens between Britain and France in March 1802, the decade-long French Revolutionary Wars came to an end with a tenuous 14-month period of peace. French territorial annexations made during what amounted to an armistice, in addition to Britain’s refusal to evacuate Malta, led to a renewal of hostilities in May 1803. The French prepared to invade Britain by assembling an army of 160,000 men along the Channel coast, to be transported by a flotilla of flat-bottomed boats built for the purpose. The British, meanwhile, in the absence of any continental allies, confined themselves to blockading French ports and persuading through an active diplomatic campaign to win the support of the Great Powers against the perceived Napoleonic menace. Through the inspiration of her prime minister, William Pitt, Britain managed first to secure the aid of Russia, and then Austria and Sweden, over the course of 1805. Aware of the formation of a coalition against him, Napoleon broke up his invasion camp at Boulogne in August and rapidly marched his army to the Danube, thus averting for Britain the threat of invasion for the remainder of the year. Britain’s security was effectively confirmed when on October 21 Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson decisively defeated the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar, leaving the Royal Navy supreme at sea for the remainder of the Napoleonic Wars. On land, however, Napoleon broke the power of the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz, in Moravia, on December 2, forcing Francis II of Austria to withdrawn from the Third Coalition and obliging Tsar Alexander I to withdraw with his troops to the east. By the Treaty of Pressburg, Austria ceded substantial territories in Germany and Italy to France and her allies. The War of the Fourth Coalition, 1806 –1807 The following summer, Napoleon established the Confederation of the Rhine, a conglomeration of German satellite states from which he could recruit soldiers and find a ready market for French goods. Such interference in German affairs,

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including the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire, became a particular source of annoyance to Prussia, whose king, Frederick William II, had remained neutral during the campaign of 1805. When Prussia took the field in October 1806, she had promised support from Russia, though it would be some time before the tsar’s troops could reach the theater of operations in Saxony, while Austria was still prostrate from her defeat at Austerlitz and the annexations that followed. The Prussian army, still organized and trained in the fashion of Frederick the Great, proved itself incapable of meeting the demands of the new form of warfare to which the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras had given birth and crumbled in two simultaneous battles, Jena and Auerstädt, fought on October 14. Thereafter, the French conducted a masterly campaign of pursuit, rounding up the scattered remnants of the Prussian army, seizing the principal fortresses, and pushing on into Poland to confront the Russians, whom Napoleon fought to a bloody standstill at Eylau on February 8, 1807, before defeating them comprehensively at Friedland on June 14. By the subsequent treaties of Tilsit, concluded with Russia and Prussia on July 7 and 9, respectively, Napoleon effectively divided the Continent into spheres of influence between himself and Alexander, with Prussia drastically reduced in size and population and consigned to the status of a second-rate power. The Peninsular War, 1807 –1814 Having vanquished the major powers of Europe, with a single notable exception, Napoleon turned his attention to the defeat of Britain. Without a navy capable of opposing that of his principal remaining opponent, the emperor adopted a strategy of economic strangulation, known as the Continental System, already in place since the winter of 1806, by which he would enforce a ban on all trade between Britain and the Continent. In order to ensure the total exclusion of British goods from European markets, Napoleon resolved to control the entire continental coastline, whether through occupation, the cooperation of his allies, or compulsion. Thus, as Portugal, one of Britain’s oldest trading partners, refused to comply, the French duly marched through friendly Spain and invaded the defenseless country in November 1807, partly with a view to seizing the Portuguese fleet, which, however, escaped to Brazil. To ensure complete control over Iberia, the French used the pretext of guarding the coasts of Spain to occupy her ally in March 1808, soon thereafter forcing the king and his son to abdicate. On May 2 rebellion broke out in Madrid, while a general insurrection rapidly spread across the country. Despite initial setbacks, including the capitulation of a French army of 20,000 men at Bailen on July 19, the invaders soon established control of most of the country. The British responded by dispatching an expeditionary force under Sir John Moore to Portugal in the autumn of 1808. After a British victory at Vimeiro on August 21, the French in Portugal agreed to the Convention of Cintra, which led to their evacuation of the country. This was a comparatively minor setback, however, for over 100,000 troops remained in Spain, and it became the task of Sir John Moore to march on Madrid. In November, however, Napoleon entered Spain at the head of 200,000 men to lead the campaign in person. Moore, unable to resist such numbers, conducted a horrendous retreat through bitter winter conditions to Corunna, on the northwest coast of Spain, in late December. Barely holding off the French, Moore’s army was evacuated by the Royal Navy, though Moore died in the fighting at Corunna on January 16, 1809. Elsewhere, the French consistently

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defeated the various ill-equipped and badly led Spanish forces sent against them, while guerrilla operations sprouted across Iberia, destroying small French detachments, intercepting scouts and messengers, and harassing convoys. A largely unseen aspect of the conflict, it would eventually account for over 100,000 French casualties. The war would also be distinguished by a series of dreadful sieges, among these the epic defense of Saragossa, where between December 1808 and February 1809 the defenders grimly held out until disease and starvation forced them to capitulate. In March 1809, the French invaded Portugal for a second time, though they were again driven out after the Battle of Oporto on March 29, thanks to the imaginative strategy of the new British commander in Portugal, Sir Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington). Wellesley now took the offensive and crossed the frontier into Spain, supported by the guerrillas, but less so by the Spanish regulars. At Talavera on July 28, Wellesley fought a drawn battle, though the French withdrew into central Spain as a result. The Spanish lost badly at Ocaña on November 19, while Wellington assumed a defensive posture in 1810, secretly constructing a line of redoubts and entrenchments across Portugal meant to protect Lisbon, the vital point of entry for British reinforcements and supplies, and known as the Lines of Torres Vedras. The French invaded Portugal again in July 1810 and confronted Wellington at Busaco on September 27, only to be repulsed by disciplined fire from British infantry deployed on a ridge. In the wake of the battle, Wellington withdrew behind the Lines of Torres Vedras, which the French probed and found impregnable. Finding his troops unable to live off the devastated countryside in front of the Lines, Marshal Masséna finally withdrew his exhausted and semi-starved army back into Spain in November. In 1811, operations centered around the strategic border fortresses of Almeida, blockaded by the Anglo-Portuguese, and Badajoz, under siege by a British force under Marshal Beresford. Wellington brought the French to a standstill at Fuentes de Oñoro on May 5, and Beresford narrowly defeated Marshal Soult at Albuera on the May 16, but the remainder of the year remained relatively uneventful. His army now reorganized, well supplied, and experienced, Wellington finally took the offensive at the beginning of 1812, when he besieged and stormed, at very heavy cost to his dauntless infantry, the fortress towns of Cuidad Rodrigo on January 19, and Badajoz on April 19. He then advanced into the heart of Spain, where he decisively defeated Marshal Marmont at Salamanca on July 22 and entered Madrid on August 12. Still, Wellington had shown himself to be clumsy in his conduct of siege warfare, and while he took Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz by the sheer determination of his troops, he failed to repeat these successes at Burgos in November. In the campaign of 1813, Wellington, now in supreme command of Spanish, as well as Anglo-Portuguese forces, assumed the offensive, forcing the French to abandon Madrid and decisively defeating them on June 21 at Vitoria, where their rout was so complete that they retired over the Pyrenees. The Anglo-Portuguese followed up their success by engaging Soult along the frontier at Sorauren in late July and at the rivers Nivelle and Nive in November and December, respectively. The campaign of 1814 in southern France opened in February, when Wellington drove back Soult at Orthez on February 27 before capturing Toulouse on April 10, several days after Napoleon had already abdicated in Paris, far to the north.

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Naval Operations, 1806 –1815 The war at sea did not come to an end even after the overwhelming British victory at Trafalgar on October 21, 1805. Thereafter, the Royal Navy would perform an indispensable service supplying Anglo-Portuguese, and later Spanish, forces in the Iberian Peninsula between 1808 and 1814. Undramatic though blockade duty might be, this was a service of vital importance patiently carried out by the navy against the major French ports. The navy also seized enemy shipping and provided transport and supply for various military expeditions dispatched to capture the colonial possessions of France and her allies. Only months after Trafalgar, the Royal Navy transported troops to the Dutch possession in southern Africa known as Cape Colony, which fell in January 1806. The following month a squadron under Sir John Duckworth destroyed the French West Indian squadron off Santo Domingo in the West Indies, and in 1806–1807 the navy conveyed troops to Buenos Aires, in Spanish South America. The navy also conducted raids against Calabria, on the Italian coast, and against Boulogne, in June and October 1806, respectively. Major operations also took place at the Dardanelles against Turkey in February and March 1807, and at Copenhagen in September of that year. Large-scale amphibious landings were made on the Dutch island of Walcheren in July 1809 as a diversion during Napoleon’s operations against Austria, while various colonies fell by virtue of British naval power, such as Martinique and Santo Domingo in 1809, and Guadeloupe and Mauritius in 1810. The War of the Fifth Coalition, 1809 Stung by, yet recovered from, its defeat of 1805, Austria prepared to renew the contest with Napoleon in 1809. The emperor wisely left Spain to gather his forces in Germany for a campaign he planned to pursue along the Danube. In the spring the Austrians invaded Bavaria but were forced back at Abensberg on April 18–19, and again at three actions in rapid succession—Landshut, Eggmühl, and Ratisbon. On May 12 the French entered Vienna before crossing the Danube and fighting a bitterly contested engagement on May 21–22 at Aspern-Essling, where Napoleon suffered his first defeat and was obliged to withdraw back across the river to lick his wounds. He was not ready to recross until July, when, in a massive battle on July 5 and 6, he inflicted heavy casualties on the Austrians, who requested an armistice on July 10. By the Treaty of Schönbrunn, concluded on October 14, the Habsburgs ceded over 30,000 square miles of territory to France and her allies and agreed to join the Continental System. The Russian Campaign, 1812 In the years following the Peace of Tilsit in 1807, Russia gradually separated itself from the French sphere, for it harbored three particular grievances: its economy was struggling as a result of its embargo against Britain; it suspected Napoleon of wishing to resurrect an independent Polish state out of the Duchy of Warsaw, the French satellite then situated on Russia’s western border; and it resented Napoleon’s failure to support Russia’s bid to defeat the Ottoman Empire in a war that had begun in 1806. Britain, always keen to secure continental allies, made peace with Russia in June 1812, as did Turkey, thus freeing Alexander to confront the inevitable backlash from Napoleon. The emperor, furious at Russia’s defiance, particularly with respect to its failure to enforce the Continental System, assembled an army of over a half-million

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men in the spring of 1812 and on June 22 crossed the river Niemen. The great distances to be covered, the heat, and the horrendous logistical problems encountered by Napoleon’s Grande Armée took a heavy toll on this massive though almost unmanageably large force, over half of which consisted of troops from states allied to France. The Russians offered stubborn resistance at Smolensk on August 17, at Valutino two days later, and most impressively on September 7 at Borodino, where Napoleon launched a series of massive frontal attacks against prepared positions, suffering almost 30,000 casualties while inflicting over 40,000 on the Russians. By the time Napoleon entered Moscow on September 14, his army was down to less than half its original strength and was exhausted by the long march into the Russian interior. Worse still, much of the capital burned down during the first days of occupation, Alexander unexpectedly refused to negotiate with the invaders, and after wasting weeks in possession of a city whose supplies would not outlast the winter, Napoleon made the fateful decision to retreat west in October. Elements of the Grande Armée fought the Russians at various points, sometimes with success, but winter proved its greatest enemy and was rendered all the worse by constant Cossack forays and harassment from enraged peasants. The once mighty Grande Armée gradually dissolved into a straggling column of frostbitten fugitives and a few ad hoc fighting units just capable of offering limited resistance to the increasingly bold attacks conducted by the pursuing Russian army, cautious though it was. Napoleon’s army suffered almost complete catastrophe when, at the crossing of the Berezina River in late November, tens of thousands of its troops and civilian camp followers were left stranded on the right bank of the river when the bridge collapsed, consigning them to the mercy of a vengeful enemy. Finally, at the end of December, the last remnants of the shattered army reached safety in East Prussia and the Duchy of Warsaw. The Campaign in Germany, 1813 Taking advantage of Napoleon’s irreparable losses in Russia, Prussia defected from its half-hearted alliance with France and opened a campaign in Germany, supported by the numerically superior Russians, who were prepared to prosecute the war all the way to Paris. By April, however, Napoleon had partially rebuilt his forces to a strength of 200,000—albeit largely conscript—troops with little in the way of battlefield experience or cavalry. Such was his reputation for martial prowess that the emperor could still inspire his men—young and ill equipped though they were—to victory. At Lützen on May 2, and again at Bautzen on May 20–21, he defeated the Russians and Prussians, though the exhausted state of his men and the absence of a cavalry rendered pursuit, so much a feature of past Napoleonic victories, impossible. Numbers, moreover, were never on the emperor’s side; Napoleon could never hope to field armies to match the strength of the Allies, and after an armistice between June and August, France had to confront an enlarged coalition—the Sixth— with Austria’s military weight thrown in. While with his military genius increasingly taxed but still undimmed, Napoleon could inflict a limited defeat on the Allies at Dresden on August 26 –27, three of his subordinates were nevertheless drubbed at Grossbeeren (August 23), at the river Katzbach (August 26), and at Kulm (August 29–30), thereby effectively negating their emperor’s victory. Marshal Ney, the hero of the retreat from Moscow, was also badly mauled at Dennewitz on September 6, though the decisive encounter of the campaign would not come until the following month, between October 16 and 19, at Leipzig, where over a half-million men

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fought in the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars. The French were driven from the city, their German allies defected to the Allies, and the Napoleonic occupation of Europe east of the Rhine collapsed. The Campaign in France, 1814 While 100,000 French troops were fighting Wellington in the south of France, the Allies’ main effort was in the east of the country, where three major armies—under the Prussian commander, Field Marshal von Blücher; the Austrian commander-inchief, Prince Schwarzenberg (to whose headquarters were attached the tsar and the king of Prussia); and the crown prince of Sweden, Bernadotte—were converging on Paris. Napoleon beat his opponents at La Rothière and Brienne in late January, and again in a series of remarkable engagements between February 10 and 14, where he drubbed the Prussians at Champaubert, Montmirail, Château-Thierry, and Vauchamps, but the emperor simply could not be everywhere at once, and his subordinates could not match his tactical ingenuity. At Craonne, on March 7, Napoleon defeated a Russian corps, and the Prussians again at Laon on March 9–10, and at Rheims on March 13. Nevertheless, these mostly constituted small-scale victories, and superior enemy numbers began to tell. After Allied successes at Arcis-sur-Aube on March 20–21 and La-Fère-Champenoise on March 25, the French were unable to halt the advance on their capital, which the Allies attacked at Montmartre on March 30. Paris, its defenses neglected and its troops outnumbered, surrendered, and the Allies entered the following day. Losing the support of his marshals, who refused to fight on in a hopeless struggle, Napoleon abdicated on April 6 (unconditionally so on the eleventh) and agreed to live on the island of Elba, in the Mediterranean. The Allies restored the Bourbons to the French throne, with Louis XVIII, brother of the guillotined Louis XVI, as king. By the Treaty of Paris, France accepted a reduction of her frontiers to those of 1792 and recognized the sovereignty of the states resurrected or newly constructed out of the former Napoleonic Empire. The Waterloo Campaign, 1815 Disillusioned with his life of exile on Elba, Napoleon left the island on March 1, 1815, and made for the south of France. He reached Paris on March 20 and resumed control of the country, with the whole of the army and most of the populace supporting his restoration to power. The Allied monarchs, in the meantime, declared the emperor an outlaw and pledged to defeat him. Forces supplied by all the major states began marching on France, though only the Anglo-Allied and Prussian armies then situated in Belgium were within immediate striking distance, the former under the Wellington and the latter under Blücher. Napoleon, however, sought to preempt his opponents and crossed the frontier to confront the Anglo-Allies at Quatre Bras, and the Prussians at Ligny, both battles taking place on June 16. The Anglo-Allies were driven off and established themselves around Mont St. Jean, just south of Brussels, while the Prussians, more seriously defeated, retreated to the village of Wavre, about 12 miles east of Wellington’s position. Detaching a corps to follow the Prussians and contain them at Wavre, Napoleon then sought to destroy Wellington’s force at Waterloo on June 18. A combination of unimaginative French tactics, stalwart resistance from the Anglo-Allied troops, and the intervention of elements of the Prussian army that had disengaged themselves from the simultaneous fighting at

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Wavre to aid Wellington led to the rout of the French army and Napoleon’s second abdication. Napoleon surrendered himself to British authorities and was exiled on the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena, where he died in 1821. By the second Treaty of Paris, concluded on November 20, 1815, an indemnity of 700 million francs was imposed on France, an Allied army of occupation was to remain in place until full payment was made, and the French borders were reduced to those of 1790. FURTHER READING: Chandler, David. The Campaigns of Napoleon. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995; Connelly, Owen. Blundering to Glory: Napoleon’s Military Campaigns. New York: Scholarly Resources, 1999; Esdaile, Charles. The Peninsular War: A New History. London: Penguin, 2003; Esdaile, Charles. The Wars of Napoleon. London: Longman, 1995; Esposito, Vincent J., and John R. Elting. A Military History and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars. NewYork: AMS, 1978; Fisher, Todd. The Napoleonic Wars. Vol. 1: The Rise of the Emperor, 1805–1807. Oxford: Osprey, 2001; Fisher, Todd. The Napoleonic Wars. Vol. 2: The Empires Fight Back, 1808–1812. Oxford: Osprey, 2001; Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. The Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. 3 vols. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2006; Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. The Napoleonic Wars. Vol. 3: The Peninsular War, 1807–1814. Oxford: Osprey, 2002; Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. The Napoleonic Wars. Vol. 4: The Fall of the French Empire, 1813–1815. Oxford: Osprey, 2002; FremontBarnes, Gregory. Trafalgar 1805: Nelson’s Crowning Triumph. Oxford: Osprey, 2005; Gates, David. The Napoleonic Wars, 1803–1815. London: Arnold, 1997; Glover, Michael. The Peninsular War, 1807–1814: A Concise Military History. London: Penguin, 2001; Glover, Michael. Warfare in the Age of Bonaparte. London: Pen and Sword, 2003; Horne, Alistair. Napoleon: Master of Europe, 1805– 1807. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979; Lawford, James. Napoleon: The Last Campaigns, 1813–15. New York: Crown, 1977; Rothenberg, Gunther. The Napoleonic Wars. London: Cassell, 2000; Zamoyski, Adam. 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow. London: HarperCollins, 2004. GREGORY FREMONT-BARNES

National Assembly The National Assembly was the name adopted by the government of revolutionary France created on June 17, 1789, during the meeting of the Estates-General. It governed France in an increasingly tense relationship with King Louis XVI until July 9, 1789. The Assembly thus presided over the first phase of the French Revolution and set in motion numerous legal and administrative changes. These modifications were not enacted by the Assembly, which remained in session for less than a month. Still, the National Assembly laid the ideological foundations that made the reforms possible for later governments of the Revolution, many of which remain to the present day. A number of these early reforms were administrative in nature and, when they came to economics, showed distinct support for the capital segments in society, the investors and entrepreneurs. For these reasons, the period that began under the National Assembly is often referred to as the Administration of the Bourgeoisie phase of the Revolution. Likewise, it was under the National Assembly that a fundamental shift in the perception of government and its legitimacy occurred without which it is doubtful that the remainder of the Revolution would have possessed the character it did. During this time, many of the leaders who would go on to achieve fame or infamy during the more radical phases of the Revolution had their first experiences in national government.

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As previously stated, the National Assembly came into being on June 17, 1789, when, at a prearranged signal, members of the First (clergy) and Second (nobility) Estates joined with members of the Third Estate (commoners) in meeting in the Estates-General at Versailles. This symbolic act created a new government that perceived itself as deriving much of the legitimacy for its actions from the people rather than from the monarchy. The new government, which considered itself much more representative of the nation as a whole, adopted the new title of National Assembly at the behest of the abbé Sieyès to signify this fact. The formation of the National Assembly can be read as an answer to the call Sieyès made in his pamphlet What Is the Third Estate? The new government quickly began to discuss sweeping reforms in the state apparatus of France. For instance, one of the Assembly’s first actions was to revoke all the taxes passed under the monarchy, which they regarded as illegal. Shortly thereafter, they reimposed these taxes on their own authority. At the same time, they consolidated the public debts and began to search for a means of paying them off. The motivations behind these actions on the part of the National Assembly fell in line with the notion that the basis of rule was not the monarchy but rather the people, whom the Assembly represented. These actions began to alarm many of the more conservative elements at the king’s court. Soon after the Assembly’s creation, its members found themselves locked out of their usual meeting place in the palace compound at Versailles. They began meeting in the nearby royal tennis court, where the members swore an oath not to disband until they had written a constitution for France. The so-called Tennis Court Oath occurred on June 20. Initially, the king felt forced in the interim to accept the decrees of the revolutionaries while he sought an alternative solution. While Louis XVI seemed at first caught off guard by the actions of the legislative body, he quickly regrouped. Still, his attempts to curb the reforming agenda of the body seemed to only exacerbate an already-difficult situation. For instance, on June 23 the king gave a speech to the body in which he agreed to support some governmental reforms. At the same time, he pushed forward the notion that the social hierarchy should remain intact, and thus the various estates should meet separately, and not as a single group. The reason behind this was that it was felt that if the estates continued to meet separately, the more conservative elements among the clergy and nobility would support the crown against radicals of common birth. It is significant that in this early phase of the Revolution, there were members of the First and Second Estates who recognized the necessity for reform as well. The call on the part of the king for the maintenance of the status quo has often been seen by historians as a means of controlling the Assembly and suppressing the forces of change then sweeping across France. To some extent, there are grounds for the assertion that the king was attempting to oppose the transforming forces at work within France. It is clear that during this period he was falling more under the sway of conservative voices in the court at Versailles. It was these conservatives who were responsible for the king’s order that summoned troops to the outskirts of the capital in the summer of 1789. The concentration of troops, and the rumors as to their real purpose, set underway the series of events that eventually led to the storming of the Bastille on July 14. In addition, these conservative advisers were the same voices that urged the king to dismiss the reformist minister of finance, Jacques Necker. A number of the more liberal members of the Third Estate saw Necker as an important voice for reform among

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the king’s close advisers. Thus, his dismissal was perceived by many as a clear sign of a coming conservative backlash from the throne. Each of the kings’ attempts, real or perceived, at suppressing the reforms being discussed in the National Assembly seemed to have the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of drawing strength away from the body, it gained them the support of more members of the nobility and clergy who had at first refused to join it. All these growing tensions would come to a head in the late summer and early fall of 1789 with the first major involvement of the people of Paris over the course of the Revolution. Finally, on July 9, 1789, the members of the National Assembly voted to change their name to the National Constituent Assembly. While membership in the body remained essentially unaltered with the change in designation, the perceived mission of the body did. Their main focus became the writing of a constitution for France. This has led to some controversy among historians as to when the tenure of the National Assembly truly came to a close. For the purposes of this entry, the date of July 9, 1789, will stand. It is unsurprising that a government that lasted for less than a month has left little in the way of concrete accomplishments on which to judge it. Still, it is for the ideology of government, much derived from the Enlightenment thinkers, that the National Assembly is remembered. The most significant idea that the members expounded was that the government derives its legitimacy—its right to govern—from the people rather than from the monarch. This concept stood as a profound departure from the notions of contemporary European political thought. In addition, the National Assembly remained in session and managed to avoid being disbanded. It therefore set a precedent for later bodies to draw upon. It is, therefore, fair to assert that the National Assembly set the stage for what is commonly referred to by historians as the legislative phase of the Revolution, and possibly even the Reign of Terror as well. Likewise, the Assembly served as a training ground in which the leaders of the later stages of the Revolution gained their first valuable experiences in government at the national level. Among those who were introduced to national politics through their service in the National Assembly were Georges Danton, the comte de Mirabeau, Maximilien Robespierre, and the abbé Sieyès. These men, and numerous others of less note, gained valuable experience during their tenure in the National Assembly. A number of these men would put this knowledge to use in the later, more radical, stages of the Revolution, and in the case of Sieyès in particular, down to the formation of the Consulate. By the same token, many of the men who first served France in the National Assembly would not survive the Revolution, falling victim to the Reign of Terror. It can be said, then, that the National Assembly set the stage and answered the casting call for the great drama that became the French Revolution. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; First Estate; Second Estate. FURTHER READING: Forrest, Alan. The French Revolution. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995; Furet, François. La Révolution en débat. Paris, Gallimard, 1999; Popkin, Jeremy D. A Short History of the French Revolution. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006; Soboul, Albert. The French Revolution, 1787–1799: From the Fall of the Bastille to Napoleon. Translated by Alan Forrest and Colin Jones. New York: Vintage, 1975; Tackett, Timothy. Becoming a Revolutionary: The Deputies of the French National Assembly and the Emergence of a Revolutionary Culture (1789–1790). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. JAMES R. MCINTYRE

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National Constituent Assembly See Constituent Assembly

National Convention (1792–1795) The National Convention was the title taken by the government that ruled France between September 21, 1792, and October 26, 1795. It produced two constitutions during its tenure in power, one in 1793 and the other in 1795. The Convention came to power shortly after the overthrow of the monarchy under the government of the Legislative Assembly. Since the removal of Louis XVI from power created a vacuum in the executive branch of the government, the National Convention essentially combined both the legislative and executive functions. While in power, the National Convention guided France through the most radical phases of the Revolution, including the period known as the Reign of Terror. Simultaneously, the government took on the role of guiding the French war effort. France was then at war with a coalition comprised of Austria, Britain, and Prussia, among others. The combination of directing the war and continuing the reforms of the Revolution led the National Convention to enact a variety of changes that profoundly affected France at the time and continue to influence revolutionary movements to the present day. The chief work of the Convention fell into three broad categories: government, the war effort, and social reform. To carry out its governing tasks effectively, the Convention dispersed its various responsibilities among a number of committees. Out of these, the Committee of General Security and the Committee of Public Safety came to overshadow the rest, both in their importance and in the scope of their power. The Committee of Public Safety soon became the more powerful of the two agencies. The Convention invested its executive authority in the Committee of Public Safety, which was subject to renewal by the full Convention on a monthly basis. Among the legal issues the Convention had to contend with was the fate of Louis XVI. The king was charged with treason under the Legislative Assembly. Now, the National Convention had to decide how to proceed in prosecuting the charge. The king’s trial began before the Convention on December 11, 1792. Between January 16 and 18, 1793, the Convention deliberated on his fate. While there existed serious internal division within the governing body regarding the destiny of the former monarch, the members eventually decided in favor of execution. Officials imposed the penalty on January 21, 1793, when the executioner guillotined citizen Louis Capet in Paris. Later that same year, on October 16, the king’s wife, Marie Antoinette, would follow her husband to the scaffold. In addition to the fate of the royal family, other problems existed within France as well. One of the most pressing of these encompassed a series of antigovernment uprisings. The leading factors driving these revolts were dislike of the conscription of men to fight the war and the efforts of the revolutionaries to dechristianize France. The Convention dealt with insurrections by sending some of its members, called representatives on mission, to the affected areas with special powers delegated to take necessary actions on the spot. The first representatives were dispatched on March 9, 1793. They were aided in their efforts by revolutionary tribunals, which had been established in August 1792. These bodies possessed special powers that

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superseded many of the guarantees contained in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. For instance, they could try anyone suspected of betraying the Revolution, with no appeal to their decisions. In addition, on September 17 the Convention passed the Law of Suspects, a decree making the conviction of people on charges of working against the Revolution much easier to obtain. The various measures enacted in order to safeguard the Revolution from internal dissent came to be known as the Reign of Terror. A great deal of the concern in the Convention over treason stemmed from the fact that France was at war at this time, a point that will be discussed in greater detail below. In order to maintain internal order and prosecute the war, the government expanded and centralized its powers over the entire nation. The Constitution of 1793 enshrined many of the centralizing policies of the Convention. This document was very radical in the type of government it devised for France. Due to the stresses of the war, however, the Constitution of 1793 was never implemented, and on October 10 the revolutionary government was declared in power only until the return of peace. The war brought with it a greater emphasis on the supply of both the armies in the field and the urban centers of France. Thus, on September 29, 1793, the Convention introduced the Maximum on grain and fodder. This set price limits on a number of basic necessities. The Maximum came as a result of an alliance between the Jacobins and the working people of Paris known as the sans-culottes. The combination of these two groups, which often held contradictory political objectives, allowed the Jacobins to force legislation through the legislative branch. At its high point, the Convention achieved a greater degree of consolidation of power than had ever been the case under the monarchy. This began to unravel with the fall of Robespierre from power on July 27, 1794, a date known as the Thermidorian Reaction for the month of the revolutionary calendar in which it took place. After Robespierre and his supporters were out of power, the government eventually removed the sans-culottes from an active role in politics. The period from July 1794 to October 1795 stood as one in which the Revolution took a more conservative turn. In addition, these 15 months witnessed the reversal of much of the more sweeping social legislation of the earlier radical period. As a result of the conservative reaction, the Convention passed the Constitution of 1795, adopted on August 22. Many historians attribute at least a part of the relaxation of radicalism to the success of the revolutionary armies. The Convention inherited a country at war. While the Republic declared under the Legislative Assembly had managed to beat back an invasion by a combined Austrian and Prussian force after the great turning point at the decisive Battle of Valmy (September 21, 1793), the country still remained in danger. Still, even after this victory, the symbolic value of which far outweighed events in the field, the Convention had to defend France with an army that was itself undergoing profound internal transformations. Many of the veteran officers from the nobility were leaving France and there were numerous new levies joining the army. If these difficulties were not pressing enough, there were sizeable insurrections in several areas within France, and a number of the other European powers were joining in what would later be known as the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797). As a result of these circumstances, the Convention and its various committees directed much of their energy at the war effort. A great deal of the burden for the direction of the military capabilities of the Republic fell to the Committee of Public Safety, and especially to

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Lazare Carnot. Carnot played a major role in mobilizing the resources of the nation behind the defense of France to an unprecedented degree. Though the French people had already attested to their support for the Revolution through the assembling of various groups of volunteers beginning in 1791, by 1793 the people had lost some of their patriotic ardor. This led the Convention to call for a draft in March of that year. While some additional troops were raised in this fashion, an unintended result came in the Vendéan rebellion. The region of the Vendée would be dominated by a bloody insurgency for some time to come. The notion of a true national draft came into play on August 23, 1793, with the levée en masse. The levée involved a call by the government for the entire nation to take some role in the war effort—from soldiering to provisioning. All the resources of the nation were thus dedicated to the prosecution of the war effort. Such a massive commitment was very different from that exercised by other contemporary European states. Therefore, revolutionary France is often credited with being the first nation to approach what is referred to as a total war footing. By the same token, this allowed France to field a much larger army than any of its enemies. Even with the number of troops yielded by the levée en masse, there remained the need to train them to serve as an effective fighting force. This project came to absorb much of the energy of the Convention, as well as its committees. The Convention finally solved the difficulty with the introduction of the amalgame. This action combined elements of the old royal army with units of revolutionary volunteers. The result was a powerful combination of revolutionary zeal and discipline. The army that emerged from these transformations began to push back the enemies of France from its borders, and even to live off occupied territories. Still, the vast scope of the war imposed drastic internal changes on France as well. These transformations, which were implemented by the Convention, were broad in scope and profound in intent. The area in which the Convention most profoundly affected France was certainly society. While the reforms the body enacted were all repealed in the later years of the Revolution and under the Empire of Napoleon, they have since received a great deal of scrutiny from various historians as examples of early attempts to transform a society. Many of the changes implemented by this body were extremely radical in nature, though they did fall in line with many of the tenets of the Enlightenment. For example, the Convention approved the revolutionary Calendar on November 24, 1793. The new method of tracking time replaced the older church-based calendar for a period. Under the revolutionary reckoning, there were 12 months of 20 days each. All the months were named after various seasonal conditions. Each month, in turn, was composed of three 10-day weeks known as decadi. Five days were added at the end of each calendar year. In essence, the new calendar endeavored to impose the rationality of the Enlightenment on the organization of everyday life to an extraordinarily profound degree. The end result came in the form of a drastic alteration of the manner in which people ordered their temporal lives, if only for a short duration. Likewise, the Convention attempted to give the people of France a new religion in the Cult of the Supreme Being. The Cult of the Supreme Being constituted a state-sponsored religion. In addition, it stood as a continuation and radicalization of the struggle with the Catholic Church that began with the seizure of church lands of November 2, 1789. The cult

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attempted to mold a new religion for France, one modeled after the Enlightenment concept of deism. Ironically, one of the chief opponents of early dechristianization efforts, Maximilien Robespierre, became one of the strongest advocates of the cult. The fullest expression of the cult came with the Festival of the Supreme Being held in the Temple of Reason, the name given to the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris on June 8, 1794. Robespierre presided over this event, and the chief architect of the festival was Jacques-Louis David. The majority of the French people never accepted this new belief system, and it essentially ended with the fall of Robespierre and the other radical Jacobins. Finally, the Convention led France through a truly tumultuous period of the Revolution. Under its direction, the Revolution progressed in such a way as to transform virtually all aspects of French life, if only for a short duration. Much of this work of transformation was done on a purely ad hoc basis, however, as the Convention seemed perpetually on the move from one crisis to the next. Still, the Convention achieved an unprecedented level of centralization in regard to government power. This centralized state has often been seen as a model for later regimes. It also mobilized the resources of the nation for the effective prosecution of the war effort to a degree not achieved before. In this regard, the efforts of the Convention have been seen by some historians as marking the beginning of total war. While the effort never yielded results solid enough to really justify this assertion, the fact remains that prior to revolutionary France, no states in the modern world had even attempted to produce such a concentration of manpower and materiel. Likewise, while the efforts of the government to transform society were met with markedly less success than government reforms or military mobilization, the reforms attempted in the social realm certainly influenced later revolutionary thinkers. The Convention encompassed a truly radical approach to the government of France—one with profound consequences not only for contemporaries, but for later generations as well. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Guillotine. FURTHER READING: Bouloiseau, Marc. The Jacobin Republic 1792 –1794. Translated by Jonathan Mandelbaum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983; Furet, François. La Révolution en débat. Paris: Gallimard, 1999; Lynn, John A. The Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation and Tactics in the Army of Revolutionary France. 1791–1794. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996; Ozuf, Mona. Festivals and the French Revolution. Translated by Alan Sheridan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988; Palmer, R. R. The Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1941; Popkin, Jeremy D. A Short History of the French Revolution. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006; Soboul, Albert. The French Revolution 1781–1799: From the Storming of the Bastille to Napoleon. Translated by Alan Forrest and Colin Jones. New York: Vintage, 1975. JAMES R. MCINTYRE

National Guard Created during to the political crisis of 1789, the National Guard developed as a confederation of citizen-soldier units that policed local communities during the French Revolution. The impetus to create such a force emerged during the events of July 1789, when it became clear to municipal leaders that some form of check on popular violence was necessary to secure law and order. Amidst growing popular

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agitation and the reluctance of the royal French Guard to fire on the Paris crowds, Nicolas de Bonneville proposed the formation of the traditional Bourgeois Guard, reviving the medieval right of the local community to control its own security and policing. The National Guard would replace the bands of armed citizens, members of the French Guard, and regular army deserters who were forming a spontaneous citizen militia within Paris. The electors of Paris voted to establish such a citizen guard, and the Marquis de Lafayette was nominated to lead the Parisian National Guard. Over the next few months, National Guard units were formed in provincial towns under the control of the new municipal governments, with the same mandate to maintain order, property, and public safety. The National Guard played a significant role in minimizing the volatile situation of 1789 and it was a central part of the “municipal revolution.” The creation of the National Guard secured the new municipal authorities and provided a force that could defend both the local government and the revolutionary changes being instituted. It became the responsibility of the National Guard to protect grain shipments from brigands, maintain order at the markets and major public spaces, and disarm the bands of armed citizenry who threatened to destabilize the work of both the municipal government and the National Assembly. In addition to its everyday policing duties, the National Guard actively participated in revolutionary politics, exemplified by its participation in the October Days and the so-called massacre at the Champ de Mars in July 1791. While its primary task was the restoration of law and order, the National Guard emerged as an important civic institution, and membership in the Guard was central to the experience of citizenship that was developing within the new political community being forged by the Revolution. Theoretically open to all male citizens between 20 and 50, the National Guard established a series of exclusions that limited membership further, making it an important institution defining who could exercise the power of citizenship and who could not. Through the years of 1790 and 1791, Lafayette and the National Assembly worked to centralize the National Guard, defining its national structure and organization. This work culminated in the decrees of July 28 and September 29, 1791, where definitive regulations were established for the National Guard. See also Bastille, Fall of the; Cockades. FURTHER READING: Clifford, Dale. “The National Guard and the Parisian Community, 1789–1790.” French Historical Studies 16, no. 4 (1990): 849–78; Gottschalk, Louis, and Margaret Maddox. Lafayette in the French Revolution through the October Days. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. BRODIE RICHARDS

Nationalism Nationalism is the belief that every nation is a unique cultural and political community, usually seen as united by a common history and language, and that each such nation should have autonomous control over its own territorial state. According to nationalist belief, a nation gives to its members a shared sense of identity and purpose. In the revolutionary era, this sense of collective destiny inspired democratic uprisings against old aristocracies but also fueled patriotic passions in bloody wars between nations. Hence the age of nationalism that began in the eighteenth

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century led to a series of powerful political movements that transformed the politics of Europe and its colonies. The Development of Nationalism in the West Before the eighteenth century, Europeans saw themselves as united not by nationalism but by religion. Under the Catholic Church, before the Reformation, all people were seen as members of a single universal civilization united under God, which kings and queens governed regionally only by divine right. After the Protestant Reformation came the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries between and within European states. In the understanding of the time, these were conflicts not between national peoples but between defenders of religious factions. With the fracturing of political unity under God, a series of ideological changes began that would lead to new concepts of each people as a unique social whole. The regional states that had developed under Christian monarchs eventually came to be seen as the homelands of national peoples. By the eighteenth century, a range of factors had led to the breakdown of the theory of the divine right of kings and queens and the rise of a new era known as the Enlightenment. The new scientific age produced the belief that earthly events were ruled by natural forces rather than by God’s direct will. With science came the optimism that humans had the power to control their conditions of life. The belief in human autonomy led to new theories of political legitimacy that emphasized the consent of the people. According to social contract theories, political society was based on an agreement in which the people at once united themselves into states and delegated power to their rulers. While religion in the eighteenth century was still central to social life, it was increasingly separated from politics. The growing distinction between the state and civil society encouraged a search for new understandings of the principles, apart from pure authority, that governed the development of each society. Various theories of each people as a distinct social whole began to emerge. The philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, like Adam Smith and David Hume, emphasized the history of each culture as a process of increasing civilization. In France, Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that new political societies should be founded on the united will of the people, to which all citizens would owe their highest allegiance and from which they would receive a new common identity. In Germany, Immanuel Kant developed Rousseau’s idea of liberty into a doctrine of autonomous self-determination. Other German writers like Johann Herder and Johann Goethe contributed to the romantic notion that each people is defined by creative activities like folk songs and stories. In contrast to the conservative Scottish understanding of culture as a set of customs and morals, the romantics saw it as based on language and the expressive arts. Meanwhile, those who followed Rousseau and Kant envisioned new societies based on collective self-determination. Born of these various sources, nationalism is a hybrid ideology that in its fully modern form combines a retrospective traditionalism with a prospective desire for communal autonomy. The earliest political movements that displayed elements of modern nationalism, a label that began to be used in English only at the end of the eighteenth century, were led by groups who believed themselves to be oppressed by illegitimate political authorities. Hence nationalist sentiments arise in reaction to established powers and are driven by perceptions of historical grievances. In this partial sense,

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the English Civil War in seventeenth century was an early nationalistic uprising in the name of historical English freedoms, though this idea was dominated by the religious understandings of the time. Only in the eighteenth century did revolutions occur not in the name of God but in the name of the united people. The first major movements that produced or were driven by recognizably nationalistic sentiments occurred in America with the rejection of British colonial power and in France in the democratic revolt against its own aristocracy. “We the People”: Nationalism and the American Founding The American Revolution began as a tax revolt by colonists who saw themselves as unrepresented members of the British Empire, but it ended with independence and the establishment of a new national identity. In the years between the Declaration of Independence in 1776, with its Lockean philosophy of universal human rights, and the United States Constitution of 1787, with its opening reference to a particular people—“We the People of the United States”—Americans began to unite themselves as a modern nation. The question of a national government in the early years was contentious. On one side were the Anti-Federalists, who resisted the centralization of authority, and on the other were the Federalists, who believed national institutions were needed for mutual protection and future prosperity. The Federalists won this argument with the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, an event that marked the institutionalization of the founding myth of the American people. The uniqueness of American nationalism is that its myth of the people was an effect rather than a cause of revolution. Because their social origins were British, the new American people had the ideology of the revolution in place of historical culture as the source of their distinctiveness as a people. The American foundational myth is the belief in universal freedom and equality, which they understood in Lockean terms as the individual right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The American Revolutionary War had been fought in the name of these rights, and so the Revolution itself became the mythic historical event for the American national self-understanding. In short, the American national myth was founded both on a central idea, the ideology of Lockean individualism, and a formative event, the Revolutionary War fought in the name of that ideal. American nationalism combined strong liberal individualism with an equally strong communal republicanism. The unlikely combination proved effective: Americans were historically united as a culture by their belief in equality and individualism, for which they fought their founding war. This hybrid nationalism allowed modern America to become at once individualistic and communally patriotic. The strength of American national sentiments demonstrates the power of shared beliefs to unite a political community, even when those beliefs are individualistic and liberal. The Nationalism of the French Revolution While the Americans were debating the ratification of their constitution, France was in its pre-revolutionary period. In 1789, the French Revolution broke out in full with an attempt to establish a new secular egalitarian nation. Its founding document, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, was adopted by the Constituent Assembly in August of that year. Although several of its 17 articles dealt with the rights and freedoms of individuals, the declaration gave overriding

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power to the nation itself as the ultimate guarantor of those rights: “The source of all sovereignty lies essentially in the Nation. No corporate body, no individual may exercise any authority that does not expressly emanate from it.” All citizens had the right to participate in the creation of law, but no one had real freedom from it; even the freedom of expression and opinion were to be limited by law. Hence the overall effect of the declaration was to establish the French nation itself as the source of all legitimate power, including the power of law by the people over the people. Where the American founding documents reflected the Lockean theory of individual liberty, the French declaration was animated by Rousseau’s philosophy of communal empowerment. In earlier centuries, sovereignty was a purely religious concept, but with Rousseau’s idea of the general will, which the declaration named explicitly as the true source of law, sovereignty became a secular notion belonging to the nation. In effect, Rousseau replaced God’s will with the general will of the people as the power that should govern social life. By taking this idea as foundational, the French Revolution became the original exemplar of the form of nationalism based on communal unity through the sharing of law-giving power. Rousseau had argued that all individuals, to join the collective power of the general will, must abandon their selfish interests and give their highest allegiance to the community. But this did not mean allegiance to the state; instead, the general will was to be a source of power outside of and superior to the administration of government. Thus, this form of nationalism is not statism, at least not in its original theory. Instead, it is a movement of the people, for whom the political apparatus of the state is to be a subordinate tool. However, as a communal conception of power based on unified sovereignty, nationalism of this sort is ideologically anti-liberal and anti-individualistic. While both of the great eighteenth-century revolutions, American and French, had tried to balance individual rights and freedoms with a strong sense of national belonging, only the French movement did so by trying to remake individuals into a new whole. Only in France were old titles abolished in favor of the new honorific, “Citizen,” to symbolize the creation of this new national identity through a total social revolution. Nationalism in the Napoleonic Era While the American nation was born of revolt against a colonial power and France overthrew a domestic regime, elsewhere in Europe nationalism arose as a reaction to a foreign invader. The French Revolution led to the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, who had used the new French nationalist sentiments to raise support for his military conquests. The reaction of those who were subjected to his advances produced another phase of early European nationalism, the leading exemplar of which was in Germany. With German nationalism came special emphasis on shared history and cultural creativity as central to the ideology in its emerging modern form. Germany in the eighteenth century was disunited and beset by a sense of cultural inferiority compared to the more developed regions of Europe. French military advances at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries had a dual effect in Germany, as in other regions. On one hand, the invaders introduced reforming trends in politics and government in accord with French ideas. On the other, the French were foreigners who enforced their decrees with military might. In reaction, Germans sought their own reforming ideals in the works of those like Herder and Goethe who emphasized the historical uniqueness of the German Volk.

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Where America had the Lockean myth of the Revolution and France had the sovereignty of the general will, German nationalists had their Volksgeist, the unique spirit of the historical German people. Their nationalism was based on the romantic rejection of the universalism of the Enlightenment in favor of the belief that each people has its own self-created cultural identity. This is the ideology of nationalism in its full modern form—the desire for liberation and sovereignty of a people united by its unique history of cultural creativity. Nationalism in this form would be taken up in later generations who similarly saw themselves as unique. FURTHER READING: Cobban, Alfred. The Nation State and National Self-Determination. New York: Crowell, 1969; Greenfeld, Liah. Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992; Hartz, Louis. The Liberal Tradition in America. 2nd ed. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1991; Kedourie, Elie. Nationalism. 3rd ed. London: Hutchinson: 1966; Kohn, Hans. Nationalism, Its Meaning and History. Rev. ed. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand, 1965; Lipset, Seymour Martin. The First New Nation: The United States in Historical and Comparative Perspective. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979. BORIS DEWEIL

Navigation Acts The Navigation Acts were a series of decrees imposed by Britain that precipitated discontent among the 13 American colonies. English custom practices dating from 1651 were originally drafted with Dutch shipping in mind, but afterward the acts of 1707 restricted trade with the American colonies. The policy of mercantilism fostered the growth of British trade and shipping at the cost of the colonies. The British, like other European colonial powers, subscribed to the view that colonies existed for the benefit of the mother country. A favorable balance of trade was maintained for the colonial power by the export of a greater volume of finished goods to the colonies than that of imported raw materials. The Molasses Act of 1733 levied prohibitive duties on the export of molasses and sugar from the French West Indies to the American colonies, which had to buy more costly British West Indian sugar. Molasses, or liquid sugar, was an essential ingredient in preparing rum, and Boston merchants were particularly hard hit. As a result, rampant smuggling occurred with the connivance of custom officials, thus rendering the Navigation Acts effective. The ministry of George Grenville (1763–1765), seeking to diminish the large national debt accrued as a result of Seven Years’ War (1756 –1763) while simultaneously trying to raise revenue to defray the cost of protecting the American colonies against French attack, began to take effective measures against smuggling. The ensuing checks on contraband trade resulted in a great loss for the merchants of New England. In the late 1750s, New England purchased commodities with a value of £6 million from money made by smuggling. The seizure of ships by customs officials and the Royal Navy led to further discontentment. Although ship-building activities increased due to the Navigation Acts, the manufacturing sector languished in the colonies. The acts became another factor in alienating the colonies in the years leading up to the American Revolution. In 1849, following a policy of laissez-faire, the Navigation Acts, which had given British shipping a monopoly over home ports for a century and a half, were repealed.

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FURTHER READING: Dickerson, Oliver M. The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution. New York: Octagon Books, 1978; Harper, Lawrence A. The English Navigation Laws: A SeventeenthCentury Experiment in Social Engineering. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939. PATIT PABAN MISHRA

Necker, Jacques (1732–1804) Necker, the Swiss-born French statesman, reformer, and director general of finance under Louis XVI, was born in Geneva and began his career in banking. He proved himself a talented banker and, by the 1760s, had become a very wealthy man through his banking and speculative activities. He married Suzanne Curchod, with whom he had a daughter, Anne-Louise Germaine Necker, the future Madame de Staël, in 1766. Over the next decade, Necker made a fortune in brilliant speculations in the Indies Company as well as through profitable loans to various governments. He moved to Paris, where he became involved in financial and literary works while his wife hosted one of the popular salons. A neo-Colbertiste, he opposed the economic theories of the Physiocrats, publishing Réponse au Mémoire de M. l’abbé Morellet sur la Compagnie des Indes in 1769 and winning the prize of the Académie Française for a defense of state corporatism with his essay Eloge de Jean-Baptiste Colbert in 1773. In 1775, he produced Essai sur la législation et le commerce des grains, in which he criticized the free-trade policies of chief Physiocrat Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot. When Turgot was dismissed in 1776, Necker, although a Protestant, was appointed director of the treasury and then the director general of finance. Necker launched a series of reforms aimed at curbing the French deficit and reorganizing the economy, although these fell short of those of Turgot. Necker’s policy of borrowing to fund French involvement in the American Revolutionary War further burdened the French economy and drove it closer to bankruptcy. His reforms were strongly resented and opposed by the nobility, including Queen Marie Antoinette herself, as well as by financial companies that stood to lose commercial privileges in their respective spheres. He famously published the first public accounting of the state finances in Compte rendu au roi in 1781. Facing a vehement pamphlet campaign in 1780–1781, Necker unsuccessfully sought royal support and resigned on May 19, 1781. During the next seven years, Necker pursued his private business affairs and published various works, including Traité de l’administration de la France (1784). He was very critical of his successor, Charles-Alexandre de Calonne, and after a bitter public confrontation with the minister, he was banned from Paris in 1787. Necker nevertheless made his comeback a year later when he was again appointed director general of finance on August 25, 1788, and made minister of state two days later. With the French monarchy in partial bankruptcy and beset by aristocratic opposition, Necker faced an uphill battle and sought to introduce far-reaching reforms with the help of the Estates-General, which was to be convened in May 1789. Thus, Necker’s foremost preoccupation in the first half of his tenure was making arrangements for the meeting of the Estates-General. He played an important role in the king’s decision to double the representation of the Third Estate, which, Necker believed, was necessary for the establishment of a truly representative assembly. However, he failed to resolve the problems associated with the method of voting, and his conflict with the privileged classes—and especially the hard-liners in the royal family—eventually

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led to his dismissal by the king on July 11, 1789. Yet this event ignited the July uprising in Paris, which resulted in the fall of the Bastille on July 14. Under popular pressure, Louis XVI recalled Necker for his third tenure as the minister of finance ( July 29, 1789–September 8, 1790). A liberal but not a democrat, Necker struggled in a new political scene in which he faced opponents on both the Right and the Left. Although the National Assembly praised him in July 1789, the relations between the minister and the Assembly quickly deteriorated due to differences of opinion on various political and economic reforms. On September 8, 1790, Necker announced his resignation and fled France to Switzerland. He spent the rest of his life at his estate at Coppet Commugny, near Geneva, where he wrote some of his last works—Sur l’administration de M. Necker (1791), Du pouvoir exécutif dans le grands Etats (1792), De la Révolution française (1796 –1797, 3 volumes), and Dernières vues de politique et de finance (1802)—before his death on April 9, 1804. FURTHER READING: Bredin, Jean-Denis. Une singulière famille: Jacques Necker, Suzanne Necker et Germaine de Staël. Paris: Fayard, 1999; Egret, Jean. Necker: Ministre de Louis XVI, 1776 –1790. Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1975; Harris, Robert D. Necker and the Revolution of 1789. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986. ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE

Nelson, Thomas, Jr. (1738–1789) Thomas Nelson was a Virginia politician, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and governor of Virginia (1781). Thomas Nelson Jr., the oldest son of prominent planter-merchant William and Elizabeth Burwell Nelson, was born in Yorktown. In 1753 Nelson attended a private school at Hackney, north of London. Although he never graduated, Nelson attended Christ’s College, Cambridge. He returned to Virginia in 1761 and was immediately elected to the House of Burgesses and made a justice of the peace and colonel in the county militia. In 1769 Nelson joined the Virginia Association, which demanded repeal of the Townshend Acts. In 1774 Nelson joined another association that protested the Coercive Acts and called on the colonies to send delegates to a Continental Congress. He attended the Virginia Convention to elect delegates to the First Continental Congress. He was elected chairman of the York County Committee of Safety. In 1775 Nelson took part in the second and third Virginia Conventions, which reorganized the colony’s militia. Nelson was commissioned a colonel in command of the second regiment. However, he resigned his command when he was elected to the Second Continental Congress. In 1776 Nelson returned to Virginia in time to take part in another provincial convention. Nelson presented a resolution calling for a declaration of independence, which the convention ratified in a modified form. He returned to Congress with the resolution, which Richard Henry Lee presented. While working in a committee to draft a confederation, Nelson signed the Declaration of Independence. On a temporary break from Congress, Nelson was elected to the House of Delegates, the successor of the House of Burgesses. In 1777 Nelson’s health deteriorated and he resigned from Congress. Hardly recovered, he was appointed brigadier general in command of the Virginia militia. He faced daunting problems of recruiting, retaining, and supplying the troops. The House of

Netherlands, United Kingdom of the

Delegates sent Nelson back to the Continental Congress in late 1778. However, by April 1779, his declining health again prompted him to leave Congress. By June he was back in the House of Delegates, attempting to secure funds for the war effort. In 1780 Nelson commanded the militia against two British invasion forces, including one under Benedict Arnold. In 1781, the struggle intensified when Lord Cornwallis invaded the state, and Virginia forces were reinforced by the Marquis de Lafayette. At the height of Cornwallis’s offensive in June 1781, in which the legislature and Governor Thomas Jefferson were forced to flee, the legislature chose Nelson as governor and gave him emergency powers that combined civilian and military authority. In September, Nelson took command of the militia around Yorktown and directed the artillery to fire on his own house as Cornwallis’s probable headquarters. At the conclusion of the siege, Nelson’s health again collapsed and he resigned the governorship. He was elected to the House of Delegates and resumed his service in the York County Court in 1782, but his activity was much curtailed. In 1787 he served on a committee that selected Virginia’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Nelson did not support the resulting document. He was chosen to attend Virginia’s ratifying convention, but his rapidly declining health prevented further public service. FURTHER READING: Evans, Emory G. Thomas Nelson of Yorktown: Revolutionary Virginian. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1975. ROBERT J. ALDERSON

Netherlands, United Kingdom of the The United Kingdom of the Netherlands was a new country created at the Congress of Vienna that incorporated the 17 historical provinces of the Low Countries under the leadership of King William I (reigned 1813–1840), a descendent of William of Orange. The unification was short lived, though many of the political reforms remain in effect in the modern Netherlands. The 17 provinces of the Low Countries, once united under the Burgundian dukes, had been split by the Dutch Revolt in the late sixteenth century. The northern and southern regions had gone their separate ways politically, with the south remaining under Spanish (and later Austrian) control and the north becoming an independent republic. Nationalist Dutch historians have described the split as tragic because it separated ethnically and linguistically similar peoples. They would once again have a chance at unification in the nineteenth century. After a period of French occupation under Napoleon, representatives of the Dutch republic made plans to turn their country into a constitutional monarchy, under William’s leadership, in 1813. At the Congress of Vienna, however, the British in particular were interested in strengthening the northwestern corner of Europe against future French expansionism. With William’s encouragement, they proposed the creation of a United Kingdom of the Netherlands that would incorporate the former Dutch republic and the Austrian Netherlands into a single monarchy. The British agreed to return the Dutch colonial possessions (including various West Indian islands, Surinam, Ceylon, and the Dutch East Indies) to the new state, further strengthening it. The province of Luxembourg was also ceded to the new kingdom, despite Prussian claims to the territory.

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One of William’s supporters, Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, drew up a constitution for the new state in 1815. In order to make the central government as strong as possible, the government was unitary, rather than federal, and supported by a bicameral legislature similar to Britain’s. The Estates-General, as the legislature was known, called for an equal number of representatives from all 16 of the original provinces, including Luxembourg. The Estates would meet at the capital, which was originally designated as Amsterdam but instead moved between Brussels and The Hague. Universal suffrage and proportional representation, legacies from the Dutch Revolution, were also continued and expanded to apply to the southern provinces. Some Dutch historians have suggested that the experiment was doomed to failure because political unification did not take into account historical and cultural differences between the north and the south. These differences did lead to squabbles, especially over religion and finance. In 1830, the southern provinces revolted against William’s rule. He attempted to suppress the movement through force but was ultimately unsuccessful, and the new state of Belgium declared its independence. Reluctantly, William recognized the new country’s independence in 1839 and, as a consequence, resigned his office in frustration in 1840. The northern provinces retained the title of United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the revised constitution adopted in 1848 remains the constitution of the modern Netherlands. FURTHER READING: Kossman, E. H. The Low Countries, 1780–1940. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978; Newton, Gerald. The Netherlands: An Historical and Cultural Survey, 1795–1977. London: Ernest Benn, 1978. LAURA CRUZ

New England Restraining Act (1775) The New England Restraining Act was a measure that was originally aimed at punishing Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York but was soon expanded to include Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. Despite its title and original target, the act was retaliation for the fact that the First Continental Congress had convened, the Continental Association had come into existence, and a boycott of British goods had been announced. The act, which Parliament passed in March 1775, stated that as of July 1, 1775, New England merchants could trade only with Britain and the British West Indies. All other trade was prohibited. A further provision stated that starting July 20, 1775, New England ships would not be able to fish in North Atlantic fishing areas. This last provision would adversely affect the New England fishing economy, which depended so greatly upon access to this area. The act was open ended in that it would remain in force until the colonies recognized Parliament’s authority. It is difficult to judge what the effect of this act might have been had it been put into force. By the time word was received in America, the colonies were already in armed rebellion. See also Non-Importation Agreements; Quincy, Josiah. FURTHER READING: Labaree, Benjamin W. Colonial Massachusetts: A History. Millwood, NY: KTO Press, 1979; MacDonald, William. Select Charters and Other Documents Illustrative of American History, 1606 –1775. New York: Macmillan, 1899; McFarland, Philip James. The Brave

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Bostonians: Hutchinson, Franklin, Quincy, and the Coming of the American Revolution. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998. ROBERT N. STACY

New Hampshire Although a small colony, New Hampshire comprised three distinct regions. The first was on the seacoast and had the largest population. To the south was the Merrimack River Valley, and to the west was the Connecticut River Valley and the Hampshire Grants region (which eventually became Vermont). New Hampshire did not send a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress in 1765 but showed significant agreement with the general tide of dissatisfaction. Acts of Parliament during these years and denial of access to the forests (pine trees and the land they sat on were off-limits until harvested for the Royal Navy) solidified opposition. The Sons of Liberty was organized and active. In 1773 the colony’s Assembly met without the royal governor’s permission to send aid to the closed port of Boston. A “convention of the towns” convened in 1775 formally suggested that the Continental Congress consider the issue of independence. Later this convention became a Provincial Congress with two houses but no executive branch. New Hampshire declared itself a state in September 1776 and two years later adopted the Articles of Confederation. After the war, economic distress affected its rural population: almost at the same time as Shays’s Rebellion in Massachusetts (1786), a similar demonstration among New Hampshire farmers took place. New Hampshire sent delegates to the Constitutional Convention, but they arrived late and did not participate in all the debates. When the Constitution was sent to the states for ratification, opposition had formed in the state. The vote on ratification was delayed, but in 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the United States Constitution by a vote of 57 to 46, thus bringing the United States into existence. See also American Revolution; American Revolutionary War; Boston Port Act; Constitutions, American State; New England Restraining Act. FURTHER READING: Daniell, Jere R. Colonial New Hampshire: A History. Millwood, NY: KTO Press, 1981; Morison, Elizabeth Forbes. New Hampshire: A Bicentennial History. New York: W. W. Norton, 1976; Penrose, Charles. Colonial Life in Maritime New Hampshire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1940. ROBERT N. STACY

New Jersey New Jersey’s geography had much to do with its central role as the site of a great deal of military action in the American Revolutionary War. The colony’s political, economic, religious, and demographic divisions and its particular set of problems shaped its contributions to the development of the United States Constitution. Originally two proprietorships, East and West Jersey were combined under a royal governor in 1702, an arrangement that lasted for over 60 years—although in the years just preceding the American Revolution, New Jersey still showed signs that these two areas had not been well integrated and the differences were not only centered on geography. Religiously, there were three divisions. As might be expected in the west,

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which bordered on Pennsylvania, the population was predominantly Quaker. The east, populated in large part by immigrants from Connecticut, was Anglican, and in the center, in the Trenton and Princeton area, Presbyterians formed the majority. Of all the religious groups in this divided state, the Presbyterians eventually came out most strongly for independence. Economics constituted another division and one that would affect New Jersey into the 1780s. At the end of the Seven Years’ War (1756 –1763), New Jersey was heavily in debt and so were many of its people. The divisions between those who owed money and those who were owed led to strong support for paper money (always favored by debtors because of inevitable inflation) to replace hard currency. At the same time, claims to land based on the very early proprietary grants were a major problem and not only took up time but consumed a great deal of political capital. Combined with individual claims, there was a border dispute with the colony of New York that was not resolved until just before the fighting broke out. Governor William Franklin (son of Benjamin Franklin) is rightly credited with keeping his colony’s involvement in the patriot cause at a comparatively low level. This could not last forever, however. The Stamp Act and other means of gathering revenue compounded New Jersey’s financial difficulties. New Jersey sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress and the First Continental Congress. It also formed its own legislature in 1775 and passed a state constitution in 1776. Yet New Jersey proceeded cautiously, and even after it had sent delegates to the Continental Congress, it sent cautious peace feelers to the British government in late 1775. New Jersey’s divisions regarding the Revolution were not as significant as they were in other states. Despite the fact that half of the state may have been Loyalist, there was no civil war as was the case in other states. William Livingston, the governor of the state, also had a strong influence over events, although as in most other states, New Jersey’s constitution severely limited the powers of the executive. New Jersey strongly supported the replacement of the Articles of Confederation with a strong central government. The experience of spiraling debt and the fear of larger states, such as New York, prompted this response. New Jersey pushed a plan (the New Jersey Plan) that would guarantee the rights of the smaller states. Although not totally adopted, part of its content was incorporated into the United States Constitution. New Jersey ratified the Constitution unanimously. See also American Revolution; Constitutions, American State; Continental Association; Continental Congress, Second; Loyalists; Stockton, Richard. FURTHER READING: Gerlach, Larry R. Prologue to Independence: New Jersey in the Coming of the American Revolution. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1976; McCormick, Richard Patrick. New Jersey from Colony to State, 1609–1789. Newark: New Jersey Historical Society, 1981; Pomfret, John Edwin. Colonial New Jersey: A History. New York: Scribner, 1973. ROBERT N. STACY

New York New York has always been a central part of the American experience, not only geographically, but also politically. It was at the forefront of American political thought throughout the colonial, revolutionary, confederation, and constitutional periods. Dominance of the state’s lands by Iroquois chiefs, Dutch merchants and colonists,

New York

Britain royal governors, and finally American Patriots gave New York a variety of powerful cultures and a wide range of political views. Economic growth throughout the period, barring the devastation of the American Revolutionary War, only augmented New York’s political importance, which has continued down to today. By the 1760s, Iroquois influence upon New York’s lands had been steadily diminished over the years of colonialism as a result of disease, conflict, and dwindling fur hunts. However, they remained an important force within the region, able to resist European control, often trying to benefit from the conflict between Britain and France during the last of the French and Indian War, which lasted from 1754 to 1763. Iroquois power stemmed from its rather advanced form of governance, known as the Iroquois Confederacy, which is thought to have dated from around 1570. By 1760, the Iroquois Confederacy consisted of six tribes or nations: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. Although originally founded as a confederation of five nations, the Tuscarora, who had fled conflict in the Carolinas, joined the confederation in 1722. Known to this day as the Iroquois, the Six Nations called themselves the Haudenosaunee people, loosely translated as the “people of the long house.” Political power within the confederacy was based upon an oral adhesion treaty and was held by 50 chiefs, also known as sachems, who made up a grand council. Each of the six participating nations received an assigned number of seats on the grand council. Chiefs were usually selected by the elder women in each of the nation’s settlements. Being named to the grand council was seen as a great honor that bestowed the power to direct and to coordinate the confederacy’s actions. Occasionally, chiefs were removed from the grand council as punishment, but removal and replacement powers remained in the hands of the elder women from the prospective settlements. The confederacy organized power and responsibilities among its members. Almost all important decisions required unanimous consent, resulting in a slowmoving and highly contentious political process. Nonetheless, the confederacy stopped in-fighting and allowed the nations to better resist European colonization. However, confederacy chiefs refused to consider giving full rights to tribes that did not speak an Iroquoian-based language into the alliance. In order to join, nonIroquoian tribes were required to relinquish all authority to the grand council. The Iroquois Confederacy, although weakened by the 1760s, remained in control of the upstate New York fur trade and retained their position on New York’s lands. Dutch traders and colonists were the first Europeans to interact extensively with the Iroquois. Following Henry Hudson’s exploration of the Hudson River in 1609, Dutch settlements were established at Fort Orange, current-day Albany, in 1621, and at Fort Amsterdam, on Manhattan Island, in 1624. The New Netherlands colony was not the top priority of Dutch colonizers and traders, who preferred the higher profit potentials of the Caribbean and Spice Islands. At the time of the British acquisition of the New Netherlands in 1664, there were only 8,000 settlers in the entire region, then defined as the area between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers. The British were quick to recognize the New Netherlands’ economic potential, renaming the colony New York and reestablishing it as a royal colony. Although Dutch control was short lived, certain principles of the Dutch colonial government remained in effect well after the colony’s acquisition by the English. Out of the

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8,000 colonists estimated to live in the colony in 1664, roughly one-third were of Dutch descent. At the time, claims were made that over 18 different languages were spoken on Manhattan Island alone. Under tolerant Dutch control, many English, Germans, French, Swedes, Jews, Africans, and Scots settled in the colony. Religious toleration was the most important principle that the colony of New York inherited from its former Dutch administration. The New Netherlands colony had become a haven from religious persecution, just like the Netherlands in Europe. When Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant tried to enforce his dislike of Jews and Quakers, the people of Flushing, on Long Island, issued a declaration in 1657, which became known as the Flushing Remonstrance. It stated the people’s protest against the governor and became the first declaration of religious tolerance by any group of citizens in American history. Over time, New York’s colonial assembly, which had been reinstated following the downfall of James II in 1688, accumulated numerous and widespread powers. By 1760, New York colonists had significant powers of self-government. By “power of the purse,” or the ability to approve the spending of government money and to levy taxes, the colonial assembly was able to slowly expand its power, taking it from the royal governor. Although the colonists still considered themselves to be part of the British Empire, the development and increased powers of self-government started to make them all economically prosperous and uniquely American. An even more extensive self-government proposal was put forward by Benjamin Franklin at the Albany Congress of 1754. Representatives of seven colonies met in Albany, New York, in order to discuss pan-colonial military strategy and to negotiate with the still-powerful Iroquois Confederacy. The Congress was not considered a success at the time; the Iroquois left with wagon loads of gifts but did not consent to any official agreements. Franklin’s plan, which called for a central colonial government to be located in Philadelphia and aimed to coordinate defense, was not accepted. Many viewed Franklin’s so-called Albany Plan of Union as too radical and unnecessary. Nevertheless, lengthy debates were held concerning Franklin’s proposals, some of which may have laid the foundation for the union established between the colonies at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. Once British military superiority guaranteed the demise of the French Empire in North America, New York’s reliance upon the British military for protection against foreign armies diminished significantly. Coupled with the issuance of the Proclamation of 1763, which forbade European settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains and trade with Native Americans without a license, New York’s fur traders, westward-looking settlers, and land speculators became infuriated with the British authorities. In fact, many simply ignored the proclamation. As a result, colonists continued to pour into Iroquois’ lands. In order to calm the Iroquois’ fears, Sir William Johnson, a trusted friend of the Iroquois and a hero of the French and Indian War, organized a conference at Fort Stanwix, near presentday Rome, New York, in 1768. More than 2,000 Native Americans attended, and a treaty clarifying the border between colonial settlement and Native American territory was signed, although it too was ignored by advancing colonists. The mid-1760s were filled with growing colonial unrest in New York. In 1764, Forsey v. Cunningham caused unrest and suspicion throughout the colony. Waddel Cunningham had been found guilty of assaulting Thomas Forsey on a street in New York City by a colonial jury. Forsey was awarded £1,500, but Cunningham appealed

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the verdict to royal governor Cadwallader Colden and his council. Colden’s review of the appeal sparked concern and unrest throughout the colony, as local lawyers and judges criticized Colden for even rethinking the jury’s ruling, which had been made under English common law. Although the governor’s council refused to allow him to review the verdict, Colden’s actions created a scandal that aroused suspicion and distrust. The year 1764 also saw the passage of the Sugar Act, which replaced the Molasses Act of 1733. Although it was technically more liberal than the preceding legislation, merchants and colonists alike were upset because it was actually enforced. The Sugar Act reduced the duty on foreign molasses, forbade the importation of any rum that was not distilled within the British Empire, and set tax rates on other goods from the sugar islands that were under foreign control. Reaction to the act was quick, beginning with protests to the Board of Trade. Then, the colonial assembly sent letters to the Crown and Parliament, denouncing the right of Parliament to tax New York’s citizens without their consent or representation in Parliament itself. In response to the Sugar Act, calls were made by some prominent business people to ban the importation of British goods and to develop manufacturing industries within the colony itself in order to reduce dependence upon Britain. The Sugar Act failed to raise the projected income, and Parliament responded with the Stamp Act of 1765. Extensive preparations were made by the colonists to prevent enforcement of the act; even the government official assigned to enforce it resigned, citing threats on himself and his family. Beginning on October 7, 1765, the Stamp Act Congress, organized by the General Court of Massachusetts, met in New York City for about two weeks. The Congress published an angry denunciation of the act. Soon after, the Sons of Liberty, an organization that advocated confrontation and independence, began to gain strength in New York. By March 1766, American boycotts had severely disrupted British trade revenues and the Stamp Act was revoked. In response, Parliament passed the repressive Townsend Acts. One of the acts, the New York Restraining Act, was particularly upsetting to New York residents. It required proper barracks and supplies for British troops stationed at British general Gage’s New York headquarters to be furnished by the colonial assembly before it could be allowed to meet again. New York complied, but only after the colonial assembly was suspended temporarily. New York merchants once again answered calls made by the growing Sons of Liberty group and announced another boycott of British goods, starting in late August 1768. The Townsend Acts were soon repealed in April 1770, only to be replaced by the Tea Act, passed by Parliament in May 1773. In April 1774, a group of New York colonists held their own version of the Boston Tea Party in New York’s harbor, boarding the cargo ship London and throwing 18 crates of tea into the water. In response to these insubordinate actions, Parliament passed the punishing Coercive Acts (also known as the Intolerable Acts). By January 1774, a new committee of correspondence was established in New York; this one operated independent of the colonial assembly. This committee called for a meeting to be hosted in New York City for representatives of all the colonies on May 15, 1774, but it was decided that the meeting would be held in Philadelphia. As the colonies began to follow the road to revolution, New York fully participated in the Continental Congresses, convening temporary Provincial Congresses

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in order to nominate representatives when the colonial assembly refused to do so after the boycott outcome of the First Continental Congress. By October 1775, New York’s royal governor, William Tryon, fled after the majority of British troops were moved from New York City to Boston. New York’s Third Provincial Congress decided to favor rapprochement with Britain, even after the outbreak of military hostilities. It was a position that harmed the position of New York’s delegates at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, where they were not allowed to speak in favor of independence, and that alarmed other Patriots, including John Adams. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, New York’s delegates refrained from following suit and did not sign. Instead, a newly elected Fourth Provincial Congress met in White Plains, New York, on July 9, 1776, and hurriedly approved the Declaration. Next, they renamed themselves the Convention of Representatives of the State of New York. Around the same time, British commander Sir William Howe began his invasion of New York, the most damaged state during the Revolutionary War. The state’s constitution was approved in 1777, establishing a government very similar to that of its colonial predecessor. It was made up of an elected bicameral legislature with an assembly and a senate. It called for a governor to enforce the legislature’s law, but the position had much less power than those of the royal colonial governors. Lastly, a court system was established to rule on the laws passed by the legislature. The constitution also guaranteed trial by jury, separation of church and state, and freedom of religion. The state legislature met for the first time in September 1777 in Kingston, New York, but was forced to flee in the face of an invading British army led by General Henry Clinton. Luckily, New York’s newly elected governor, George Clinton, was a very able leader, regrouping the government in Schenectady, New York, organizing a militia, and furnishing supplies. Throughout the war, New York was faced with a strong British military presence in New York City and Native American raids along the frontier. Financial problems were not as severe in New York as they were in other colonies, since the legislature confiscated and sold many lands previously owned by Loyalists. Once independence was secured and the faults of the government formed by the Articles of Confederation were exposed, New York participated in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Although three delegates were sent, only Alexander Hamilton was in favor of a stronger national government, aligning himself with the Federalist group. His two colleagues, Robert Yates and John Lansing, aligned themselves with the Anti-Federalist group. Following the publication of the United States Constitution, New York began its battle for ratification. Many New Yorkers feared a strong central government and liked the Confederation government, which was headquartered in New York City, but the addition of the Bill of Rights persuaded many to vote in favor of the stronger union. A ratification convention was called; the Anti-Federalists, led by Clinton, won 46 seats, while the Federalists, led by Hamilton, won only 19 seats. The ratification debate raged; passage of the Constitution was ensured by New Hampshire’s approval on June 21, 1788, which left New York temporarily outside the new and stronger union. On June 26, the convention, meeting in Poughkeepsie, voted in favor, becoming the eleventh state to ratify. As the new government was formed, George Washington selected Hamilton as secretary of the treasury and John Jay as chief justice of the United States. Both men

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were from New York, and Hamilton, born on the Caribbean island of Nevis, became responsible for the success of the new union. Hamilton’s success sparked dislike from Aaron Burr, against whom Hamilton’s party campaigned in the presidential elections, then in the elections for governor of New York. Feeling slighted by Hamilton, Burr challenged him to a duel and defeated him on July 11, 1804, wounding and ultimately killing him the next day. In response, the people of New York never supported Burr as they had in the past. By 1812, ongoing disputes with Britain led to the reopening of hostilities between the two countries. New York once again proved to be a major battleground of the war, specifically along the border with Ontario and Quebec. New York’s Governor Daniel Tompkins pressured the state’s legislature for more money for the war in order to form a better militia and to protect the state’s frontier. With his lead, New York was once again able to repulse a British invasion via Lake Champlain. Soon after, with the state’s security guaranteed and the war ended, New Yorkers returned their attention to development and economic progress, leading ultimately to the state’s transportation revolution and construction of the Erie Canal. See also American Revolution; Constitutions, American State; Continental Congress, Second. FURTHER READING: Ellis, David, James A. Frost, and William B. Fink. New York: The Empire State. 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980; Holst, Arthur. “The State of New York.” In The Uniting States, ed. Benjamin F. Shearer. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004; Klein, Milton M., ed. The Empire State: A History of New York. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. ARTHUR HOLST

Newspapers (American) Between 1760 and 1815, American newspapers were strongly influenced by journalistic traditions in Europe. During the colonial period, rules concerning the press in the colonies were subject to British control, and in order to secure political stability, colonial authorities felt compelled to strongly limit freedom of the press. After independence, however, American newspapers would come to symbolize one of the highest forms of free expression in the world. The historical origins of the American press demonstrate how long the road to journalistic independence was. Early newspapers were published only sporadically, though their encouraging sales demonstrated a market for consumption. Benjamin Harris’s Publick Occurences, Both Foreign and Domestick was produced in 1690, though it was soon banned by the disapproving British governor of Massachusetts. Even in the late seventeenth century, the free word was perceived as a threat by the authorities. The first official newspaper, the Boston News-Letter, was printed in Boston, in 1704. Its task was to collect and proliferate news from Britain that until then had been communicated in other forms. In 1719 it was renamed the Boston Gazette. The New-England Courant in 1721 was the first independent American newspaper, in the sense that it escaped immediate British control. The production of newspapers also expanded to other cities. William Bradford’s New-York Gazette, first published in 1725, was the first newspaper in New York City. The establishment of a new nation provided conditions for the development of American newspapers. The absence of municipal offices led to an enormous rise in

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the importance of newspaper headquarters as places for the exchange of information. Newspapers created an extremely vibrant political environment that helped encourage a market for political debate, though newspapers inevitably sided with one political party or another. For instance, Thomas Jefferson and the early Republicans were supported by the Philadelphia Aurora, whereas Alexander Hamilton, a Federalist, was supported by the Gazette of the United States until 1818. Many regional urban newspapers found enough support to enable newspapers to increase production by abandoning weekly in favor of daily issues. This was partly possible due to the development of several technical innovations in the early nineteenth century, which also led to a reduction in retail prices. Businesses soon recognized the potential of newspapers for reaching a wide readership, such that advertisements began to form a substantial part American newspapers, bringing further revenue to their publishers and causing a proliferation of new publications. In 1791, the First Amendment of the United States Constitution guaranteed freedom of the press and, in the years that followed, supported the development of what was probably the most liberal national press of its time. The fact that many Americans were political refugees from Europe stimulated the market for unfettered information and furthered the need for an exchange of views in public fora. As both readers and contributors, the American public strongly supported the circulation of newspapers, though the press remained divided on political lines for a considerable period of time. The first newspaper to claim political independence, the New York Herald, did so in 1835. This policy may be seen as the cornerstone in the development of the standards of a free press in modern terms. During this period, the task of a professional journalist developed and was further refined, according to the increased need for information, comment, and opinion, and the growing number of copies produced. By this time not only had it become impossible for a publisher to write, edit, and print a newspaper by himself, but the demand for reliable information required a new, higher standard. See also Newspapers (French). FURTHER READING: Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: Polity, 1992. CHRISTIAN KUHN

Newspapers (French) The development of the French press mirrors the genesis of the bourgeois citizenry. Of all the different media included in the term “press,” newspapers in particular became a medium of the new ideologies that developed and evolved in France in the decades from 1760 until 1815. Some Dutch newspapers, known as corantos (currents of news) were translated into French as early as 1620. Many others newspapers did not develop into a professional form until modern times. The Nouvelles Ordinaires de Divers Endroits was a project of private book traders but was removed from the market and replaced by the official La Gazette. As early as 1777, Le Journal de Paris was circulated in France on a daily basis. A truly popular press, however, did not develop until the founding of La Presse in 1836, with a circulation of about 20,000 copies, a relatively modest number by modern standards. Until that time, the market of French newspapers was structured by official organs like Napoleon’s Le Moniteur Universel. French newspapers were subject to governmental control. Censorship ensured

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that newspapers could not become an institution that provided news, information, and opinion independently of the interests of the monarchy. The French Revolution certainly triggered a rapid and extremely vibrant development of newspapers, but this high peak could not be sustained over a long period of time. Only a few of the years after 1789 experienced a lively press with regard to newspapers. Many of these were newly founded and short lived. Nevertheless, they proved their critical potential during these years, albeit with their influence largely confined to Paris. The core ideological element behind news at this time was the ideal of the public sphere, a liberal concept that suggested (and still suggests today) equality among all thinking women and men. Newspapers were supposed to serve this end, although the free exchange of well-grounded opinion in the public sphere was, during the nineteenth century, increasingly blocked by commercialization of the press by advertisements. A free press seems to have been a model and an objective rather than the description of a social reality. Nevertheless, French newspapers were remarkably successful during the decades from 1760 to 1815. One way to describe the development of French newspapers is to analyze how they were produced, who could have access to them, and how their flow of information interfered with other spheres of communication like private conversation or the public political discourse. Apart from some news sheets that were printed before about 1750, the main driving force of French discourse came in the form of coffeehouses, private salons, and even bourgeois households, which became places for the exchange of different views on diverse topics. In the eighteenth century, the history of French newspapers was closely connected to literature and its critical discussion, rather than to the realm of big business. Originally, literary scholars and writers discussed recent novels, plays, and works of art. In the salons, art was discussed, and ideas were soon put into print. Prominent figures of Enlightenment philosophy, like d’Alembert and Diderot, were frequent visitors to these independent institutions, where newspapers could not only be read but also proliferated. Due to the substantial cost of these weekly publications, their content was passed on to others in conversation as well as circulated in handwritten copies. Although this may seem to have damaged the publishers’ economic interests, in fact this practice actually stimulated the market for newspapers. The development of French newspapers is closely linked to the decline of the aristocratic court during the second half of the eighteenth century. Quite in contrast to earlier news sheets, which confined themselves to the strict reporting of events, newspapers commented on political matters. Producing a newspaper was therefore not so much a form of business as an instrument for the psychological emancipation of the bourgeoisie. Through the dissemination of news, the sphere of the literate and informed urban public would gradually replace the arcane sphere of the nobility at court. The production of newspapers was triggered by the reading public, fuelled by individuals in correspondence with one another. These media, in turn, provided information and stimulated further publications. Such reports mark a more convincing beginning to the development of French newspapers than the earlier business news sheets. As purveyors of information, newspapers soon exceeded the circle of the salons, for private views could be sent to the editors of newspapers. Technical innovations also played a prominent role in the proliferation of French newspapers. Cellulose paper in rolls could be produced by the new Fourdrinier machine, and

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automatization of the printing process helped accelerate newspaper production and render it less expensive. During the eighteenth century, producing a newspaper often required that the printer himself assume the tasks of financing, writing, editing, printing, and possibly even selling the newspaper. Over time, however, the journalist’s profession changed radically, developing as a response to the growing importance of newspapers in society. See also Newspapers (American). FURTHER READING: Darnton, Robert, and Daniel Roche, eds. Revolution in Print: The Press in France, 1775–1800. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989; Gough, Hugh. The Newspaper Press and the French Revolution. London: Routledge, 1998; Melton, James Van Horn. The Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. CHRISTIAN KUHN

Nobility The concept of nobility in Europe can be traced back to the ancient world: the Latin word nobilitas could indicate either the qualities of “being known” or “notable,” or membership in the highest rank of society. Similarly, in early modern Europe, the term “noble” could define someone either as possessing noble attributes (honor, valor, duty) or as belonging to a socially and legally defined upper class. In theory, anyone who belonged to the noble portion of society should also possess the appropriate noble characteristics. The dominant theme of the European nobility was not uniformity of character, however, but great diversity. Definitions Even before the Roman era, nobility was primarily defined by blood. It was a status that was inherited. Membership was not open to just anyone. In the Middle Ages, the nobility formed the backbone of the warrior class. As European society divided itself to perform the daily tasks required for survival in a harsh world, the clerics prayed, the nobles fought, and the rest worked the land. Concepts of nobility were thus tied inextricably to military service and the military values of dedication, bravery, and skill with a sword. An early mark distinguishing a nobleman from anyone else was the most valuable possession of the battlefield, the horse. This gave rise to terms that originally indicated ownership of a horse: equerry and esquire, both from the Latin equus, horse. As chief defenders of the countryside, medieval nobles were thus of the highest importance to kings and princes (themselves usually referred to as the premier noblemen of the kingdom). Privileges were accorded to the king’s fighting force to enable them to prepare themselves for warfare, through training and the purchase of equipment. Taxation was thus from an early stage something that had to be paid by the mass of the people, not by the warrior nobles. For the same reasons, or out of gratitude for victories won, princes also gave their nobles land, as well as a share in the governance of the kingdom through seigniorial justice and the holding of local or state offices. Local lords would take care of judging many of the local disputes, leaving the more serious or complex cases to the king’s justice. Their titles lent them the prestige required to sit in judgment over their neighbors. Their wealth deterred them from all but the greatest bribery and freed them from the time required running a farm or working a trade.

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Princes also saw the nobles as their natural counselors and companions. They appointed them to offices in their government and as their representatives in the countryside. Over time many of these positions became hereditary (such as the office of count, originally a regional administrator or governor of a county), and the system of titles was created. In most European countries these followed a similar hierarchy, from barons at the bottom, through viscounts and counts, to dukes and princes at the top. A baron was usually the term used for the basic landowning and justice-wielding nobleman, though there were variants—in England, a baron was someone who had been officially summoned to counsel the king (the origin of Parliament), while in France it was more generally someone who possessed more than two or three seigneuries, or lordships. A count and a viscount were much more honored members of the king’s inner circle and held a greater number of lordships. A title that was added later was that of duke, the military leader (from Latin dux, leader); these were great magnates who rivaled the king in wealth and power (in Germany, they were in fact territorial rulers). The title of marquis was also added later, originally deriving from a count with extra powers to govern a frontier, or march (from which the title, from the Italian, marchese). The English called these Marcher Lords but began to adopt the title “marquis” from the French in the seventeenth century, often Anglicizing it to “marquess.” By this time, these titles had ceased to serve their original administrative or military functions and served primarily as a means of distinguishing rank and honors. Those at the top, dukes and marquesses, enjoyed close proximity to the king and thus benefited from the offices, military commissions, and pensions that were theirs to distribute, not to mention bribes and kickbacks from those eager to get a word in the king’s ear. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw several shifts of this sort in the definitions and conceptualizations of the nobility. Monarchs were less content to have their armies composed of mostly independent military forces owned and trained by noblemen, and thus dependent on their loyalty and whim. Thus the role of the noble was transformed into that of a servant, rather than a counselor and companion of the prince. The noble’s position in the military hierarchy remained the dominant characteristic of the group, but it was much more tightly controlled. As warfare became increasingly expensive because of technology, nobles also had to rely more exclusively on the monarch for assistance in maintaining their status. Status was measured in wealth and in patronage potential. Keeping up appearances was crucial for the maintenance of at least the fiction that there was something superior about a nobleman and his family, and thus their position of privilege and authority within their local communities. This was expensive and required clothing, horses, carriages, servants, estate managers, houses in town and country, and so on. Privileges from taxation thus became far more important than they had been in previous centuries. Definitions of exclusivity of membership in the noble orders also now became preeminent as a means of protecting these privileges. Whereas it had usually been fairly simple for a man who displayed noble virtues on the battlefield to enter the ranks of the nobility, it was now essential to have lineage. True nobles were expected to have family associations with the monarchy and the military reaching back several generations. In France, for example, ordinances from the mid-sixteenth century required nobles to prove their descent from people bearing noble titles in the year 1400 or before. Exclusivity was variable: in Germany, sons and daughters who wished to enter certain monasteries or take up posts in the imperial

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(i.e., the Holy Roman Empire) government were required to produce the infamous 16 quarters (all 16 of one’s great-great-grandparents had to be noble); in England, it was much less rigid. The final addition in the composition of the nobility came about—in France at least—from the desire of the monarch to reduce his dependence on an ancient, semi-independent military aristocracy and to reclaim the function of administering justice at every level. The most eminent judges in the country were lured into a greater support of the king by the prize of noble status, with both its connotations of honor and its fiscal advantages (that is, exemption from most taxation). Thus was born the noblesse de robe, the judiciary nobles who were marked out by their long robes of court, as opposed to the noblesse d’épée, the nobles of the sword. As the two most influential portions of French society, these two groups frequently loathed each other socially but often worked together by necessity. Moreover, sons of the ancient nobility usually were in need of the wealth that the daughters of judicial nobles could often supply. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the divide between these two groups had considerably narrowed. Yet nobility remained quite diverse. In addition to such variances in origin and function, there were, most notably, differences in wealth. Some had wealth based entirely in urban trades, as in parts of Italy and Provence, while others remained tied to the land, as in Britain and Scandinavia. The greatest landowners in Poland and Russia owned estates the size of an English county, while some of the simple hidalgos in Spain owned nothing at all but their noble status. Some were highly educated; others could barely sign their names. Even defining numbers is difficult, for historians as well as contemporaries; estimates for the number of nobles in eighteenth-century France range widely between 100,000 and 500,000. The Role of the Nobility in the Enlightenment and Age of Revolutions By the eighteenth century, the nobilities of Europe were generally secure in their place at the top of the social and political hierarchy: they were exempt from most taxation, they owned most of the land, and they dominated the ranks of the offices of state, the judiciary, the military, and the church as well. There was not a strong antagonism between the privileged nobility and the growing numbers of wealthy bankers, guildsmen, and lawyers (later termed the middle class, or the bourgeoisie). Rather there was a generally accepted goal of advancement into this position of privilege for oneself. Parlementaires (members of the various parlements) in France in particular seemed to be evenly mixed between arguing against noble privilege and trying to acquire it for themselves. Success in business or law anywhere in Europe could mean catching the favor of a powerful courtier or the monarch himself, and an advance—whether slow or spectacular—for oneself and one’s family into the ranks of the nobility. In France, this trend could be seen in particular in the ranks of the government financiers, who themselves began to be ennobled by monarchs always short on cash. Social mobility may have been limited, but it was not closed. Nevertheless, several of the main characteristics of the nobility came under serious criticism by writers of the eighteenth century. Fiscal and social privileges based on birth alone may have rankled some (although these were fully sanctioned, it seemed, by the church and scripture). Rather, it was practices such as the selling of noble offices to the highest bidder, the strict regulation of primogeniture and entail by aristocratic families, and the persistence of feudal systems of land management

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like seigneurial dues and mainmorte that truly formed the basis of eighteenth-century criticism of the ancien régime. By making positions within the government, the judiciary, and the military all commodities to be bought and sold, rather than obtained by merit or skill, society was seen as stagnating, and the closed nature of the governing class allowing in very little new blood. It was the monopoly of power held by the nobles, rather than the institution of nobility itself, that was primarily under attack. The military was derided for allowing its highest commands to be controlled exclusively by a limited set of families, whose sons may or may not have been the most talented commanders available. Almost all the top judiciary positions in the country were held by a few interrelated noble families, and the price of purchase for these posts was kept well out of reach of all but the wealthiest aspiring socialites. Landowning practices in many countries limited inheritance of vast estates to the eldest son only, which was generally good for the family as a whole but stifled the free circulation of land and economic growth and disadvantaged younger sons, who, because of their noble status, were unwilling (or even unable in some countries due to laws restricting noble occupations) to take up employment in trade. These became the indolent and idle who were mercilessly mocked by anti-noble writers of the period. Some criticized the views held by many noblemen of themselves as a separate cultural or even racial category with “inherited values” as either bad biological reasoning or simply untrue. But again, diversity is the key. Many nobles were active promoters of industry and trade. They were patrons of the arts, as well as members of academic organizations and literary salons. Some were firm believers in reform, from agriculture to politics, including some at the very top, like King Frederick II of Prussia and Emperor Joseph II of Austria. There is a paradox in the very fact that the same writers who criticized and ridiculed the nobility were also those who relied on it for their patronage and support, not just financially, but also in readership. Nobles were patrons of the philosophes, and collectors of libraries. One of the most prominent critics of the noble lifestyle was a nobleman himself, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, whose satire, Les lettres persanes (1721), mocked not the nobility in general, but those qualities generally held by society to be damnable: indolence, pride, artifice, frivolity, and so forth. Most of these were seen to be defaults of those who spent their time at court in the luxury of the king’s entourage, trapped by the whims of fashion (and its exorbitant costs) and vanity. Ordinary noblemen living on their estates in the countryside did not necessarily associate themselves with that lifestyle. They would have firmly supported the values of back-to-the-land literary protagonists like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Henry Fielding, and Johann Goethe. In the view of many reformers in Europe, this was the key to the issue. The monarchy and its noble favorites had lost touch with the countryside and its residents, not just the peasantry, but artisans and local nobles as well. In their minds, this distance undermined the foundations of what the nobility had originally stood for, as the element of society set apart to look after the safety of the common people. This issue was illustrated plainly in France with the assembly of the Estates-General in May 1789, at which many nobles openly supported the rights of the Third Estate (the non-nobles) to be represented in the governance of the kingdom in true proportion to their numbers, rather than on an equivalent footing with the muchsmaller clergy and the nobility. The Revolution surpassed the goals of most of its initial supporters, however, in first abolishing and then slaughtering the nobility in

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their thousands in the early years of the French Revolution. Nevertheless, 25 years later, many of the old noble families had survived, their fortunes more-or-less intact. Their official privileged position in the state was removed, but informal authority remained, both in society and government, and would do so well into the nineteenth century. FURTHER READING: Chaussinand-Nogaret, Guy. The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: From Feudalism to Enlightenment. Translated by William Doyle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985; Descimon, Robert. “Orders and Classes.” In Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, ed. Michel Delon. Vol. 2. Translated by Philip Stewart and Gwen Wells. Chicago: Fitzroy-Dearborn, 2001; Dewald, Jonathan. The European Nobility, 1400–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; Lukowski, Jerzy. The European Nobility in the Eighteenth Century. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2003; Scott, H. M., ed. The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. 2 vols. London: Longman, 1995; Smith, Jay, and Jean Quéniart. “Aristocracy.” In Encyclopedia of the Age of Enlightenment, ed. Alan Kors. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. JONATHAN SPANGLER

Non-Importation Acts The non-importation acts were agreements among American merchants not to purchase or import British goods in retaliation for various political and/or economic restrictions enacted by Parliament against the American colonies. Major non-importation acts emerged to counter the Stamp Act of 1765 and later the Townshend Acts of 1767. Other colonies adopted their own non-importation acts, and in 1774 the First Continental Congress passed a non-importation act, known as the Continental Association, that covered all the colonies. The first non-importation acts emerged as early as 1765, when Americans opposed the imposition of the Stamp Act on the colonies. Groups referred to as the Sons of Liberty enforced a boycott of goods covered under the Stamp Act. New York City passed the New York Merchant’s Non-Importation Agreement on October 31, 1765. The agreement noted the opposition of city merchants to the Stamp Act and their demand for its repeal. The merchants agreed unanimously not to purchase any British goods after January 1, 1766, unless the British removed the taxes applied by the Stamp Act. The refusal of Americans to purchase imports bearing Stamp Act taxes made a tremendous impact on British merchants, who successfully petitioned their government for its repeal. Boston enacted the first major non-importation act after the repeal of the Stamp Act in response to the British passage of the Townshend Acts, which placed new taxes on lead, paint, paper, glass, and tea. Boston’s merchants approved the Boston Non-Importation Agreement on August 1, 1768. The merchants agreed to promote local industry and frugality to discourage the purchase of imported goods. They also pledged not to import any goods in the fall of 1768 that had already been ordered from Britain. Rather than canceling orders, the non-importation act envisioned a one-year protest from January 1, 1769 to January 1, 1770. During this period, the merchants would boycott British goods other than salt, coal, fish hooks, fishing line, hemp, duck, bar lead and shot, wool cards, and card wire. The document specifically targeted many of the items listed in the Townshend Acts. The merchants pledged to uphold the boycott until the British government repealed the Townshend Acts, and the Sons of Liberty opted to enforce the non-importation agreement.

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The merchants of Charleston, South Carolina, enacted their own anti–Townshend Acts non-importation agreement on July 22, 1769. The Charleston document proved to be one of the most detailed non-importation acts written prior to the American Revolution. Charleston’s merchants agreed to boycott the same products banned in Boston but also added slaves and wine. The Charleston agreement clearly stated that any merchant who refused to abide by the act should face a boycott by local residents. The impact of the various non-importation agreements helped to force the British to repeal the Townshend Acts on April 12, 1770. See also Boston Port Act; Boston Tea Party; Stamp Act Congress. FURTHER READING: Conser, Walter H., Ronald McCarthy, David Toscano, and Gene Sharp, eds. Resistance, Politics, and the American Struggle for Independence, 1765–1775. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 1986. TERRY M. MAYS

North, Frederick North, Lord (1732–1792) British prime minister from 1770 to 1782, Lord North’s irresolute leadership contributed to his nation’s loss in the American Revolution. North was the son of Lady Lucy Montagu and Francis North, the first earl of Guilford and the governor to Prince George, the future King George III. Young Frederick was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Oxford. After completing the obligatory grand tour in Europe, North married Anne Speke, the daughter of a wealthy Somerset landowner. At the age of 22, North was elected to represent Banbury in Parliament, which he would do for the next 26 years. The first two years of his service were lackluster, and he did not even deliver his first speech until two-and-half years after being elected. In 1759, his distant relative, and the serving prime minister, the Duke of Newcastle, appointed him a junior lord of the treasury, an office North held until 1765, serving under William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham; the Duke of Newcastle; the Earl of Bute; and George Grenville. In 1763, North was chosen as the Commons’ manager against John Wilkes and succeeded in removing Wilkes’s parliamentary privilege. In 1766, after Lord Rockingham’s first ministry collapsed, North was made a member of the Privy Council and served as paymaster general under the Duke of Grafton. In the fall of 1767, he was appointed chancellor of the exchequer. Three years later, King George III asked North to form his own ministry as prime minister, in which capacity he served until 1782. Earlier in his career, North had supported the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1765), and the Townshend Acts (1767) to generate revenue to compensate for the financial costs Britain had incurred during the Seven Years’ War (1756 –1763). Despite a hostile reaction to the acts in the British colonies in North America, North, after becoming prime minister, retained these acts to reduce the national debt. Since Britain was at peace from 1763, he reduced spending on the armed forces but in doing so exposed himself to the Opposition’s charges that he was weakening the nation’s defenses, not least in the reduction in spending on the Royal Navy. One of North’s first challenges came in 1772 when he faced a crisis over the Falkland Islands. Spain claimed these south Atlantic islands and demanded the expulsion of the British inhabitants. The reductions made in the Royal Navy budget and an accidental fire that destroyed the Portsmouth dockyards placed Britain in a difficult

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position in which to fight a war. North instead chose a peaceful solution and negotiated with the Spanish king, Charles III, reaching a settlement that allowed Britain to retain the Falklands. Less successful was North’s attempt to reform the government’s relations with the East India Company. Abuses by company officials in India and inflated stocks in Britain led him to propose measures to rescue the East India Company from bankruptcy, which would have affected the British economy. North argued that tea was a luxury item and therefore should be properly taxed to reduce the national debt. The Tea Act (1773) called for a monopolistic arrangement in the tea trade between the American colonies and the East India Company. North’s second measure, the Loan Act, required the East India Company to use its profits to pay outstanding debts before making other expenditures. The third measure, the Regulating Act, provided for government approval of the appointments of the company’s governor-general and its council members, thus increasing the degree of government supervision over the company. North’s Tea Act caused a fierce reaction in the colonies, where many opposed the tea monopoly. Some viewed the import duty as a tax that Britain was using to assert its authority over the colonies as well as an attempt by North to use the colonies to alleviate Britain’s economic problems. In response to his Tea Act, the Sons of Liberty organized the famous Boston Tea Party to prevent the collection of the tea tax. North underestimated the determination and power of the colonists and chose to respond with rigidity and resolve. His Coercive Acts (1774) sought to make an example of the colony of Massachusetts, but instead they produced bitterness and resentment. By the time the government issued a Proclamation of Rebellion in August 1775, North’s ministry was divided over the use of force in subduing the colonies, which limited North’s actions. The prime minister had to maintain amity among his ministers and defend his policies and budgets amid escalating conflict in North America. North nevertheless faced the war with the colonies halfheartedly and was easily depressed by the reverses suffered by British arms. When General John Burgoyne was defeated at Saratoga, he declared his willingness to resign if such action would bring peace. North effectively left many decisions on managing the conflict to his ministers, principally the Earl of Sandwich, who served as first lord of the admiralty, and Lord George Germain, the secretary of state for America. In early 1778, North supported the formation of the Carlisle Peace Commission that was dispatched to America to offer the colonists a peaceful resolution to the conflict. However, the commission’s work was undermined from the very beginning, since, due to miscommunication among North’s ministers, British troops were ordered to withdraw from Philadelphia, which only increased the colonists’ resolve to fight and reject the commission’s offer. Throughout 1778–1780, North was troubled by political matters at home and abroad. In 1778, the Catholic Relief Act was passed to allow Roman Catholics to own property, inherit land, and serve in the army. However, it caused a violent Protestant response, known as the Gordon Riots, in 1780, which further weakened the government. North also faced difficulties in Ireland, where complaints were made in 1779 about restrictions on Irish trade. He made several requests to resign, but the king persuaded him to remain. The loss of North’s youngest child only increased his despair and made him an indecisive and reluctant leader. His ministry consequently became more divided and unable to address the country’s immediate problems.

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The British defeat at Yorktown in October 1781 spelled the end for North’s ministry, and in March 1782, he insisted on resigning. His government was replaced by the ministry of the Earl of Rockingham, who died in July. After the Earl of Shelburne negotiated with the victorious American colonists, North returned to office in April 1783, when he became home secretary in a coalition government under the nominal leadership of the Duke of Portland. The Portland ministry managed to sign the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War, but it also hastened the government’s demise. In December 1783, it was replaced by the first ministry of William Pitt the Younger, while Lord North joined the Opposition. He retained his seat in the House of Commons for the next seven years. In 1790, he succeeded his father as the second earl of Guilford and joined the House of Lords. However, his health rapidly deteriorated, and he became nearly blind before dying in London on August 5, 1792. He was buried at All Saints Church in Wroxton, Oxfordshire, near his family estate of Wroxton Abbey. Lord North’s legacy is still debated, but whatever his achievements and failings, he is remembered as the prime minister who lost the American colonies. An experienced and astute politician, he is often portrayed as a mediocre prime minister who appeared to lack the confidence so necessary in the high position that he held. His decision to adopt stern policies respecting the colonies clearly proved detrimental in the end. However, he did display considerable skill in avoiding factional entanglements within his ministry and in Parliament and was known for his ability to speak eloquently and succinctly. FURTHER READING: Butterfield, Herbert. Lord North and the People, 1779 –80. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1949; Christie, Ian R. The End of North’s Ministry, 1780–1782. London: Macmillan, 1958; Donne, W. Bodham, ed. The Correspondence of King George the Third with Lord North, 1768 to 1783. Vols. 1 and 2. New York: Da Capo, 1971; Scott, H. M. British Foreign Policy in the Age of the American Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990; Smith, Charles Daniel. The Early Career of Lord North the Prime Minister. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickenson University Press, 1979; Thomas, Peter. Lord North. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976; Valentine, Alan. Lord North. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967; Whiteley, Peter. Lord North: The Prime Minister Who Lost America. London: Hambledon, 1996. ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE

North Carolina North Carolina presents an excellent example of the premise that the American Revolution was not only a question of home rule but of who would rule at home. The colony was divided along a geographical fault line between east and west. Each possessed different economic and political characteristics. In the years before the Revolution, these differences, as much as any opposition to the Crown, became the focus of political activity. Western farmers were separated by a significant distance from the east, where the richer farmers and merchants were located, and found their political strength outweighed. Aside from the disparity in political power, economics was quite important, especially when new means were employed in the 1760s to gather taxes. Aside from the fact that much of this revenue apparently stayed in the hands of those who collected it, innovations in revenue collecting made life more difficult for the westerners. Earlier there had been some flexibility in the timing of the payments

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or payment in goods rather than cash had been allowed. This was now no longer the case. Thus, a form of self-government meant to regulate their own affairs took shape, and these activists, known as Regulators, became a significant force (a similar group of Regulators existed in South Carolina as well). The Regulators’ rebellion was broken after the militia under Governor William Tryon defeated them in the Battle of Allamance Creek in June 1771. Six of the leaders were hanged. The irony of these events lay in the fact that many outside observers (such as Josiah Quincy) had come to believe that these farmers were fighting against British oppression. In fact, the eastern elites who supported suppression of the Regulators were also the parties that were the most vocal in their opposition to the Crown. At the same time as these events in the west, opposition to acts of Parliament was growing. North Carolina did not participate in the Stamp Act Congress (the Assembly was not in session at the time) but Governor Tryon’s offer to pay the tax himself for the colony did not pacify the situation. Josiah Martin succeeded Tryon in 1771 and from the beginning had a contentious relationship with the Assembly. His difficulties were not solely based on opposition to British policy. Martin, as he came to know the area, found himself in sympathy with many of the westerners who had supported the Regulators. North Carolina sent delegates to the First and Second Continental Congresses and approved a state constitution in 1776. Several significant battles (including Guilford Court House) were fought in North Carolina, and the west did not overwhelmingly support one side or another. The end of major campaigning in 1781 did not bring a halt to the fighting: the west became the focus of a real and brutal civil war until the cessation of the conflict in 1783. After the war, North Carolina adopted the Articles of Confederation, and in 1788 the state voted against the United States Constitution, though it ratified it the following year when it became known that a bill of rights would be attached. See also American Revolutionary War; Constitutions, American State; Continental Congress, First; Continental Congress, Second; Loyalists. FURTHER READING: Kars, Marjoleine. Breaking Loose Together: The Regulator Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary North Carolina. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002; Lee, Wayne E. Crowds and Soldiers in Revolutionary North Carolina: The Culture of Violence in Riot and War. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. ROBERT N. STACY

The Northwest This region, alternatively known as the Old Northwest or the Ohio Valley, was bounded to the north by the Great Lakes, to the west by the Mississippi River, and to the east by the Ohio River. It covered the present-day states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and part of Minnesota. From the mid-eighteenth through the early nineteenth centuries, abundant fur resources and fertile soil placed the Northwest in the path of imperial ambitions, inspiring wars and political maneuvering between Britain, France, the United States, and the Native Americans. France was the first European power to lay claim to the region, establishing forts and posts for the fur trade in the seventeenth century. In the charters of her Atlantic

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colonies, Britain nominally claimed the land as well. In practice, European control of the region was tenuous, which allowed the Iroquois Confederacy to manipulate imperial rivalries to maintain power in the Ohio Valley. The strategy kept the region relatively peaceful until the mid-eighteenth century, when George II granted the Ohio Company a royal charter to extend settlements into the Northwest. In 1754, a dispute over the territory erupted into war between France and Britain, and each side’s Indian allies. The Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) initiated a 40-year effort to subjugate the Northwest to British control. The French relinquished their claim in the Treaty of Paris (1763), but the Native American inhabitants naturally remained, and conflicts with settlers arose immediately. Specifically, Pontiac’s Rebellion brought a state of terror to the western borders of Virginia and Pennsylvania. Shortly thereafter, Parliament passed the Proclamation of 1763, a largely ineffectual attempt to gain control over the Northwest by limiting settlement west of the Appalachians. The proclamation highlighted a growing schism between the British Empire and her American colonies. The British ceded the territory to the United States at the close of the American Revolutionary War in 1783. From 1781 to 1785, seven of the states that still maintained claims to the land (by virtue of their colonial charters) were persuaded to surrender them to the federal government. Like the British 20 years earlier, the Americans attempted to exercise their authority over the still largely unsettled land. Congress introduced the Land Ordinance of 1785 as a system to divide and sell public land. Pressure from a land speculation firm, the Ohio Company of Associates, prompted Congress to pass the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, a measure to extend governance into the region by allowing new states to be carved from the territory. Nevertheless, Native Americans living in the region continued to claim the land. As Americans pushed into the territory in the 1780s and 1790s, the British—who had never fully withdrawn—assisted and in some cases fomented Indian resistance. The United States fought a series of battles with the confederated tribes led by Tecumseh of the Shawnee, culminating in an American victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794) and the passage of the Treaty of Greenville (1795). As a result, waves of American settlers began emigrating. But conflict among the Americans, Native Americans, and the British remained, contributing to the deteriorating relations that brought about the War of 1812. The results of that conflict confirmed American control of the Northwest, from which the British were permanently expelled, and facilitated a longer process of Indian removal. FURTHER READING: Cayton, Andrew R. L., and Stuart D. Hobbs, eds. The Center of a Great Empire: The Ohio Country in the Early American Republic. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005; Hinderaker, Eric. Elusive Empires: Constructing Colonialism in the Ohio Valley, 1673 –1800. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. ROBERT LEE

Notables The Notables were persons belonging mainly to the clergy and nobility under the ancien régime in France. The king nominated the Notables, who were intendants (in charge of regional taxation), members of parlements (law courts), members of

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provincial estates, councilors of state, members of corporations, mayors, members of the noblesse de robe (magisterial nobility) and the noblesse d’épee (nobility of the sword), and others. The Marquis de Lafayette, a prominent figure in the American Revolutionary War and in the French Revolution, and Etienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne, the finance minister in 1787–1788, numbered among many important Notables. The Notables did not have any common plan of action, apart from that of guarding their political and financial privileges—hence, they became a favorite target of Parisian cartoonists and pamphleteers. Louis XVI called upon the Assembly of Notables to facilitate the smooth passage of his fiscal reforms, but the assembly proved to be a chaotic body divided by divergent views. Indeed, the Notables were only united when they talked of the “despotism” of government ministers, including the finance minister, Charles Alexander de Calonne, whose first proposal the Notables rejected in their opening meeting on February 22, 1787. The Assembly was dissolved on May 25, when Calonne’s successor, Brienne, met similar opposition from the Notables. The Notables convened their final meeting in November 1788. See also Assembly of Notables. FURTHER READING: Beck, Thomas D., and Martha W. Beck. French Notables: Reflections of Industrialization and Regionalism. New York: P. Lang, 1987; Furet, François. The French Revolution, 1770–1815. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996. PATIT PABAN MISHRA

O October Days (1789) One of the important events of the early stages of the French Revolution, the October Days refers to the women’s march to Versailles and the resulting relocation of the royal family to Paris. Following the tumultuous events of July 1789, the National Constituent Assembly adopted a series of decrees aimed at reforming the state. In August, the Assembly abolished the feudal remnants in French society, adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and produced a draft of the first written constitution. The fast pace of change and the nature of the political reforms that limited royal power led King Louis XVI to withhold his acceptance of these reforms. The Assembly was also divided into various feuding factions, some of which sought support from political groups in Paris. In September, the king was approached with a suggestion to move the Assembly farther from Paris to prevent any outside influence on the legislature. The king refused but ordered additional troops to Versailles. Many royalist soldiers favored the use of force to expel the National Assembly, and during a fete at the palace in the presence of the king and queen on October 1, the soldiers desecrated the revolutionary symbol, the tricolor cockade. A seemingly trifling incident, it was suitably embellished by rumors that spread through the capital and provoked a massive response. In his newspaper, L’Ami du Peuple, Jean-Paul Marat published a letter calling for all patriotic citizens to take up arms, as royal soldiers had shown themselves to be both debauched and hostile to the people and the Revolution. At the same time, Camille Desmoulins renewed the call for the king to be removed from the corrupting influence of the court. The most pressing issue, however, was that of food. Despite numerous decrees and the publication of political pamphlets, economic change was slow in making itself felt, and grain remained in short supply. The price of bread, the staple diet for Parisians, continued to increase, pushing many citizens to the edge of starvation. Rumors claimed the hunger was a result of a conspiracy, as a revolutionary activist named Fournier noted in his memoirs: “The detestable aristocratic and royalist horde had plotted to submit the nation to slavery by starvation and saw no other way to force this nation to renounce its plans for conquering its liberty.”

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On October 5, several hundred women staged a protest against the food shortage and high prices of bread in front of the Hôtel de Ville, threatening to lynch the municipal leaders. They were joined by demonstrators outraged by the “cockade trampling” affair, which, many believed, demonstrated royal contempt for the Assembly. As the crowd grew to several thousand, some agitators suggested marching on Versailles to present their grievances and retrieve the royal family. As a result, some 10,000 women and men, many of them armed with sticks, pikes, and knives, set off in the rain for the royal palace. The idea to march to Versailles was not spontaneous, nor did it originate with the demonstrating women. It had in fact been under discussion since late August in radical political circles in Paris, which had now found an opportunity to put it in effect. The Marquis de Lafayette, the commander of the Paris National Guard, initially tried to pacify the crowd and his troops, which were in a state of near mutiny, but, as he claimed afterward, after being threatened with hanging, he agreed to lead his units to Versailles. Meanwhile, the king was engaged in his daily round of hunting while the National Constituent Assembly was discussing the news of royal soldiers desecrating the cockade and the king’s continued refusal to approve new legislation. Upon receiving the news of the approach of women marchers, the court held a council but arrived at no decision. Around 4 p.m., as the Assembly prepared to demand the royal acceptance of its acts, the first women marchers, led by Stanislas Maillard, the famed conqueror of the Bastille, reached Versailles and were presented in front of the Assembly, where they voiced their complaints. They were then escorted to the royal palace, where Louis XVI assured them that they would receive help. Although this first group of women seemed to be placated, the arrival of several thousand more armed women and men only increased the tension. Lafayette assured the royal family of his help and arrived with his troops around midnight. However, many National Guardsmen sympathized with the crowd, and their reliability was suspect. In this tense situation, the royal family was advised to retreat to Rambouillet, but the king refused to leave the palace. Late that evening, he informed the Assembly of his unconditional acceptance of its decrees, effectively signaling the transfer of authority from the executive to the legislative body. During a night of festivity, the cold, tired, and wet crowd invaded the Assembly, where some conservative and clerical members were harassed. On the morning of October 6, the mob then discovered an open gate leading into the palace and rushed toward the apartment of Queen Marie Antoinette; several bodyguards were killed and injured as they tried to protect the queen, who managed to escape via a private staircase to the king’s bedroom. Although the National Guard restored order, the mob remained agitated and threatened the royal family, filling the air with cries of “Le Roi à Paris!” Lafayette informed the royal family that the only way to calm the crowd was for the king to agree to move to the capital. Later that morning, Louis appeared on the balcony to mollify the crowd and agreed to move to Paris on condition that he would be accompanied by the queen and his family. The royal family, surrounded by thousands of marchers, duly left Versailles at about noon. The October Days had a dramatic influence on the subsequent course of events. The invasion of the palace by the crowd constituted a major blow to crown authority. With the king’s move to Paris, the power of the previously Versailles-based monarchy had come to an end. The National Constituent Assembly followed the king to Paris on October 19, and, thereafter, the king, his advisers, and the entire Assembly

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effectively became hostages of radical Parisian crowds, who began to play an important role in the political events of the Revolution. It represented the first, but not the last, instance when the direct intervention of the Parisian masses affected national politics. Royalist factions and other elements sympathetic to the king lost their power as they became overwhelmed by the power of a radical, often hostile, populace. On the other hand, radical left-wing factions benefited greatly from these events as they gained the king’s acceptance of their reforms. Lafayette emerged as the hero of these events by preventing bloodshed and protecting the royal family. The duc d’Orléans was suspected of exploiting the mob for his own benefit, as a result of which he was informally exiled from France and later prosecuted for his role in the October Days. The October Days are also noteworthy for the substantial number of women who participated in the march on Versailles. Their active role in this event led to attempts to limit women’s involvement in politics and direct them back into a passive role. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Pamphlets (French); Women (French). FURTHER READING: Aulard, F.-A., ed. Mémoires secrets de Fournier l’Américain. Paris, 1890; Ferrières, Charles Elie. Mémoires du Marquis de Ferrières. Paris: Baudouin Frères, 1821; Godineau, Dominique. The Women of Paris and Their French Revolution. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998; Levy, Darline Gay, Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson, eds. and trans. Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789 –1795. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979. Pernoud, Georges, and Sabine Flaissier. The French Revolution Translated by Richard Graves. New York: Capricorn Books, 1970. ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE

Ogden, James (1718 –1802) James Ogden was an English writer who first distinguished himself as a poet and later as a composer of prose. He was born in Manchester, one of at least three children born to parents whose identities remain unknown. Much of Ogden’s early life and career are obscure. It appears that family connections led to his early employment as a fustian shearer in the Manchester cotton industry. Ogden then traveled to the Continent, visiting France, the Netherlands, and Germany, where he witnessed the Battle of Dettingen in 1743. Upon returning to Britain, Ogden was employed as a schoolmaster in Manchester, but by 1772, he had returned to his former vocation as a fustian shearer. By this time, Ogden had produced several poetic works. His first publications—An Epistle on Poetical Composition, a reverential Christian composition entitled On the Crucifixion and Resurrection, and The British Lion Rous’d, or, Acts of the British Worthies, a Poem in Nine Books—appeared in 1762. By the time Ogden came to compose the last work, his literary reputation seems to have been established: The British Lion Rous’d was published by subvention of six hundred subscribers. Despite his emerging reputation, Ogden waited until 1774 to publish his next poetic piece, entitled A Poem, on the Museum, at Alkrington, Belonging to Ashton Lever, and 14 more years to produce Poem, Moral, Philosophical and Religious, in Which Is Considered the Nature of Man (1788). The latter composition, published anonymously, is considered his most significant poem and advocated domestic economic reform as the means for providing all the women of Manchester with good husbands. In its stanzas, in which Ogden promoted the abolition of the slave trade, are the influences of the Enlightenment. This work was followed by The Revolution, an Epic Poem (1790), which is a heroic

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portrait of William III, and Archery; a Poem (1793), arguably his most enigmatic piece. Ogden had served in the Manchester archery society, and Archery was a curious mix of passionate expression of his favored sport and lyrical waxing on agriculture. In 1797, Ogden issued Emanuel, or, Paradise Regained: An Epic Poem, and in 1800 his last poetic composition, entitled Sans Culotte and Jacobine, an Hudibrastic Poem, was published by his son, William Ogden (1753 –1822). This was an anti-reform piece that rejected calls for political reform, specifically the representation of Manchester in Parliament. As a writer of prose, Ogden produced just two works: A Description of Manchester, published anonymously in 1783 (reissued in 1887 as Manchester a Hundred Years Ago), and A Concise Narrative of All the Actions, in Which the British Forces Were Engaged, during the Present War, on the Continent of Europe (1797). Ogden died on August 13, 1802, in Manchester. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade. FURTHER READING: Davis, Michael T. “James Ogden.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; [Ogden, James]. Manchester a Hundred Years Ago: Being a Reprint of a Description of Manchester by a Native of the Town. Edited by W.E.A. Axon. Manchester, 1887. MICHAEL T. DAVIS

Old Northwest See The Northwest

Olive Branch Petition (1775) The Olive Branch Petition was the Second Continental Congress’s final diplomatic effort to resolve the political tension that had persisted for more than a decade between Britain and its American colonies. John Dickinson, a Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress, wrote the Olive Branch Petition in June 1775. By then, military hostilities had already commenced with the actions at Lexington and Concord and at Bunker Hill, and General George Washington had just assumed command of New England’s militia forces in the ongoing siege of Boston. Still, many provincial Americans believed it was only Parliament and the British government’s ministers—not George III—that had become corrupt and were responsible for the imperial policies that oppressed the colonies. The sentiments expressed by Dickinson in the Olive Branch Petition showed this optimism. Among its numerous statements, the petition affirmed the colonies’ continued loyalty and affection for the king, expressed their desire for reconciliation, requested immediate repeal of the Coercive Acts, and pleaded with the Crown to intercede and mediate the colonies’ differences with Parliament. Most of the Continental Congress’s 46 delegates who signed the petition believed it was a futile effort but signed the petition out of their enormous respect for Dickinson’s demonstrated legal expertise and integrity. The Congress addressed the petition to George III to eliminate doubt regarding the king’s attitude toward his American colonies. Many in the Congress hoped that if the king rejected the petition, it would increase popular support for independence. George III refused to even receive the Olive Branch Petition. Instead, on August 23, 1775, he proclaimed the colonies to be in rebellion and urged for every

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effort to be made “to suppress such rebellion, and bring the traitors to justice.” The king’s rejection of the petition, coupled with the January 1776 publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, persuaded many provincial Americans that the only way to protect the rights they believed Parliament sought to deny them was to declare their independence from Britain. The Olive Branch Petition is therefore regarded as a critical step toward the Continental Congress’s declaration of American independence. FURTHER READING: Flower, Milton Embick. John Dickinson: Conservative Revolutionary. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1983; Grant, Alfred. Our American Brethren: A History of Letters in the British Press during the American Revolution, 1775 –1781. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1995. CHRISTINE LAHUE

Orange, Commission of (1794) The Commission of Orange came into being on May 10, 1794, and operated from June 19 to August 4 of that year. Its existence and rules of procedure indicated that the Reign of Terror had become increasingly stringent in its definition of guilt and in terms of the imposition of punishment. Revolutionary tribunals had previously operated in a decentralized fashion. Set up by members of the National Convention, they included members of the Committee of Public Safety, and in their role as representatives on mission, they would dispense revolutionary justice. By the spring of 1794, however, it was thought that all these trials should be conducted in Paris, where the political atmosphere was considered to be suitably radical. There were two exceptions due to the practical difficulties of transporting prisoners from these sites to Paris. The first was Arras, the hometown of Maximilien Robespierre; the second was the city of Orange, in southern France. The Commission of Orange operated under a set of rules personally devised by Robespierre. The commission would have five judges with no jury. The only crime to be tried was whether a suspected individual was an enemy of the Revolution. There would be no written presentation; the burden of proof was constituted by whatever statements would allow any person who was both “reasonable” and “a friend of liberty” to determine guilt or innocence. In the course of its existence, the commission condemned 432 people to death, including women and boys, although 100 of these subsequently had their sentences reduced. See also Juries; Law of Suspects. FURTHER READING: Andress, David. The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006; Palmer, R. R. Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. ROBERT N. STACY

Orléans, Louis Philippe Joseph, Duc d’ (1747 –1793) Louis Philippe Joseph, duc d’Orléans, was a member of a cadet branch of the French royal house of Bourbon. Known as Philippe Egalité, he supported the French Revolution and voted for the execution of his cousin, Louis XVI.

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Orléans was born in 1747. He bore the title duc de Montpensier until 1752, when he became the duc de Chartres. He succeeded his father as duc d’Orléans in 1785. Orléans was disliked at the French court and traveled frequently to Britain, where he befriended the Prince of Wales (later George IV) and grew fond of the British political system. After squandering his fortune, Orléans built shops in the gardens of his Parisian residence to rebuild his finances. The gardens became a center for the lower classes. During the conflicts between Louis XVI and the nobility over France’s financial situation, Orléans became leader of a group of malcontents in the Assembly of Notables. He was exiled after making a subversive speech in one of the parlements. Orléans served as deputy in the Estates-General and was among the liberal nobles who joined the Third Estate in June 1789. He was blamed for disturbances in Paris at the outbreak of the French Revolution, and in 1789 –1790, he accepted a mission to Britain. He was later suspected by both French royalists and republicans of covertly plotting to make himself constitutional monarch of France. In 1791, Orléans joined the Jacobins. After exchanging his aristocratic title for Citizen Égalité, he served in the National Convention. He allied himself with the Mountain and voted for Louis XVI’s execution. Orléans was arrested after his eldest son, Louis-Philippe, deserted to counterrevolutionary forces abroad. Orléans was guillotined in November 1793 during the Reign of Terror. Louis-Philippe became the French king following the July Revolution in 1830. FURTHER READING: Scudder, Evarts Seelye. Prince of the Blood. London: Collins, 1937. ERIC MARTONE

Ottoman Empire, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on At the time of the French Revolution, the Ottoman Empire had not yet become “the sick man of Europe” but was far from the powerful and fearsome entity whose armies had reached the outskirts of Vienna a hundred years before. From the late seventeenth century on, the borders of the Ottoman Empire began to steadily contract. Although its influence was diminishing along with the area under its control, it remained a force that Europeans had to enter into their political and diplomatic considerations. The sultan during this time was Selim III (ruled 1789 –1807), and while his reign began with his presiding over territorial losses to the Russians, he understood that some changes would have to be made to hold off further decline. He had, even before his reign, made contact with some European leaders and from 1786 on had been in regular contact with Louis XVI. When he became sultan in 1789, he asked for and received French officers to advise his army (one of those originally scheduled to go was Napoleon Bonaparte). Beyond receiving advisors, however, Selim made other changes, particularly in the analysis and decision-making process of determining policy. In 1791 he and a selected group of advisors performed what might now be called a requirements analysis to determine what was needed to improve both the civil government and the military. The result was a program known as the New Order, a set of reforms that focused primarily on improving military operations, with secondary emphasis on other government administration.

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All this time, Selim asked for and continued to receive aid from France. In 1793, he requested assistance and advisors from the Committee of Public Safety. They responded, with the hope that the Turks could possibly open up a second front against the Russians and the Austrians. This did not happen, however, and in fact France went to war with Turkey when it sent Napoleon to invade Egypt in 1798. After occupying Alexandria, the French moved north; Selim’s answer was to declare a jihad. The French were eventually defeated in 1799 in Syria by the Ottomans (with British assistance, as the Ottomans were part of the Second Coalition against France). The effects of the French Revolution on the Ottoman Empire are difficult to characterize and quantify. At first, the anti-Christian nature of the French Revolution appealed to the Turks, who saw that it could be of help without compromising their beliefs. In time, however, the Revolution’s secularism horrified them. Considering the number of sultans who were routinely assassinated, the execution of Louis XVI probably had a much smaller impact in Turkey than in other states. The influence of new military practices developed on the battlefields of Europe and the presence of the French in the Middle East due to events shaped by the French Revolutionary Wars in Europe was considerable. Among the Ottoman Empire’s varied peoples, the Jews and Muslims were the least affected by revolutionary ideology. For Christians the effect was more substantial. It is difficult, however, to identify a significant cause-and-effect relationship between the ideals of the Revolution and the Greek and other revolts in the Balkans, which were to accelerate the pace at which the empire began to break up. Selim himself was deposed in 1807 and executed the following year as a result of conflict with the conservative Janissaries. In time, however, the reforms would take hold and be accompanied by significant changes. Eighteen years after Selim’s death, it was the turn of the Janissaries. On what was called the Auspicious Night, they were massacred, as a result of which more thorough reforms could take place. FURTHER READING: Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002; Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700 –1922. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000; Zürcher, Erik J. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004. ROBERT N. STACY

Owen, Robert (1771 –1858) Robert Owen was an industrialist, social reformer, philanthropist, philosopher, and visionary who dreamed of forming a lasting communitarian society. Sometimes called the father of British socialism, his revolutionary experiments in creating these socialist societies failed to last for substantial periods of time; nevertheless, his influence was great and many radical architects of community building followed his lead. The son of a saddle maker, Owen grew up in humble circumstances in Wales. He received only a modicum of education, completing his schoolwork at age nine. He became a worker in a drapery shop, and later, while still a teenager, he was elevated to the position of manager of a cotton mill in Manchester, where he quickly became financially successful. He met and married the daughter of the owner of the most prominent Scottish mill, known as New Lanark, of which he later became manager and part owner. By age 28, Owen had become immensely wealthy and well known

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throughout Britain. He desired to turn New Lanark into a model community by providing the employees of the mill and their families with higher salaries and better working conditions than other mills in the area. In addition, he had homes built for the employees and provided free education for the children of the community. He became a social reformer in his advocacy for workers and the poor and envisioned a society in which there was cooperative ownership. His ideas were rejected by many but accepted by others who decided to use his ideas of socialism by developing communities of this type. Owen’s followers became known as the Owenites. Agricultural and education-oriented Owenite communities such as Orbiston (in Scotland), Ralahine (in Ireland), and later Queenwood (in Hampshire), a settlement endorsed by Owen himself, were formed. These socialist experiments all failed to sustain themselves for an appreciable period of time; Orbison lasted from 1825 to 1827, Ralahine lasted from 1831 to 1833, and Queenwood was only in existence from 1839 to 1845. Other communities of this type carrying Owen’s name, if not his endorsement, were also developed. Owen also formed a community in America in 1825 in New Harmony, Indiana. New Harmony was bought from another communitarian, George Rapp, and, like the other communes based on Owen’s principles, took education as its main concern. This experiment failed to last more than two years, but many other attempts were made by others to form Owenite communities in America. Owen expressed his ideas in numerous widely read works such as The New View of Society and The Book of the New Moral World. He died in 1858 in Wales. Owen’s sons assisted with their father’s socialist experiments in America and remained in the country. Robert Dale Owen (1801–1877) became a member of the Indiana House of Representatives and was a well-respected writer and visionary in his own right. David Dale Owen (1807 –1860) became a geologist for the U.S. government, and Richard Owen (1810 –1890) became a university professor. FURTHER READING: Fried, Albert, and Ronald Saunders. Socialist Thought: A Documentary History. New York: Doubleday, 1964; Pollard, Sidney, and John Salt. Robert Owen, Prophet of the Poor: Essays in Honour of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of His Birth. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1971. LEONARD A. STEVERSON

P Paca, William (1740 –1799) William Paca, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, was born in Maryland in 1740. Having been well educated in Philadelphia, he moved to Annapolis in 1759 and two years later entered the legal profession. He rose to prominence campaigning with Samuel Chase, another lawyer, for the repeal of the Stamp Act of 1765. The following year Paca entered public office at city level and he was elected to the provincial assembly in 1767. In 1774, Paca was elected to the First Continental Congress. His rich wife, whom he had married in 1763, died that year, and he subsequently fathered at least two illegitimate children. Paca married again in 1777. His second wife died in 1780, and Paca inherited a fortune from her, too. Paca was first appointed a federal judge in 1780. He was elected state governor in 1782, and during his time in office he grappled with major economic difficulties, focused on the needs of war veterans, promoted university education, and hosted an important sitting of the federal congress. The Treaty of Paris was ratified in Annapolis in 1784. Because he believed it failed to protect individual freedom and states’ rights sufficiently, Paca resisted the federal constitution that replaced the Articles of Confederation of 1781. As a delegate to his state’s ratification convention alongside Chase in 1788, he drafted many amendments, but they were not passed. He continued to press the case for a bill of rights, which was finally adopted in 1791. Two years earlier Paca had joined the bench of the United States District Court for the district of Maryland at the invitation of George Washington. He died at Wye Hall, the mansion he had built for himself, in 1799. FURTHER READING: Stiverson, Gregory A., and Phebe R. Jacobsen. William Paca: A Biography. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1976. JAMES INGLIS

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Paine, Robert Treat (1731–1814) Robert Treat Paine, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, was born in 1731 in Boston, Massachusetts. He developed an unusually learned mind and graduated from Harvard College in 1749. The collapse of his family’s mercantile business ended his hitherto comfortable existence, and before finally entering the legal profession, Paine resorted to making a living by teaching, whaling, and preaching. He relocated his practice to Taunton in 1761. Paine raised a large family, having married in 1770. In the Boston Massacre trials that year he appeared for the prosecution alongside Samuel Quincy and made a mixed impression on John Adams, a defense lawyer and future president. Paine was elected to the provincial assembly three years later, and in 1774 he accompanied Adams to the First Continental Congress. Paine, on entering the Second Continental Congress the following year, was placed on bodies charged with attending to some of the most pressing concerns of a nation at war, including the manufacture of gunpowder. Paine did not share the enthusiasm for independence of some of the other Massachusetts representatives, though he pragmatically embraced the cause when his province’s collective view moved decisively in that direction. Paine was appointed his state’s attorney general in 1777, and in this capacity he prosecuted the perpetrators of Shays’s Rebellion, which broke out 10 years later. Failing to receive a much-longed-for federal judicial appointment, he became an associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1790. To his chagrin, however, the office of Massachusetts chief justice eluded him. Deafness forced Paine to resign in 1804. He died in 1814 at the grand residence of the former governor William Shirley that Paine had acquired in 1780 when he had returned to live in Boston. In 1780 Paine had also become a founding member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. FURTHER READING: Bickham, Troy O. “Paine, Robert Treat.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 42. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004; Hanson, Edward W. “Paine, Robert Treat.” In American National Biography. Vol. 16. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. JAMES INGLIS

Paine, Thomas (1737–1809) Paine was born in Thetford, Norfolk, the only son of a Quaker stay maker and tenant farmer. He received only a basic education up to the age of 12 and he achieved little worldly success in his first 37 years of life. He held a variety of jobs —as a stay maker, a privateer, a schoolteacher, and a shopkeeper —but in none was he a success. He was twice married: his first wife died young in childbirth in 1760, and he separated formally from his second wife in 1774. He was interested in political issues and political debates, but this initially proved his undoing. Having once been dismissed as an excise officer (in August 1765), he wrote his first political pamphlet, The Case of the Officers of Excise, in 1772, four years after being reinstated. He produced his pamphlet and a petition to press the government to improve the pay and conditions of the officers of excise. His reward was to be dismissed from the service in April 1774. In October 1774, with a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin, he sailed for America and a new life.

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Paine arrived in Philadelphia at the end of November 1774 and quite soon thereafter was offered the editorship of the newly established Pennsylvania Magazine. He contributed several essays himself, including one attacking slavery. This helped him meet Benjamin Rush and enter politics in Philadelphia. With the colonists contemplating independence from Britain with some trepidation, Rush encouraged Paine to write a pamphlet encouraging the colonists to take the plunge. In January 1776, Paine produced Common Sense, which became the most widely distributed pamphlet during the American Revolution. Paine’s short pamphlet made no attempt to rehearse the colonists’ grievances since the early 1760s. Instead, he made a frontal assault on the British constitution, attacking its monarchical, aristocratic, and corrupt features, and advising the colonists that there could be no satisfactory compromise with Britain. He inspired his readers to believe that they had the ability to win any war with Britain, and he urged them to seek complete independence. He believed that America could become the asylum of liberty, and he insisted that “the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.” Paine maintained that to achieve good government, humankind’s natural rights to life, liberty, and property must be safeguarded under civil government. Legitimate governments must be based on consent and on the sovereignty of the people, and the people’s rights should be enshrined in a written constitution. While he was not very specific about what kind of civil government he would favor, Paine clearly admired a system of government that was rational, simple, natural, and cheap. His pamphlet was written in a highly accessible style that made little use of references to other works, complex sentence structure, or abstruse words. Its success was unparalleled. It was widely distributed throughout all the colonies, was reviewed and commented upon in many newspapers, and produced many critical and favorable comments. During the American Revolutionary War, Paine performed a variety of services for his adopted country. He was for a time an aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene and a field correspondent reporting on American actions. He was an observer at Valley Forge, where Washington’s army spent a very difficult winter in 1777–1778. He was appointed secretary to Congress’s committee on foreign affairs, and he was much involved in the efforts to raise arms and supplies from France. He was engaged in a lengthy and rancorous press campaign against Silas Deane, who had been sent to France to secure French arms and supplies but was condemned by Paine as self-serving. Paine himself sailed for France, at his own expense, in February 1781, to help procure substantial financial assistance from that country. Paine’s greatest contribution to the war effort, however, was made through his pen. He wrote an inspiring series of essays, The American Crisis, to stiffen American resolve when its forces faced their most serious crises. He admitted in his first essay that “These are the times that try men’s souls,” but he urged the Americans to stand firm and to continue the struggle since he was confident that success would be ultimately theirs. He insisted that the Americans were fighting for universal principles of liberty: for the natural rights of all men, the sovereignty of the people, representative democracy, and a republican government that would reject monarchy and aristocracy. He also wrote to promote the establishment of the Bank of North America, to urge the states to levy higher rates of taxation to help the war effort, and for western lands to become the property of the federal government so that they could become a source of funds. He wrote a separate pamphlet to defend the war against the charge by the abbé Raynal that it arose solely out of a dispute over taxation.

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When the war ended, Paine sought some recompense for his various efforts. He eventually received some money from Congress and from the Pennsylvania assembly, and a small farm from the New York assembly. It did not satisfy him. In 1786 he published his Dissertation on Government, the Affairs of the Bank, and Paper Money, in which he defended the Bank of North America, supported the independence of financial institutions, opposed efforts to repeal the bank’s charter, and warned of the dangers of paper money. Although he had campaigned to give the federal government greater powers, Paine played no part in the debates on the new United States Constitution in the late 1780s. Paine instead became preoccupied with his plans to design a single-span iron bridge that could be used to cross wide rivers. Discouraged with the response to his plans in Pennsylvania, Paine set sail for France in April 1787. His efforts in France and Britain to promote his iron bridge proved very expensive and to no avail. Paine became closely interested in the French Revolution, which broke out in 1789, and he was entrusted by the Marquis de Lafayette to convey the key of the Bastille to President George Washington. When Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France appeared in November 1790, Paine quickly responded with the first volume of his Rights of Man on March 16, 1791. Paine’s pamphlet was an immediate success with radical opinion in Britain, and it was soon reprinted in cheap editions across the British Isles. Paine attacked Burke’s emphasis on prescription and denied that any decision in the past, such as the Revolution Settlement of 1689, could bind future generations to the end of time. He abandoned the traditional radical appeal in Britain to the ancient constitution and to the historic rights of Englishmen. Instead, he insisted that every age must be free to act for itself and that civil governments ought to be based on the sovereignty of the people and the universal, natural, and inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property. He advocated a republican form of government and a representative democracy in which the natural rights of all men would be converted into civil liberties. All men were born equal and they all had an equal right not just to participate in the original creation of civil government but to play an active role in politics thereafter. In February 1792, Paine produced the second volume of Rights of Man. In this, he praised the American example, repeated his attacks on monarchy and aristocracy, and insisted that governments should be created by conventions of the people. He praised man’s natural sociability, and he supported commerce and free trade. He maintained that civil society could do more for all its citizens than any individual could do for himself. He insisted that all governments had a responsibility for their poorer citizens. He condemned the extravagance of royal courts and the enormous waste of money on aggressive wars. He believed that a radically reformed government could reduce the tax burden on the poor and that taxes on inherited wealth could provide a national fund that could be used to finance a system of social welfare including child allowances, marriage and maternity grants, and old age pensions. Volume 2 of Rights of Man had an even greater impact on popular radical societies in Britain and it greatly alarmed the government and the propertied elite. In June 1792, Paine was indicted for sedition but was not immediately brought to trial. He continued writing radical tracts, including his Letter Addressed to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation, in which he clarified his support for universal manhood suffrage and called for a British convention to promote a radical reform of

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Parliament. On September 13, Paine left London and was subsequently declared an outlaw. He was welcomed in Calais, where the citizens elected him as their representative in the new National Convention. Paine was not a great success in the Convention, as he spoke little French and his views were far less violent than those of the rising Jacobins. He was arrested on December 27, 1793, and imprisoned in the Luxembourg prison until November 4, 1794. He narrowly escaped death and was seriously ill during his imprisonment. He owed his release much to the efforts of James Monroe, the American ambassador to France. Shortly before his arrest, Paine wrote the first part of The Age of Reason. On his release he began work on part 2, which he completed in August 1795. The Age of Reason is an uncompromising attack on Christianity and organized religion. In this deist manifesto, Paine stressed that nature was the only form of divine revelation and that the Bible was riddled with errors, exaggerations, and contradictions. He condemned much of the Old Testament as incredible and immoral, and he challenged the accuracy of the New Testament. He condemned many Christian beliefs as based on superstition and he rejected the claim that Christ was the Son of God. He regarded the clergy as self-interested and all Christian churches as the agents of oppressive governments. He did believe in one God or in an afterlife, and he supported the toleration of all religions provided they had no political power. The Age of Reason sold in vast numbers and went through numerous editions in the United States, where it caused great offence and seriously damaged Paine’s reputation. Paine no longer played a prominent role in French politics, though he did advocate a French invasion of England and of Ireland. He remained very active as a writer, however. His Dissertation on the First Principles of Government (1795) offered a clear summary of his mature views on government. His Agrarian Justice (1796) condemned the division of society into rich and poor. Rejecting as impractical both the forcible confiscation and the common ownership of land, he argued that the rich should be taxed in order to provide a national fund that would grant £15 to every person at the age of 21 and a pension of £10 per annum to all persons reaching the age of 50. In Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance (1796), he predicted that the rapid growth of Britain’s national debt in recent years would lead to a complete collapse of the system that sustained Britain’s war effort. In his Letter to Washington (1796), Paine vented his resentment at not receiving enough American help to secure his prompt release from prison. He cast doubt on all Washington’s abilities and actions, even his military service during the late war. This pamphlet further tarnished Paine’s reputation in America. After several attempts to leave France for the United States, Paine took the opportunity of the peace treaty of 1802 (Amiens) to sail for Baltimore. For the next year or two, Paine wrote a number of political essays, particularly To the Citizens of the United States (1802 –1803), in support of President Thomas Jefferson and in opposition to the Federalists. Jefferson was probably more hurt than assisted by Paine’s support, but he did not cast him aside. From 1804, however, Paine’s health grew worse, his drinking increased, and his finances were in complete disarray. He died in Greenwich Village on June 8, 1809, and was buried on his farm in New Rochelle. Only a handful of people attended his burial. In 1819 William Cobbett dug up his bones and took them back to England, and there they disappeared. See also Continental Congress, Second.

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FURTHER READING: Aldridge, A. Owen. Thomas Paine’s American Ideology. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1984; Ayer, A. J. Thomas Paine. London: Secker & Warburg, 1988; Claeys, Gregory. Thomas Paine: Social and Political Thought. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989; Foner, Eric. Tom Paine and Revolutionary America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005; Fruchtman, Jack, Jr. Thomas Paine: Apostle of Freedom. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1994; Hawke, David Freeman. Paine. New York: Harper & Row, 1974; Kaye, Harvey J. Thomas Paine and the Promise of America. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005; Keane, John. Tom Paine: A Political Life. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995; Philp, Mark. Paine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. H. T. DICKINSON

Pamphlets (American) One of the most extraordinary expressions of the intellectual and political culture of early America is the prodigious burst of pamphlet literature published throughout the colonies in the decades leading up to the American Revolution. A disproportionate amount of the political discourse surrounding the American Revolution took place in the form of pamphlets, small booklets formed by folding and stitching together two to five sheets of broadside printer’s paper, and sold unbound to the public for a shilling or two. Although pamphlets ranged from only a few pages up to 80 pages or more, the typical length for the political pamphlet of the revolutionary era was 10 to 50 pages, or 5,000 to 25,000 words. The development of this genre throughout the colonies gave rise to the creation of something resembling a modern public sphere in which political ideas, intellectual debates, and public opinion could form and circulate throughout the colonies. Because pamphlets were cheap, easy to produce on small printing presses, and flexible in size and distribution, they proliferated in the era preceding the Revolution. It is estimated that more than 400 pamphlets dealing just with relations between Britain and the American colonies were published between 1750 and 1776, and more than 1,500 by 1783. Pamphleteers attempted to re-create in the American context an English genre of political writing whose best-known and most articulate exemplars were writers like Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, and Joseph Addison. Although American authors mimicked the style and tone of their more artful English predecessors, the general level of American pamphlets tended to be strident, heavy handed, and eclectic in comparison to the accomplishments of the master essayists of England. Some of the leading thinkers of the revolutionary generation expressed their views in the form of published pamphlets —notably, Thomas Jefferson’s A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774) and John Adams’s Thoughts on Government (1776). However, most pamphleteers were undistinguished lawyers, ministers, planters, merchants, and printers who published episodically whenever political events moved them and as a supplement to their regular trade or profession. With the possible exception of William Livingston of New York, publisher of the Independent Reflector, there were few professional pamphleteers in the colonies who were artful or industrious enough to earn a full-time living from their political writing alone. Historian Bernard Bailyn, whose scholarship has done so much to call attention to this rich and variegated pamphlet literature, distinguishes three broad

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categories of American pamphlets. The first and largest group took the form of immediate responses to particular events and crises of the era, such as the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, the Boston Tea Party, and the first meeting of the Continental Congress. The second group consisted of an extended series of personal exchanges, sometimes polemical, in which one or more individuals would respond directly to views expressed in earlier pamphlets. A third category included ritual and liturgical pamphlets published annually in commemoration of important political dates such as Thanksgiving, major elections, the repeal of the Stamp Act, and the Boston Tea Party. Arguably the most influential example of this pamphlet literature is Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published in January 1776. This pamphlet alone elicited rejoinders from several Tory pamphleteers like James Chalmers and Charles Inglis as well as from fellow defenders of the revolutionary cause like John Adams, who nonetheless disagreed with the religious and philosophical premises upon which Paine’s argument was grounded. Standing out vividly from the mass of undistinguished pamphlets that were either amateurish in style or parochial in subject matter, Paine’s pamphlet is clearly the single most brilliant pamphlet written during the American Revolution. Common Sense reportedly sold more than 120,000 copies in three months, and more than 500,000 copies within the year following its publication. It was credited by contemporaneous thinkers like Benjamin Rush and Benjamin Franklin with single-handedly turning the tide of American public opinion toward the cause of American independence. In this pamphlet Paine argues for the naturalness of human equality, and the illegitimacy of traditional authority, most notably that of the British monarchy, and marshals a variety of principled and practical reasons why the Americans must break from British rule. Because the Americans are now a distinctive people formed by their experience together on a new continent, it is wrong for them to continue to submit to a government so far removed from their own republican temper and national interests. The systematic study of this pamphlet literature in the 1960s by historians Bernard Bailyn and Gordon Wood sparked several rounds of scholarly debates about the intellectual origins of American political thought. Taking issue with the traditional Lockean liberal explanation of the American Revolution set forth by Louis Hartz, these and subsequent revisionist scholars identified a conceptually distinguishable tradition of classical republicanism, or civic humanism, emphasizing the classical language of virtue, the public good, and civic participation. American pamphleteers appealed to classical republican sources like Plutarch, Livy, and Cicero nearly as often as they invoked Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Montesquieu, and Hutcheson; English legal thinkers like Blackstone and Coke; and the Bible and other traditional religious sources. In general, however, the run-of-the-mill American pamphlet seems to have cited intellectual authorities indiscriminately and sometimes even inaccurately. The genre of pamphleteering continued in the post-revolutionary era as a way of dealing with the practicalities of establishing a new government, especially with the debates surrounding the ratification of a new United States Constitution in 1787 – 1788. Although the Federalist essays and many of the best-known exchanges with Anti-Federalist critics of the Constitution took place in newspapers, these exchanges were frequently reprinted and circulated in pamphlet form throughout the states. See also The Federalist Papers.

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FURTHER READING: Bailyn, Bernard. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1967; Bailyn, Bernard, ed. Pamphlets of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1965; Hartz, Louis. The Liberal Tradition in America. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1955; Lutz, Donald. “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth Century American Political Thought.” American Political Science Review 78 (March 1984): 189 – 97; Paine, Thomas. Common Sense. Edited by Isaac Kramnick. New York: Penguin, 1986; Wood, Gordon. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776 –1787. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969. RICHARD BOYD

Pamphlets (French) French pamphlets were powerful political instruments during the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The pamphlet was a short publication focusing largely on a very particular contemporary issue or on a limited number of issues. It used to be produced unofficially and was meant to influence public opinion and stimulate action. The pamphlet was an individual text that had its own unity and independence. It usually had no binding, nor was it big enough to constitute a volume in itself. It was not a genre, but rather a channel of communication. Polymorphous and aggressive, the pamphlet was characterized by its tone, which was often angry and provocative. The pamphlet was meant to influence public opinion by shock and passion, not primarily by informing the reader. However, it could also rely on or aim at disclosing important information. Its author was anonymous; the idea may often have belonged to one person, but the wording was usually the work of a marginal hack writer. The pamphlet was often poorly printed on illegal printing presses and its distribution was clandestine. Cheap and disposable, it was often considered untrustworthy and deceitful. Addictive, but certainly not a wasted read, the pamphlet was full of vitality and zest, and the slanderous form of the pamphlet functioned like gossip in a small community. The pamphlet’s promiscuity converted it into a very insidious means of trafficking information, inside knowledge, and rumors. The pamphlet played an important role in the public sphere of Western culture. Competing with the male-dominated clubs and coffeehouses, the traditional venues for the exchange of ideas, pamphlets proliferated and clearly showed the expanding power of public opinion beyond the realm of merely the street crowd or pub-goers. French pamphlets predated the influential periodicals of the modern age, and it is significant that the circulation of pamphlets in France depended not only on the discontented bourgeoisie or on marginalized elements of society, but also on wealthy and affluent members of the nobility who felt their ambitions to have gone unfulfilled. Some of the scurrilous pamphlets directed against Marie Antoinette, for instance, are documented as having originated from within court circles. Most pre-revolutionary pamphleteering was not the product of oppressed intellectuals but rather was the expression of the aspirations and tensions of the elite, who tried to manipulate public opinion to its own benefit while also unknowingly grooming it for revolution. The work of Pierre Jacques Le Maitre was such a case. During the 1770s and 1780s, pamphlet campaigns directed against ministers or important court figures were extremely common, perhaps the most notable example being the affair involving Cardinal de Rohan and the notorious diamond necklace, discussed in Les Philippiques (The Philippics) by Lagrange-Chancel. Jacques Necker

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and Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot were both popular targets of the pamphleteers. Necker’s famous pamphlet against Turgot’s policies on the regulation of the grain trade is but one well-known example. Women also participated in the exchange of ideas via the pamphlet, either as targets of such publications or more usually as consumers of them. In the former respect, Voltaire’s 1768 pamphlet, Femmes, soyez soumises à vos maris! (Women, Be Submissive to Your Spouses!) is noteworthy for its discussion of women’s political marginalization. French pamphleteering became particularly important after July 5, 1788, when Louis XVI issued a decree calling for information on the procedure for convoking the Estates-General. The response was the famous pamphlet Qu’est-ce que le Tiers Etat? (What Is the Third Estate?) by the abbé Sieyès, who author questioned whether the Third Estate could act in the name of the nation without regard to the objections of the privileged orders or the king. Gabriel-Honoré Mirabeau and his adherents also wrote a number of aggressive pamphlets on controversial affairs of the 1780s. Although the Revolution initially supported freedom of expression, in March 1793 censorship was introduced. Both the Jacobins then and Napoleon a decade later tried to domesticate the press. Yet in spite of these limitations, pamphleteering flourished. All the important economic, military, political, and religious issues of the day were addressed by Camille Desmoulins, Mirabeau, Jean-Pierre Brissot, and JeanPaul Marat, the great pampleteers of the Revolution. Thereafter, Chateaubriand, Paul Louis Courrier, Barthélemy and Méry, Alphonse Karr, Barbier, Cormenin, and Veuillot as well as Proudhon would continue this tradition. Among the most important pamphlets were Jean-Baptiste Salaville’s De l’organisation d’un état monarchique (On the Organization of a Monarchical State) and his Le tout est-il plus grand que la partie? (Is the Whole Greater than Its Parts?), as well as L’opinion de M. de Cazalès sur le renvoi des ministres, prononcée dans la séance de l’Assemblée nationale de 19 octobre 1790 (The Opinion of Mr. de Cazalès about Firing Ministers, Delivered at the Meeting of the National Assembly on October 19, 1790). An interesting right-wing royalist pamphlet criticizing the National Assembly’s religious policy was entitled Principes de la foi sur le gouvernement de l ’église, en opposition avec la constitution civile du clergé (Principles of Faith on the Governing of the Church, in Opposition to the Civilian Constitution of the Clergy). During the Napoleonic period, two pamphlets of particular note were Les adieux à Bonaparte (Farewell to Bonaparte) and Fruits de l ’arbre de la liberté française (Fruits of the French Freedom). See also Pamphlets (American). FURTHER READING: Chisick, Harvey. “Pamphlets and Journalism in the Early French Revolution: The Office of the Ami du Roi of the Abbé Royou as a Center of Royalist Propaganda.” French Historical Studies 15, no. 4 (Autumn 1988): 623 – 45; Darnton, Robert. The Literary Underground of the Old Regime. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982; Greenlaw, Ralph W. “Pamphlet Literature in France during the Period of the Aristocratic Revolt (1787–1788).” Journal of Modern History 29, no. 4 (December 1957): 349 – 54; Popkin, Jeremy. “Pamphlet Journalism at the End of the Old Regime.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 22, no. 3 (Spring 1989): 351– 67. MICHAELA MUDURE

Paoli, Pasquale (1725–1807) Pasquale Paoli, the Corsican statesman responsible for leading Corsica to independence from Genoese rule, was the son of Giacinto Paoli, who led a failed Corsican revolt against Genoa in 1735 –1739. Escaping Genoese reprisals, Pasquale Paoli

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Pasquale de Paoli. Courtesy of Alexander Mikaberidze.

went to Naples, where he studied at the military academy and received a commission in the Neapolitan cavalry, which was mainly composed of Corsican exiles. In 1755, he led a successful uprising against Genoese rule and gained independence for the island. Guided by the principles of the Enlightenment, Paoli drafted a constitution and established the most democratic government in all of Europe. He implemented a wide range of reforms aimed at transforming the island, including the prohibition of the practice of vendetta, the encouragement of commerce, and the establishment of schools and a university at Corte. His ideas and policies gained much support from prominent philosophes, including Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who famously praised Corsica in his Social Contract. However, Paoli’s achievements were threatened when Genoa sold the island to France in 1768. Fighting the invading French army, Paoli was defeated at Pontenuovo on May 9, 1769, and fled to Britain, where he lived for the next 20 years. He gradually became a symbol for many Corsican patriots, including the young Napoleon Bonaparte. The French Revolution became a turning point for Paoli, who was invited to Paris and celebrated as a hero by the National Assembly. King Louis XVI granted him the rank of lieutenant general and appointed to command forces in Corsica. Paoli’s return to Corsica in July 1790 was widely celebrated on the island, where he was known as the father of the Corsican nation. Paoli presided over the consulta (assembly) for the next couple of years but became disillusioned with revolutionary

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excesses and broke away from France. He clashed with the pro-French factions, notably the Bonapartes, whom he ordered to be arrested, and, with British naval support, expelled the French in 1794. He then offered Corsica to King George III of Britain, who established an Anglo-Corsican viceroyalty on the island. This proved to be a major mistake for Paoli, since Sir Gilbert Elliot, the British viceroy on the island, soon shunned him and forced him out of government. Disappointed, Paoli retired to Britain in 1795, where he received a British government pension. He lived long enough to see Corsica become one of the departments of France and to witness the meteoric rise of his former opponent, Napoleon. He died after a short illness at the age of 82 in London on February 5, 1807, and was buried in the Catholic cemetery of St. Pancras. A cenotaph was erected in his memory on the south aisle of Westminster Abbey. Some 80 years after his death, his remains were exhumed and returned to Corsica. FURTHER READING: Bartoli, M. Pasquale Paoli: Père de la patrie corse. Paris: Albatros, 1974; Lee, R. Alton. Pasquale Paoli: Fighter for Freedom. Emporia: Kansas State Teachers’ College, 1961; Thrasher, Peter Adam. Pasquale Paoli: An Enlightened Hero, 1725–1807. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1970. ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE

Papacy From period 1760 to 1815, the see of Rome confronted numerous challenges to its authority and prestige, culminating in the detainment of two supreme pontiffs (Pius VI and Pius VII) by the French state. Rome’s response to the ideological and political developments of the age serves as a useful barometer of contemporary conservative attitudes. If the papacy can be said to have suffered mightily during this period, however, it also demonstrated considerable resilience: by 1815 it was emerging as one of the foci of a new alliance between throne and altar that was perceived as a bulwark against future revolutionary outbursts. 1750 –1775: Benedict XIV, Clement XIII, and Clement XIV In 1750, Benedict XIV (r. 1740 –1758) had been pope for 10 years after being elected by one of the longest papal conclaves in history. Of all the eighteenthcentury popes, he enjoyed the most cordial relationship with both the syndics of the Enlightenment and the advocates of centralized political power. As a manifestly scholarly pope —and one who devised more liberal rules for the Index of Prohibited Books —he even won praise from Frederick II, David Hume, and Voltaire. Benedict also secured concordats with the increasingly absolutist governments of Naples (1741) and Spain (1753). Much was lost through such policies: in Spain, for instance, the concordat ceded some 12,000 ecclesiastical appointments to the monarchy, allowing the papacy the right to appoint a mere 52 clerics. Nonetheless, while Benedict’s engagement with contemporary philosophical and political developments was, at best, uneasy, his pontificate can still be seen as something of a calm before the storm of the later eighteenth century. His two successors, Clement XIII (r. 1758 –1769) and Clement XIV (r. 1769 –1774) were destined to live through more troublesome times. Both reigns were dominated by the issue of the Jesuits’ suppression, a process that served as the focus for many of the important ideological and political debates of the age.

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Founded in 1540, the Society of Jesus had long endured a stormy relationship with many of the national governments of Europe. While its missionary and educational achievements could not be gainsaid, the society (a supranational organization with an allegedly excessive loyalty to Rome) was often perceived as a threat to local political and ecclesiological interests. During the pontificates of Clement XIII and Clement XIV, these trends came to a head with the banishment of the Jesuits from various European countries (Portugal in 1759; France in 1764; Spain in 1767) and the worldwide suppression of the order, by papal fiat, in 1773. The destruction of the Jesuits has often been portrayed as a triumph of Enlightenment ideology: this was certainly a notion pedaled by men such as Denis Diderot and Jean Le Rond d’Alembert. In fact, the suppression should primarily be seen as a political rather than an ideological phenomenon. In Portugal, the destruction of the Jesuits was largely the work of Joseph I’s chief minister, the Marquis of Pombal, and should be regarded as part of his wider campaign to strike down rival sources of power and authority. In France, most of the credit for the Jesuits’ demise can be given to the small but influential Jansenist party within the Paris Parlement. In Spain, the regalist agenda of Charles III and his ministers —a determination to control all aspects of Spanish political and religious life —is the most convincing explanation for the society’s fate. In all these countries, the self-styled champions of Enlightenment rejoiced at the Jesuits’ downfall, but in truth, they only played a negligible role in bringing it about. Throughout the crisis, the papacy found itself in an almost impossible situation. While inevitably invested in preserving one of the church’s most illustrious, if controversial, orders, the papacy was also fearful of offending the great powers of Europe. Those Bourbon powers applied enormous pressure on the papacy to carry through the total destruction of the order —dispatching countless bullish ambassadors to Rome and, at one point, even invading papal territory during a dispute over ecclesiastical rights in Parma. Clement XIV prevaricated for as long as possible, but once Maria Theresa of Austria signaled that she would do nothing to oppose the suppression, the die was cast. With the papal brief Dominus ac Redemptor of August 16, 1773, the Society of Jesus was blotted out. Clement commented that it was if “I have cut off my right hand.” 1755 –1799: Pius VI and the French Revolution The destruction of the Jesuits was a mere prelude to the turmoil witnessed by the next incumbent of the Holy Office, Pius VI (r. 1775 –1799): the pope who was obliged to steer the bark of Peter through the era of the French Revolution. Even during the early part of his pontificate, the political trends that had brought about the events of 1773 continued to gain momentum. Austria provides the best example. Here, in 1780, the emperor Joseph II, freed from the checks and restraints of co-rule with his mother, Maria Theresa, embarked upon a reformist campaign that shattered the church’s cultural and educational role. Seminaries, now replete with liberalized curricula, came under state control, church services were purged of what Joseph deemed overly superstitious elements, and scores of convents and monasteries were suppressed. A toleration edict gave Lutherans, Calvinists, and members of the Orthodox churches the right to freedom of worship, and the Catholic Church’s traditional role as censor and intellectual watchdog was all but eliminated. In Joseph’s brave new Austria, the state was to dominate church affairs, and the

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pope was to have little authority and even less prestige. When Pius visited Vienna in 1782, both Joseph and his chancellor Baron Kaunitz treated him with strained and grudging politeness that bordered on contempt. The next two decades would bring far worse indignities. The detailed chronology of the French Revolution (including its assault on traditional religious worship) is dealt with elsewhere in this volume. Suffice it to say, Rome stood aghast from the outset. It took a head-on challenge to papal authority to nudge the papacy into direct action, however. This arrived with the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed by the French Constituent Assembly in July 1790. It transformed the French religious landscape by reorganizing the country’s diocesan structure to conform to the recently erected network of regional departments, and it insisted that all bishops and priests would now be elected by the citizenry—citizens of non-Catholic allegiance included. To many Catholics, this seemed to turn clerics into little more than salaried civil servants. Alongside these measures, all members of the clergy were now expected to take an oath of loyalty to the new constitution. This was all a huge affront to papal power in France, and it split the French church asunder, with a majority of the clergy refusing to accept the Civil Constitution or to take the requisite oaths. The papacy’s response was predictable but perhaps surprisingly sluggish. Pius had written privately to Louix XVI in protest as soon as the Civil Constitution was enacted. News of his protest was, astutely, suppressed. But it was not until the first constitutional bishops began to be elected that Pius offered a definitive public condemnation. In the spring of 1791 the pope ordered all those who had taken oaths of loyalty to recant and subsequently declared the Civil Constitution utterly illegitimate. Over the coming months, clerical opponents of the constitution (who now risked imprisonment or banishment) came to be regarded as suspicious or even treacherous in the popular revolutionary imagination. In September 1792, with Prussian troops perilously close to Paris and with anxiety running riot in the capital, mobs massacred dozens of imprisoned priests. The remainder of the decade would only see a further deterioration in relations between France and Rome. As France went further down the road of dechristianization— snuffing out the entire Christian calendar, inaugurating cults of Reason and the Supreme Being—the papacy was powerless to act. Pius was once more curiously slow to lend his support to the military coalition raised against France, but this did not deter Napoleon Bonaparte’s army from invading papal territories in 1796. To retain control of Rome, the pope agreed to a debilitating armistice—the terms of which cost the Vatican a colossal financial indemnity and the loss of many priceless works of art. Things only worsened with the return of French armies in 1798. A Roman Republic was established and Pius, perceived as a far-too-obvious focus of counterrevolutionary insurgency, was deported to France, where he died, incarcerated, in 1799. 1800 –1815: Pius VII and Catholic Revivalism The next pope, Pius VII, began his reign with a more conciliatory attitude. Earlier in life, he had even gone so far as to suggest that Catholicism was not necessarily incompatible with the fashionable ideological nostrums of the age. He conceded that the restoration of the Bourbon monarchies was not a prerequisite of workable relations between Rome and states such as France and negotiated the Concordat of 1801 with Bonaparte’s regime. To regain influence over the new constitutional church in France, Rome accepted the loss of a great deal. It accepted that the

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church’s former lands were lost forever, it accepted that clerics were now salaried civil servants overseen by a ministry of cults, it accepted the new freedoms recently extended to Protestants and Jews, and it accepted that clerics should take oaths of loyalty to the government. All told, it was an admission of weakness on the part of the papacy, a position that was further highlighted when France unilaterally added its own “organic articles” to the terms of the Concordat of 1802. No papal bulls or papal legates were to be allowed into the country without governmental approval. The final humiliation came with Bonaparte’s coronation as Emperor Napoleon I in December 1804. Brooking all tradition, Bonaparte placed the imperial crown on his own head and left Pius with the subsidiary role of anointing France’s new emperor and his consort. Many people, realizing what was afoot, had advised Pius not to attend the proceedings. He had ignored their advice, and the papacy’s reputation undoubtedly suffered as a result. That said, to have refused any role in the coronation would likely have been politically disastrous. Such was the frustrating lot of the papacy in 1804. In the coming years, Pius’s attitude toward the revolutionary regimes hardened, and he issued numerous condemnations and excommunications. None of this could prevent Napoleon from ruling the Italian political roost, however, and when he appointed his brother Joseph ruler of Naples—a papal fief—Pius could do nothing. In 1808 the French armies returned once more and occupied the city of Rome. Pius’s fulminations were roundly ignored, and he was forcibly relocated to Savona on the Italian Riviera, where he endured a period of almost total isolation, and where his efforts to undermine Napoleon’s episcopal appointments had precious little effect. In June 1812, Pius was unceremoniously dispatched to Fontainebleau, where, desperately ill, he agreed to (and later recanted) yet further concessions to Napoleon’s regime. The tide of history began to turn, however. Napoleon was obliged to abdicate first in 1814, and then again in 1815 after the Hundred Days. The Congress of Vienna restored the Papal States, Pius returned triumphantly to Rome in 1814, and, in that same year, the Society of Jesus was restored —a hugely symbolic event. For the remainder of his papal reign, which lies beyond the scope of this volume, Pius endeavored, however imperfectly, to restore the papacy’s much-dented authority. The next century would witness the papacy’s attempts to (according to the sympathies of the incumbent pope and the Catholic constituency he encountered) understand, denounce, or revise the ideological residue of Europe’s revolutionary era. See also Calendar, French Revolutionary. FURTHER READING: Bradley, J., and Van Kley, D., eds. Religion and Politics in Enlightenment Europe. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001; Chadwick, O. The Popes and European Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981; Duffy, E. Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997; Van Kley, D. The Jansenists and the Expulsion of the Jesuits from France, 1757 –1765. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975; Wright, J. “The Suppression of the Society of Jesus.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits, ed. T. Worcester. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. JONATHAN WRIGHT

Parlements Under the ancien régime, parlements constituted France’s chief courts of appeal. The parlements were initially an administrative weapon created by the crown

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to contain the ambitions of the nobility. Machiavelli praised the parlements as the most important institution of one of the best-governed kingdoms of his time, because they curbed the “insolence” of the nobles and safeguarded the king against them by favoring the weak. The Parlement of Paris claimed jurisdiction over the whole of the kingdom, but the development and growth of the French absolutist state brought with it the establishment of provincial courts with regional jurisdiction. Parlements and provincial supreme councils with much the same function were established as early as 1443 in Toulouse and as late as 1768 in Corsica. During the Fronde (1648–1653) the parlements attempted to provide an institutional check on the growing authority of the crown. In the eighteenth century they degenerated into bastions of political reaction. They constituted a hereditary magistracy in which tenure of office was saleable and whose occupants routinely meddled in purely political matters. The parlements were nonetheless mindful of their independence of the crown. In 1771, Louis XV attempted to centralize authority by abolishing the parlements and replacing them with law courts with no jurisdiction in policy. Louis XVI sought to appease the provincial nobility by restoring the parlements in 1774 yet soon found himself in direct conflict with them over new taxes to pay for the cost of the Seven Years’ War (1756 –1763). In 1787 and 1788, the Parlement of Paris led the provincial parlements in opposing the fiscal reforms of Archbishop Loménie de Brienne by arguing that only the Estates-General had the authority to raise taxes. The parlements were among the first institutional victims of the French Revolution of 1789. Created to buttress the crown against the nobility, their resistance to royal prerogative did little to diminish their reputation among the wealthy merchants and entrepreneurs of the Third Estate as palaces of privilege. FURTHER READING: Stone, Bailey. The French Parlements and the Crisis of the Old Regime. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986. CARL CAVANAGH HODGE

Parliament Parliament, the legislative body of Britain, gradually evolved from the late thirteenth century into a powerful legislature that could both limit and strengthen the monarch and the executive. There were major disputes between Crown and Parliament in the seventeenth century, but after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 –1689, it was recognized that the monarch could not govern effectively without the financial support and the political backing of Parliament. From 1689 onward Parliament met for several months every year in order to pass new laws, raise taxes, guarantee the repayment of government loans, debate major issues of foreign and domestic affairs, respond to pressure from outside Parliament, and hold royal ministers to account. In 1707, the Scottish parliament in Edinburgh agreed to be incorporated into the English parliament at Westminster, and in 1800 the Irish parliament in Dublin agreed to do the same. On January 1, 1801, the imperial parliament of the United Kingdom came into being. By the mid-eighteenth century it was widely accepted that Britain was governed by a limited or parliamentary monarchy and that the sovereign authority in the state rested with the combined legislature made up of the monarch, the House of

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Lords, and the House of Commons (that is, the king-in-Parliament). The influential constitutional lawyer William Blackstone claimed in the 1760s that this sovereign legislature was absolute, omnipotent, and irresistible. It could pass or repeal any law or any tax. There was some resistance to this notion within Britain, and it ultimately provoked the American colonies into a successful rebellion, but it was very firmly entrenched by 1815 and not seriously challenged again until the late twentieth century. Although the royal veto was never formally abolished, it was never used after 1708, and hence, thereafter, the monarch had to appoint ministers who could “manage” Parliament so that the laws and taxes desired by the executive were passed by both houses of Parliament. Parliament was composed of two legislative chambers. The House of Lords included all the English peers (from barons to dukes) who were prepared to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy (Catholic peers refused to do so), all 26 bishops of the Church of England, and the royal judges who could offer advice but could not vote. After 1707 the Scots peers were able to elect 16 of their number at the time of each general election to represent them in the following parliament. After 1800 the Irish peers elected 28 of their number (for life) and the bishops elected 4 of their number (in rotation at succeeding general elections) to sit in the House of Lords. The membership of the upper chamber was much larger by the early nineteenth century than it had been a century earlier. Most royal ministers sat in this chamber, and it remained a powerful debating chamber with considerable status and influence throughout this period. The House of Commons had become the more important chamber by the mideighteenth century because it initiated all taxes and its financial decisions went unchallenged by the Lords. Long-serving prime ministers (such as Lord North and William Pitt the Younger) sat in the Commons because their expertise in financial matters was vital to their political success. A prime minister who sat in the Lords (such as the long-serving Lord Liverpool) needed an able chancellor of the exchequer to guide the government’s financial measures through the House of Commons. The House of Commons was regarded as the democratic element in Britain’s mixed government and balanced constitution because it was an elected chamber held to represent the people. Its members, however, were elected by only a small minority of the population —those adult males who possessed the necessary (and varied) propertied franchise in the different constituencies. Over the period 1760– 1830, perhaps between 250,000 and 350,000 men might have possessed the right to vote. They elected 80 members of Parliament (MPs) for the English counties, 409 for the English boroughs, 24 for Wales, 45 for Scotland and, after 1800, 100 for Ireland, making 658 MPs in the Commons in all. In both houses of Parliament political reputations were often gained or lost according to the debating talents of the most active members. Many ordinary members of both houses were lax in their attendance, but when they did appear in the chamber they were open to persuasion. They could be swayed by the quality of the arguments presented either by government spokesmen or by their opponents. Both chambers were organized as adversarial assemblies, with the government supporters sitting facing their political opponents across the central aisle, and in both cases, with their own supporters ranged behind them. All the leading politicians of the day were noted orators. The procedures of both houses were similar. For a bill to become an act, it had to pass through the same procedure in both chambers: a first

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reading, a second reading, a fuller debate at the committee stage, and a final third reading. Government legislation largely involved financial matters, questions of law and order, and the affairs of war and peace, with the occasional act concerning constitutional and religious issues. Ministers did not pursue national economic and social programs. Most legislation was carried through by private or local acts dealing with such issues as enclosures; road and canal building; and street cleaning, lighting, and policing. These measures were usually first put forward in the House of Commons by ordinary members who had a personal or local interest in the matter. The king’s ministers could not govern the country without the support of both houses of Parliament, and they particularly needed the taxes voted by the House of Commons. Although appointed and dismissed by the king (and hence always dependent on royal favor), ministers could not survive long in office unless they could manage Parliament in the interests of the executive. They could use their own influence and talents to win support, but they also relied on the distribution of Crown patronage to win over men in both chambers. The Crown could appoint peers and bishops; promote men in the civil, military, naval, ecclesiastical, and judicial establishments, confer various honors; and reward men with places and pensions. This patronage could usually ensure a majority in the House of Lords for the king’s ministers. In the House of Commons, Crown patronage was never enough to achieve a government majority. It was moreover increasingly resented and steadily reduced beginning in the early 1780s. In 1780 John Dunning’s famous motion that “The influence of the crown has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished” secured majority support. Thereafter, partly as a result of the political desire to make the House of Commons more independent of Crown influence and partly to reduce wasteful government expense on rewards, favors, sinecures, and pensions, Crown patronage was steadily reduced. It influenced only a few dozen MPs by 1815 and was reduced even further by 1830. Since Crown patronage was never enough to guarantee a government majority in Parliament, particularly in the House of Commons, royal ministers had to devise other means to win support in both chambers. One obvious tactic was to pursue policies that a majority of peers or MPs could support by choice, but, not surprisingly, this proved difficult in an age of revolution and of prolonged warfare. In the early decades of this period, leading politicians, competing for royal favor and Crown office, formed groups and connections (or factions, as they were pejoratively called) to build up political alliances in office or in opposition. It was difficult to build up large parties based on issues of principle or defined programs because most men in both houses of Parliament shared many political attitudes. This situation gradually changed, however, as the American Revolution, then the French Revolution, the major problems created by prolonged war, and increasing industrialization and urbanization divided Parliament into larger political groupings held together by differing ideologies and competing policies. By the late eighteenth century there were two major parties: the more conservative Tories, led by William Pitt, and the more liberal Whigs, led by Charles James Fox. By 1815 most peers and MPs enlisted under these party banners, and few were truly independent of party affiliations. FURTHER READING: Brooke, John. The House of Commons 1754 –1790: Introductory Survey. London: Oxford University Press, 1968; Cannon, John. Aristocratic Century: The Peerage of Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984; Dickinson, H. T, ed. A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002; Dickinson, H. T., ed.

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Constitutional Documents of the United Kingdom, 1782 –1835. Munich: Saur, 2005; Goldsworthy, Jeffrey. The Sovereignty of Parliament. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999; Lambert, Sheila. Bills and Acts: Legislative Procedure in Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971; Thomas, P.D.G. The House of Commons in the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971; Turberville, A. S. The House of Lords in the Age of Reform, 1784 –1837. London: Faber, 1958. H. T. DICKINSON

Parthenopean Republic (1799) The Parthenopean Republic was a state established in Naples in January 1799 by French revolutionary forces under General Championnet and liberal Neapolitans, many from the intelligentsia, following the flight of the Bourbon king, Ferdinand IV (later Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies). The name derived from Parthenope, the ancient name of Naples. After the outbreak of the French Revolution, Neapolitan liberals corresponded with French patriotic societies, and local Masonic lodges were converted into antimonarchist Jacobin Clubs. In 1798, Ferdinand joined the Second Coalition against France. Unable to halt the advancing French army, Naples fell and Ferdinand escaped to Sicily. In February 1799, Cardinal Ruffo counterattacked in Calabria with royalist troops known as Sanfedisti. By June, royalists recaptured Naples, largely due to military setbacks suffered by the French army in northern Italy and their subsequent evacuation of Naples in May. A British fleet under Nelson also assisted royalist Neapolitans, who overthrew the republic and restored Ferdinand to the throne. The king carried out brutal reprisals against former revolutionaries, thus bringing the Enlightenment in Naples to a bloody close. See also French Revolutionary Wars; Italy, Impact of Revolutionary Ideas on. FURTHER READING: Di Scala, Spencer M. Italy: From Revolution to Republic, 1700 to the Present. 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004. ERIC MARTONE

Paterson, William (1745 –1806) William Paterson was a New Jersey jurist, a delegate to the United States Constitutional Convention of 1787, and an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1793 to 1806. The son of a shopkeeper, he was born in Ireland and emigrated with his parents to New Jersey in 1747. A graduate of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), he was admitted to the New Jersey bar in 1768 and was an early opponent of British imperial policy. A 1775 delegate to the New Jersey Provincial Congress, Paterson was appointed the state’s attorney general in 1776, a position he occupied until 1783. In a state divided by civil war, Paterson successfully maintained the legal system, and his prominence led to his appointment as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Paterson believed the Articles of Confederation were weak, but he remained attached to the notion of equal state representation in Congress. An opponent of James Madison’s Virginia Plan, Paterson was the main author of the New Jersey

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Plan, which he introduced to the Convention in June 1787. The smaller state’s wish to preserve its equal representation in Congress nearly disrupted the Convention, but Paterson willingly served on the Grand Committee that drafted the Connecticut Plan. This proposed that the lower house be based upon proportional representation but that each state would be equally represented in the Senate. Paterson was happy with this compromise and became an ardent supporter for the ratification of the new constitution. As a senator to the first United States Senate, Paterson played a crucial role in the drafting of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which created the federal judiciary system. From 1790 to 1793 he served as governor of New Jersey, and in March 1793 President George Washington appointed Paterson to the Supreme Court. A staunch Federalist, Paterson championed the powers of the federal government over state law, and he attracted the hatred of many Republicans for presiding over a number of trials as a circuit judge regarding the Whiskey Rebellion and the later prosecution of Congressman Matthew Lyon for sedition in 1798. Paterson concurred in the landmark decision of Marbury vs. Madison (1803), which enunciated the doctrine of federal judicial review. Paterson died in Albany, New York, in 1806. See also American Revolutionary War; Constitutions, American State; Jefferson, Thomas; United States Constitution. FURTHER READING: O’Connor, John E. William Paterson: Lawyer and Statesman, 1745–1806. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1979; Wood, Gertrude. William Paterson of New Jersey, 1745 –1806. Fair Lawn, NJ: Fair Lawn Press, 1933. RORY T. CORNISH

Patrie en Danger Patrie en danger (the nation in danger) was a state of national emergency declared by the French Legislative Assembly on July 11, 1792, at the behest of the Girondin political faction. The Girondins, a group of moderate republicans, had declared war on Austria (soon joined by Prussia) on April 21, 1792. The French army, stripped of many of its most qualified officers by emigration, was unprepared for war. By June the war had become a disaster. A Prussian army was on the road to Paris, where the crowds were in ferment. In response, the Legislative Assembly declared a state of emergency; all government institutions (both national and local) were ordered to remain in session for the duration of the emergency and ordered to raise and arm volunteers. Citizens were ordered to wear the tricolor cockade on pain of arrest. It was within the context of this state of emergency that the government, known as the National Convention, would undertake a far-reaching reorganization of the French armed forces in 1793, including what arguably constituted the first modern form conscription, the levée en masse. See also French Revolution; French Revolutionary Wars; Reign of Terror. FURTHER READING: Forrest, Alan. “La patrie en danger: The French Revolution and the First Levée en Masse.” In People in Arms: Military Myth and National Mobilization since the French Revolution, ed. Daniel Moran and Arthur Waldron. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ROBERT J. ALDERSON

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Patriotism Patriotism is the notion that love of one’s country is virtuous, conducive to civil cohesion and the cultivation of a spirit of liberty, and inimical to corruption and factionalism. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, patriotism was often politically radical and qualitatively very different from late nineteenth-century nationalism. In contrast to the xenophobic jingoism common to Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, patriotic sentiment was not necessarily anti-cosmopolitan in spirit but instead served as a vehicle for creating a sense of community, either in veiled criticism of dynastic corruption or open opposition to monarchical despotism. The patriotic ideal of community often recalled the Greek polis or Roman patria. It was utilitarian, practical, and liberal and concerned with asserting individual rights against tyranny —yet often carried with it a sense of selfless service on the part of free men to their political community. To the participants and enthusiasts of the Boston Tea Party, an evening’s vandalism of the sort that prompted Samuel Johnson to dub patriotism the “last refuge of a scoundrel,” the action was a collective act of free men asserting their natural rights against tyranny. At its most extreme, the cosmopolitan conceit of patriotism in revolutionary America is captured in Thomas Jefferson’s argument that the American Revolution was for all humankind. American nationhood was based not on common origin but rather on the fact that its citizens were of “one heart and one mind” and its invention was to be the first step toward a republican millennium in which self-governing peoples around the world would join in peaceful and prosperous union. In the case of France, the identification of a revolutionary cause with classical ideals of patriotic devotion was even more self-conscious—and self-indulgent. The revolutionary generation found stirring role models from the Roman Republic, such as Junius Brutus, who had executed his own sons for their involvement in a royalist plot, and in the incorruptible Scipio Africanus, who conquered Carthage. The virtues, real and imagined, of republican antiquity assumed a central place in the cultural construction of citizenship. Admiration of classical republicanism tended to reinforce the revolutionaries’ prevailing notions of the sources of corruption (luxury and greed) and the pillars of virtue (frugality and fraternity). The most spectacular expression both of the patriotic spirit of the 1780s and of the gathering fervor of revolution was Jacques-Louis David’s Oath of the Horatii, with its celebration of masculine determination in martial self-sacrifice. The outstretched arms of the figures in the painting later became the standard gesture for taking a revolutionary oath. Simon Schama has noted that the painting presaged a good deal of the near future even as it depicted an idealized past. Whereas public virtue had been hitherto “nursed in the bosom of a tender family, it had now been weaned to an attitude of brutal defiance.” FURTHER READING: Onuf, Peter S. Jefferson’s Empire: The Language of American Nationhood. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000; Schama, Simon. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. New York: Vintage, 1989. CARL CAVANAGH HODGE

Peltier, Jean-Gabriel (1765 –1825) Jean-Gabriel Peltier, a prolific anti-revolutionary journalist during the French Revolution, was born into a wealthy family in Nantes. Peltier moved to Paris in the

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mid-1780s and struggled in the banking business before coming to prominence as an opponent of the Revolution. As editor of the satirical Actes des Apôtres (Acts of the Apostles), which began publication in November 1789 and continued until diminishing readership led to bankruptcy in 1792, Peltier became a leading counterrevolutionary figure. Following the execution of Louis XVI in August 1792 and the subsequent repression of royalist opposition, Peltier fled to London, where he continued to criticize the Revolution. Despite moments of financial comfort earned from subscriptions to his journals and occasional subsidies from various European governments, Peltier still often struggled with debt and legal problems —namely, a libel conviction for his attacks against Napoleon. Nonetheless, Peltier continued to condemn the Revolution in print. After the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, Peltier returned to France, where he died in 1825 in difficult financial straits. FURTHER READING: Burrows, Simon. French Exile Journalism and European Politics, 1792 – 1814. Suffolk, UK: Royal Historical Society, 2000; Murray, William James. The Right-Wing Press in the French Revolution: 1789 –1792. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press for the Royal Historical Society, 1986. ADAM C. STANLEY

Pennsylvania From the Seven Years’ War (1756 –1763) through the American Revolution and after, the colony founded by William Penn in 1681 was awash in political change. In

The Continental Army encampment at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania during the bitter winter of 1777–1778. Library of Congress.

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the second half of the eighteenth century, Pennsylvania transformed from a Quaker province loyal to the Crown into a theater of French and British imperial rivalry, a hotbed of colonial protest, and a political center in the emerging United States. The outbreak of the Seven Years’ War (known in America as the French and Indian War, where it began two years earlier than in Europe), a result of competing British and French land claims, ended a long period of peace in Pennsylvania. The French had been constructing Fort Duquesne (in present-day Pittsburgh) at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, a location crucial to controlling the Old Northwest. A skirmish at Jumonville’s Glen in western Pennsylvania quickly transformed into a transcontinental war. French and Indian attacks ravaged the Pennsylvania frontier, and the long-standing Quaker leadership weathered intense criticism for its pacifism. The so-called Holy Experiment came to an end when seven Quakers resigned from the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1756. Britain’s victory in 1763 led to new tensions in the colonies. Indians living in the Ohio Valley continued to resist British control after the French withdrawal. Pontiac’s Rebellion sowed fear across western Pennsylvania and Virginia and brought violent retaliation from groups like the Paxton Boys, who raided a Conestoga Indian village near Lancaster. Parliament tried to reduce Anglo-Indian violence through the Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited settlement west of the Appalachians. The law angered many colonists who felt they had a right to western land, especially the largely Scots-Irish and German communities on Pennsylvania’s war-torn frontier. The cost of defending the colonies prompted Parliament to pass a series of laws to raise revenue in America. Many members of Pennsylvania’s Quaker and Proprietary parties viewed the new laws as hostile to their traditional liberties; they joined a growing movement in opposition to royal policies, whose subscribers came to be known across the colonies as Whigs. In response to the Stamp Act (1765), Whigs in Pennsylvania supported a mob that violently intimidated Philadelphia’s stamp distributor. They also sent John Dickinson to the Stamp Act Congress, where he drafted the meeting’s resolutions. When Parliament issued the Townshend Acts (1767), Dickinson penned the first major colonial opposition in a widely reprinted series of letters. To thwart the Tea Act (1773), a Philadelphia committee compelled the local tea agents to resign. After Parliament enacted the Coercive Acts (1774), American Whigs organized the first meeting of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Philadelphia’s location in the middle of the eastern seaboard and status as the largest colonial city made it a hub for the budding rebellion. In 1774, the Continental Congress sanctioned a boycott and the organization of colonial associations. Pennsylvania’s Provisional Congress met in 1775 and established the Philadelphia Committee of Correspondence, an extralegal body that circumvented the authority of the pro-British Pennsylvania Assembly. Throughout the Revolution, Philadelphia remained the home of the Continental Congress, with the State House (later renamed Independence Hall) providing the backdrop for the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the passage of the Articles of Confederation. Thomas Paine’s publication of Common Sense in Philadelphia, American losses at the Battle of Brandywine, and George Washington’s encampment at Valley Forge helped inspire the fledgling American identity. Pennsylvanians were also among the war’s leaders: Anthony Wayne commanded the Pennsylvania line, Robert Morris served as

Pennsylvania

the superintendent of finance, and Benjamin Franklin —the most famous American of his day —helped negotiate the Franco-American alliance (1778) and the Treaty of Paris (1783). During the war, Pennsylvania grappled with fundamental questions of political, religious, and personal liberty. In 1776, the radical Constitutionalist Party used its control of the Pennsylvania legislature to adopt a state constitution permitting universal white male suffrage and requiring a loyalty oath. The widening electorate marked a progression of democratic ideology. But the oath, an attempt to reign in the state’s many Loyalists and neutrals, like the Quakers, Moravians, and Mennonites (whose religious doctrines proscribed political oaths), limited religious freedom in the historically tolerant colony. The legislature also confronted the issue of human bondage, passing the first American antislavery law on March 1, 1780. The Constitutionalists’ failed economic program, however, propelled the Federalists, who favored a stronger national government managed by well-born leaders, to power with the election of Dickinson to Pennsylvania’s presidency in 1782. Federalist control of Pennsylvania figured prominently in the shaping of the United States government. The weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation as a blueprint for a nation prompted the meeting of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. The leaders of Pennsylvania’s delegation, Benjamin Franklin and Gouverneur Morris, played key roles in the debates that produced the United States Constitution in September 1787. Three months later, over the objections of the Anti-Federalists, who preferred greater local autonomy, the state became the second to ratify the new government. In 1790, Pennsylvania adopted a revised state constitution based on the federal model, and Philadelphia became the nation’s temporary capital. Not all of Pennsylvania’s inhabitants approved of the expansion of federal power. For Native Americans, American independence brought new encroachments on their territory; violence between settlers and Indians menaced Pennsylvania’s frontier until the Treaty of Greenville (1795) ended fighting in the Ohio Valley. The Federalist vision also met with intense internal opposition in the 1790s, especially from those who identified with the Democratic-Republicans (political descendants of the Anti-Federalists). Pennsylvania’s rural citizens mounted the Whiskey Rebellion (1794) and Fries’s Rebellion (1798 –1799), both in response to federal taxation. These events tested the authority of the national government, which cowed the resisters with the United States Army. The trials that resulted helped define the federal-state relationship in the United States and narrowed the American definition of treason, significantly widening the permissible range of political dissent. Combined with unpopular national policies, the failed uprisings in Pennsylvania eroded the Federalists’ popularity. A Democratic-Republican majority arose during the election of 1800, the same year the capital moved to Washington, D.C. By 1808, several Republican factions were vying for control, a shift that illuminated a significant ideological change that had taken place over the previous 50 years. By the early nineteenth century, Pennsylvanians largely rejected the idea of an American aristocracy, discarding the deferential politics practiced by the British and preferred by the Federalists in favor of a government that allowed common and middling men to supervise their own interests. See also Constitutions, American State; Slavery and the Slave Trade.

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FURTHER READING: Klein, Philip S., and Ari Hoogenboom. A History of Pennsylvania. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1980; Miller, Randall M., and William Pencak, eds. Pennsylvania: A History of the Commonwealth. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. ROBERT LEE

Pétion de Villeneuve, Jérôme (1756 – 1793) Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve was the son of an attorney at the local bailiwick of Chartres. His father was the local presiding judge. He took great care in providing his son with a good classical education from the Collège des Oratoriens in Vendôme and the Collège de Chartres, where Pétion met his future colleague and friend JeanPierre Brissot. Following in his father’s footsteps, he was a lawyer by age 25 and, by 1789, had risen to the position of subdelegate to the intendant of Chartres. Clearly influenced by Enlightenment ideas, Pétion began writing radical propaganda in the early 1780s. His first work, Les lois civiles (1782), attacked not only the current state of the law in France, but an entire society. In it, he demanded a transformation of the French legal system, including the election of judges and the abolition of the venality of offices. He approved of divorce in his second book, Essai sur le mariage (1785). Pétion’s treatise, Avis au Français (1788), was a virulent condemnation of every institution of the Old Regime. Like his earlier works, it fiercely denounced the institutions of the Old Regime but this time went much further in that it set out the plan for a regenerated society. Pétion was elected the first of two deputies to the Estates-General on March 20, 1789. A prominent deputy in the National Assembly, he was a member of five committees: Editorial, Constitution, Avignon, Revision of the Constitution, and Research. He was secretary twice (1789 and 1791) and president once (1790). Pétion signed the Tennis Court Oath and was one of the deputies assigned to accompany the royal family back to Paris after they were captured at Varennes. He formed part of the extreme Left, always a tiny minority of the Assembly, with Maximilien Robespierre and François Buzot. They insisted on the right of the sovereign people to assert its authority, even against the will of the Assembly. Pétion was also an active and prominent member of the Jacobin Club. Active in municipal politics between 1791 and 1792, Pétion was elected mayor of Paris on November 11, 1791, replacing the Marquis de Lafayette. Suspended from his functions after the armed demonstration of June 20, 1792, Pétion was enormously popular with the Parisian people, receiving a thunderous ovation on Bastille Day 1792. During the insurrection of August 9 – 10, Pétion and his deputy, Manuel, were the only members of the former Paris Commune who remained at their posts. Elected deputy to the National Convention from Eure-et-Loire, Pétion was the first president of the National Convention, receiving 235 out of 253 votes. Pétion sat with the Girondin faction and became increasingly critical of Robespierre and the more radical Mountain. During the trial of Louis XVI, he voted for the referendum, for death but with reprieve. Expelled from the Convention on June 2, Pétion fled to Caen, where he unsuccessfully tried to foment a federalist uprising. With his colleague Buzot, he escaped to Saint-Emilion in the Gironde, where they committed suicide. Their bodies were found on June 18, 1794, partially eaten by wolves. See also French Revolution; Girondins; Jacobins.

Philosophes

FURTHER READING: Lemay, Edna Hindie. “Pétion de Villeneuve, Jérôme.” In Dictionnaire des Constituents 1789 –1791 L-Y. Oxford and Paris: Voltaire Foundation & Universitas; Whaley, Leigh. “‘Made to Practise Virtue in a Republic’: Jérôme Pétion: A Pre-Revolutionary Radical Advocate.” In Consortium on Revolutionary Europe: Selected Papers, 1995, ed. Bernard A. Cook et al. Tallahassee, FL: Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution, Florida State University, 1995. LEIGH WHALEY

Philippe Egalité See Orléans, Louis Philippe Joseph, Duc d’

Philosophes Alternately acclaimed and vilified for their presumed role in fomenting the stirrings of discontent that culminated in the French Revolution, the philosophes have lately received acquittal from historians who have focused on immediate political, economic, fiscal, and social crises as the causes for the Revolution. After all, these historians have argued, relatively few members of elected assemblies or other important revolutionary bodies actually owned copies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract. Yet even if the philosophes should neither bear blame nor enjoy credit for causing the Revolution, they did indeed contribute to the circulation of new ideas, the popularization of critical reasoning, and the spread of a willingness both to question tradition and to propose alternatives. The label of philosophe may describe a range of individuals who participated in the intellectual and cultural activities grouped together as the Enlightenment. Writing in French, men such as Denis Diderot, Jean d’Alembert, the Marquis de Condorcet, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Julien Offroy de La Mettrie, and Baron d’Holbach shared a penchant for analyzing their culture and for recommending an assortment of changes that would augment human happiness on earth. They did not agree about the nature or existence of God, but they almost all rejected the hierarchy and worldly power of the Roman Catholic Church. Instead, they preferred a more individualized form of religious experience. They did not all adopt an optimistic conception of human nature, but almost all put enormous stock in the value of education and the effects of society on the development of the individual. They pondered what characterized human nature and recommended ways to elicit the most positive responses from it. They varied in their value judgments about the technological and aesthetic trends of their day. On the other hand, they concurred in the belief that science (whether applied or theoretical) and art exercised important influences on their culture. In their philosophical writings, many of them exploited literary devices such as man imagined in a state of nature (possibly in some supposedly real New World or Pacific island setting) or a utopian society of the future. The literary proclivities of the philosophes tend to render them less philosophically rigorous in the eyes of scholars. On the other hand, the accessibility of their texts made it feasible for other best-selling writers of the literary underground to distill their ideas and adopt their critical stance. Thus, the philosophes indirectly reached even readers of pornography and popular adventure stories. In effect, the French revolutionaries did

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not need to have read the texts published by La Mettrie or Rousseau, though many probably were familiar with his extremely popular books Julie and Emile, for such philosophes to have influenced their attitudes. The critical reasoning deployed by philosophes Diderot, d’Alembert, and others involved in the creation of the Encyclopédie had political effects because it entailed an assertion of intellectual authority by individuals not affiliated with church or Crown. Educated subjects of the French king had appropriated the power to accept or reject any age-old custom or contemporary more that seemed to transgress reason. The philosophes could exploit the steadily growing book, pamphlet, and periodical presses of the eighteenth century to communicate with the public. Official censorship hindered but could not entirely prevent the acquisition of forbidden books published in countries such as Switzerland and the Netherlands. Hence, philosophes could pen trenchant criticisms of the church and anticipate that their words might find at least a small audience, even if they risked imprisonment by doing so. Ultimately, censorship did not prevent the philosophes from setting the intellectual tone of the eighteenth century. Their interrogations of contemporary attitudes and practices revealed the extent to which eighteenth-century French society was a human product. Their knowledge —whether acquired directly or, more typically, through reading —of other societies with quite different mores furthered their appreciation for the weight of culture upon the individual. For many, what they believed to be nature was superior to culture —or, at least, to their own culture. When they contemplated the flaws in the religious practices of their day, such writers tended to conclude that only a naturalistic religion —one in which all precepts stemmed from nature and enlightened self-interest —could provide spiritual sustenance while eliminating any cause for conflict. The philosophes almost uniformly condemned the dogmatic religion advocated by the Roman Catholic Church, and many subscribed to some form of deism. This suited men who could not explain the universe except as the product of God yet wished to believe that misery and injustice had human causes and, thus, human solutions. In general, their texts advocated tolerance and rejected fanaticism, as exemplified by Voltaire’s Treatise on Tolerance and Candide. Most of the many trials faced by Candide in his journey around the world stemmed from man’s ill-treatment of his fellow men, often as a consequence of fanatical religious belief or an inability to accept cultural difference. Voltaire rejected any interpretation of Christianity that involved predestination, pessimism, the Incarnation, or a vengeful God. Rather, he believed that the true, remote nature of God would become apparent in a society that operated according to a combination of individual self-interest and benevolence. Rousseau, on the other hand, suggested that God revealed himself through nature and reason. He dismissed revelation, though he himself ascribed to the divinity of Christ. He recommended that the leaders of a republic promulgate a civil religion based upon principles such as “the existence of God, Providence, sanctity of contract and laws, intolerance only of the intolerant.” The Encyclopédie, edited by Diderot and d’Alembert, is thought by many to encapsulate the achievements, interests, and attitudes of the philosophes. The array of articles in the Encyclopédie evidence their authors’ fascination with historical treatments of subjects related to Christianity, the church, mythology, and morality. The deployment of this historical perspective enabled contributors to indicate the extent to

Philosophes

which eighteenth-century practices deviated from those of previous generations. By tracing the history of various bibles and gospels, the philosophes indicated the need to use critical judgment when considering religious truths. Articles also discussed artisanal activities, such as porcelain making and printing; ethical concerns, such as adultery and pride; and legal or juridical concepts, such as freedom of conscience. In its 32 volumes (21 of text, 11 of illustrations) published over more than two decades, the Encyclopédie features 70,000 articles. They were written, according to the title page, by a “society of men of letters,” who collectively hoped to gather and spread the knowledge necessary to change how people typically acted and thought. Authors typically considered to be the leading lights among the philosophes, such as Voltaire, the Marquis de Condillac, Rousseau, and Charles de Montesquieu, not to mention Diderot and d’Alembert themselves, contributed articles. The controversy over the book’s perceived anti-clericalism and atheism, not necessarily borne out by the entire volume, helped it to sell copies, even though it was officially banned. Women did not often publish philosophical works in the eighteenth century, but they did facilitate the work of the philosophes. As salonnières, Julie de Lespinasse, Madame de Geoffrin, Suzanne Necker, and other refined, wealthy women facilitated debate and invited their guests to read selections from their work. They created an environment in which men with strong convictions could discuss their ideas and gain publicity for forthcoming publications. In the years leading up to the Revolution, such salons became a haven for political debates. Some individuals both wrote and helped others to promulgate their works. PaulHenri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach, not only contributed articles to the Encyclopédie on chemistry and geology, but he also provided a forum for most of the important thinkers and writers who passed through Paris in the mid-eighteenth century. His weekly salons and his patronage encouraged Diderot, the abbé Raynal, and ClaudeAdrien Helvétius, among many others, to express their radical opinions in print. His activity as an intermediary between French intellectuals and foreign visitors with philosophical leanings, including David Hume, contributed to the energy of debate during the Enlightenment and fostered some of its more politically and religiously radical notions. Holbach appeared in Rousseau’s La nouvelle Heloïse in the guise of a virtuous atheist. However, Holbach actually published his own controversial books, in which he elaborated his materialist philosophy, anonymously. Holbach’s utilitarian ethics, whereby one acts virtuously solely for the sake of happiness and according to which the state exists essentially to promote general happiness, formed the basis of an implicit critique of the existing regime and a possible argument in favor of revolution. The philosophes typically agreed with the essence of those ethical principles, emphasizing the extent to which people could create their own happiness by following their inclinations toward generosity and empathy. Etienne de Condillac and Helvétius both accounted for human activity by analyzing the interaction between the body and its environment. They argued that all human faculties arose from our physiology, and they dismissed the hypothesis that humans differ from animals due to their possession of a soul. Stripped of its religious or spiritual sense, anxiety became a neurological response to a perceived threat in the environment that spurred people to action. La Mettrie went so far as to describe man as a machine and undertook a “natural history of the soul.” Such thoroughgoing materialism was hardly widespread or enthusiastically received by the public, however: the furor provoked by La Mattrie’s assertions that the “farce”

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of life was finished at death prompted him to leave Paris in favor of the Netherlands and then Prussia, where Frederick II appointed him court reader and allowed him to continue his medical practice. Some of the philosophes attempted to practice what they preached. Voltaire has earned acclaim as possibly the first public intellectual for his involvement in efforts to reverse an unjust verdict against Jean Callas and to raise awareness of flaws in the French judicial system. Helvétius worked for several years as a tax farmer until he earned a fortune sufficient for him to retire to the countryside, where he engaged in efforts to help the poor, improve agriculture, and encourage industry. Whether they tackled happiness or anxiety, politics or religion, art or nature, the philosophes approached their topics from the perspective of humans and life in this world. Happiness, they tended to suggest, stemmed from using reason to control one’s passions, living in the countryside surrounded by friends and civilized pleasures, and making good use of one’s time. By questioning the suitability of traditional behaviors and established institutions for promoting happiness in this life, philosophes created an environment propitious for revolutionary aspirations and for revolution itself. FURTHER READING: Church, William Farr, ed. The Influence of the Enlightenment on the French Revolution: Creative, Disastrous, or Non-Existent? Boston: Heath, 1964; Darnton, Robert. The Forbidden Bestsellers of Pre-Revolutionary France. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995; Goodman, Dena. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994; Mornet, Daniel. French Thought in the Eighteenth Century. Translated by Lawrence M. Levin. New York: Prentice Hall, 1929; Roche, Daniel. France in the Enlightenment. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. MELANIE A. BAILEY

Physiocrats A controversial group of (largely) French scholars known to their contemporaries as the Economistes, the Physiocrats advanced a novel approach to understanding human economic activity, stressing the unique productivity of agriculture, the benefits of free trade, and the value of a simplified tax assessment and collection. In this way, they posed a forceful challenge to ancien régime mercantilist practices yet also championed the cause of enlightened absolute monarchy, the backing of which was necessary for realizing the reforms advocated by the movement. Inspired chiefly by the French court physician François Quesnay (1694 –1774), Physiocracy flourished in the 1760s, attracting the support of notable luminaries such as Victor Mirabeau (1715 –1789), Pierre-Paul Mercier de la Rivière (1719 –1801), and Pierre-Samuel Du Pont de Nemours (1739 –1817). Physiocratic ideals partly underlay the economic reforms implemented by AnneRobert-Jacques Turgot (1727–1781) during his tenure as controller general of finances from 1774 to 1776. The death of Quesnay in 1774, savage attacks by able writers like Ferdinando Galiani (1728 –1787), and persistent crises following the liberalization of the grain trade in 1763 –1764 all contributed to the decline of the movement by the mid-1770s. Drawing upon his medical expertise, Quesnay believed that the regularities and physical functions operative in the natural world disclosed a natural order (ordre naturel) that existed independently of human convention (ordre positif ). He and his

Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth

followers advocated Physiocracy (“rule of nature”) as a means of harmonizing human society with this natural order, claiming that careful investigation of the latter revealed principles of wise government, which, if followed, would ensure a secure supply of food, raw materials, and wealth. Physiocratic doctrine prioritized agricultural production, maintaining that economic productivity derived solely from natural powers, the products of which generated a surplus of value over the human labor deployed. Furthermore, it asserted that only a policy of free trade would enable a society to prosper in accordance with the natural order. Consequently, the Physiocrats criticized mercantilist policies that regulated trade and sought to augment industry and stockpile precious metals at the expense of landed ventures. In 1758, Quesnay illustrated the basic points of Physiocracy in the form of a Tableau économique, or economic table, showing the centrality of agricultural production and depicting abstractly the flow of goods and revenue derived from it throughout the various classes of society. Modified in successive years, Quesnay’s Tableau helped the Physiocrats advance their positions and is considered to be an important milestone in the development of scientific economics. The Physiocrats advocated abolishing the complicated system of privileges, customs duties, trade barriers, and state regulation that characterized the economic practices of the ancien régime. They proposed simplifying taxation by reducing it to the collection of a single tax on the net income of land (impôt unique). Despite the radical nature of these proposals, the Physiocrats were not revolutionaries, but philosophes possessing a strong faith in the capacity of enlightened government to realize rational reform for the sake of economic well-being. While Physiocratic reforms proved difficult to implement in practice, the ideals they championed persisted as influential legacies in the areas of economic science, free trade, and rational reform. FURTHER READING: Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. The Origins of Physiocracy. Ithaca: NY: Cornell University Press, 1976; Meek, Ronald. The Economics of Physiocracy: Essays and Translations. London: Allen and Unwin, 1962. RICHARD BOWLER

Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth (1746 –1825) A South Carolina politician during the colonial and early national periods famous for his role during the XYZ Affair of 1797 –1798, Pinckney was the first son of Charles (a planter) and Eliza Lucas Pinckney. In 1753 the family moved to London when Charles was named South Carolina’s colonial agent. In 1764 Charles Cotesworth graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, and completed his study of law at London’s Middle Temple. In 1769 Pinckney passed the bar, returned to South Carolina, and was elected to the Commons House of Assembly. During the imperial crisis, Pinckney joined the Patriot cause. In 1775 the Provincial Congress elected Pinckney a captain in the First South Carolina Regiment. In 1776 he took part in the successful defense of Charleston and was promoted to colonel. Following a temporary stint on George Washington’s staff, he served in a failed attack on St. Augustine and in the unsuccessful defenses of Savannah and Charleston. Pinckney was imprisoned after the fall of Charleston; he was exchanged in 1782 and promoted to general.

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After the war, Pinckney returned to the state legislature, which selected him as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention. At the convention, Pinckney helped negotiate the compromises over the eventual abolition of the slave trade, and the structure of and representation for the national legislature. Pinckney defended the United States Constitution in South Carolina. After declining numerous offers for national office from President Washington, Pinckney accepted the post of minister to France in 1796, though the French refused to accept his commission. In 1797 Pinckney was named head of a three-man commission to France. The mission culminated in the XYZ Affair, in which the French demanded a bribe to continue negotiations, which Pinckney refused. President John Adams appointed Pinckney major general responsible for defending the South during the Quasi-War with France. Pinckney was an unsuccessful Federalist vice-presidential candidate in 1800, and the party’s presidential candidate in the elections of 1804 and 1808. See also American Revolutionary War; Slavery and the Slave Trade. FURTHER READING: Zahniser, Marvin R. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Founding Father. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967. ROBERT J. ALDERSON

Pinckney, Thomas (1750 –1828) A South Carolina politician during the colonial and early national periods who negotiated Pinckney’s Treaty (1795) with Spain, Pinckney was the second son of Charles (a planter) and Eliza Lucas Pinckney. Like his older brother, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Thomas graduated from Oxford and the Middle Temple. He returned to South Carolina in 1774 and was admitted to the bar. Early in the American Revolution, Pinckney became a captain in his brother’s regiment and served as a major in a failed attack on St. Augustine and the defenses of St. Augustine and Charleston. In 1780 he was wounded at the Battle of Camden, captured, and held prisoner for a year. From 1787 to 1789 he served two terms as governor of South Carolina and was sent as one of the state’s delegates to the Constitutional Convention. In May 1788 he was elected president of the state’s ratifying convention. In 1791 President George Washington named Pinckney minister plenipotentiary to Britain. In 1795, as envoy extraordinary to Spain, he negotiated Pinckney’s Treaty (the Treaty of San Lorenzo), which allowed Americans to use New Orleans as a transshipment point (thus giving unfettered access to the Mississippi) and settled the boundary between the United States and Spanish territories in the Southeast. In 1796, Pinckney was an unsuccessful Federalist candidate for vice president. In 1797–1801 he was a representative to Congress. During the War of 1812, Pinckney served as a major general. FURTHER READING: Williams, Frances Leigh. A Founding Family: The Pinckneys of South Carolina. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978. ROBERT J. ALDERSON

Pitt, William (the Elder) See Chatham, Pitt, William (the Elder), Earl of

Pitt, William (the Younger)

Pitt, William (the Younger) (1759 –1806) Born on May 28, 1759, at the height of the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), Pitt was the second son of William Pitt the Elder, later Earl of Chatham. The younger Pitt was a sickly child, but intelligent and well tutored, and showed particular aptitude in mathematics and the classics. For his university study he was sent to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and was called to the bar shortly after his father died in 1778. In January 1781, at the age of only 21, Pitt was elected to Parliament, where he immediately demonstrated a gift for oratory. He generally supported the faction led by Lord Shelburne but like many of his colleagues maintained a certain independence in politics in an age when clearly defined parties had yet to emerge in Britain. He was prominent among those members of the Commons who advocated parliamentary reform, particularly with respect to the proper representation of boroughs based on the number of actual voters, which they contained. In July 1782, at the age of only 23, Pitt became, on Shelburne’s invitation, chancellor of the exchequer and the government’s leader in the House of Commons. His period in government was, however, short lived, for Shelburne left office in February 1783 as a result of his ministry’s proposals for peace with the 13 former colonies as the American Revolutionary War was winding down. When George III requested that Pitt form a government, Pitt refused; instead, Lord North and Charles James Fox formed a coalition, which collapsed —much to the king’s satisfaction, as he hated Fox —in December over Fox’s bill on the reform of the East India Company. Pitt, still only 24, now entered office as prime minister (technically, first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, as the title “prime minister” was not yet in common use). Pitt, however, was not in a strong position, for he possessed few reliable political adherents with whom to fill cabinet posts and enjoyed only a modicum of support in the House of Commons. Still, he managed to win over many independent members whom the Foxite faction had itself hoped to attract, and in the general election of 1785 Pitt soundly beat all opposition. The fact that Pitt would remain in office for the next 16 years is testimony to his steadfastness and popularity in Parliament. He immediately set to tackling the problem of the national debt, which had accumulated as a result of the war in America. Through new taxation schemes and the reform of the Sinking Fund in 1786, the young prime minister placed the nation’s finances in order, though these measures would within a decade be overturned by the massive cost of waging war with France beginning in 1793. In foreign affairs, Pitt sought to recover Britain’s prominent diplomatic position in Europe after the loss of the American colonies. With respect to government policy on India —in view of changed circumstances in the Empire, hereafter Britain’s greatest colonial asset —Pitt disarmed the attacks launched by Fox and Edmund Burke in the House of Commons by the surprising expedient of taking their side. Political fortune did not always turn in Pitt’s favor, however; after three failed attempts to introduce parliamentary reform —the last effort coming in April 1785 —Pitt abandoned the issue altogether. He also took up the cause against slavery, supporting the efforts of his friend William Wilberforce. Here, too, he would not live long enough to see the dividends of his work. Still, by the end of the decade Pitt had established a virtually unchallenged supremacy in the Commons, with the sole danger arising out of the king’s temporary bout of mental illness in 1788. If the king had been found incapable of carrying on, his son, George, Prince of Wales, was to have

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served as regent —a disturbing prospect for Pitt, for the Prince was a close friend of Fox and would certainly have replaced Pitt with a Whig government. While in its initial stages, the French Revolution was viewed by Pitt as likely to preoccupy France with its own internal matters for many years to come —and consequently was unlikely to disturb British pursuits abroad —in fact the growing radicalism of the Revolution and the threat it posed to its neighbors led Pitt toward confrontation with France by the end of 1792. Specifically, the revolutionaries’ declared promise of aid to those seeking to overthrow their monarchical regimes and the presence of French troops both in Belgium and the Rhineland rendered conflict inevitable. Because Pitt believed —quite erroneously —that revolution abroad would spell inevitable revolution at home, he led a concerted campaign against radical movements, stamping out political dissent and ordering the arrest of many members of the more radically inclined reform organizations. But if the prime minister could contain his domestic foes, he failed to subdue those abroad, for, in marked contrast to his illustrious father, he proved a poor strategist, frittering away troops in peripheral operations that, with a few notable exceptions, did little to benefit Britain’s allies, all of whom eventually broke away from the alliances carefully constructed by British diplomats. Despite heavy subsidy payments to Britain’s continental allies, Pitt could not engineer military victories on their behalf, and they nearly all sought separate treaties of peace with France, while Britain remained protected by the Channel and the Royal Navy. In particular, Prussia and Spain left the First Coalition in 1795, while Austria abandoned it in 1797. Pitt easily won the 1796 general election and for the remainder of the decade stood in the political ascendant, enjoying the king’s confidence and the respect, if not the affection, of the nation. The war took a great financial toll on the treasury, and in 1797 the Bank of England could no longer offer cash payments, obliging Pitt to introduce an income tax the following year. The fortunes of war shifted to a limited extent in 1798 as a result of Admiral Nelson’s defeat of the French in the Mediterranean, and by early the following year —very much with Pitt’s inspiration —Britain had constructed a Second Coalition, which included Austria, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. A major British military expedition in 1801 expelled the French from Egypt, but in Europe Napoleon had already triumphed over Austria the previous year, obliging Britain to seek a disadvantageous peace at Amiens, the negotiations of which were undertaken by Henry Addington, who succeeded to office in February 1801 after Pitt resigned. Paradoxically, despite the poor military showing of the two coalitions that he had largely constructed and financed, Pitt did not leave office over the failure of his war policy, but rather over the thorny question of Catholic emancipation. Government posts, the officer corps of the army, and parliamentary seats were all barred to Roman Catholics, to whom the franchise had only been extended as recently as 1793. Violent agitation and unrest in various forms had become an increasing feature of Irish politics in the 1790s, and in 1798, actual rebellion, backed by military assistance from France, broke out. While the revolt in Ireland was suppressed — indeed, brutally so —by government authorities and the army, Pitt believed that the best way of preventing civil war was the creation of a formal union between Britain and Ireland, with their respective parliaments joined as one at Westminster. In addition to this —and the central point on which he fell afoul of the king —Pitt advocated full emancipation for Catholics. Despite Pitt’s insistence that their numbers

Pitt, William (the Younger)

in Parliament would be too few to challenge the Protestant ascendancy, the king bitterly opposed the idea of emancipation as part of any scheme of Union. Pitt promised not to raise the issue again, but when in the wake of the Union in January 1801 he and his ministers again sought to bring forward Catholic emancipation, the king considered himself betrayed, and Pitt resigned the following month. Pitt supported Addington’s ministry, particularly with respect to the negotiations, which, after nine years of conflict, brought peace between Britain and France at Amiens in March 1802. Nevertheless, as the terms gradually revealed themselves to be considerably more favorable to French interests, both in strategic and commercial terms, Pitt increasingly distanced himself from the new government. Indeed, in 1803 –1804 Pitt and many of his former political allies, including Lord Grenville and Henry Dundas, criticized Addington’s policies, particularly his conduct of the war. The government could not sustain itself under the increasing weight of parliamentary opposition, and by May 1804 Pitt was back in Downing Street, albeit unable to recruit into his cabinet the broad cross-section of supporters that he desired — and consequently the government he did construct lacked much of the available talent. In particular, no proper coalition composed of the most able members of the Tory and Whig factions was possible without Fox, whom the king steadfastly refused to admit to government. Yet without Fox, Grenville would not take his place in the cabinet. Anxious to bolster his flagging support in the Commons, Pitt reconciled with Addington and persuaded him to join the government at the beginning of 1805. Yet even this addition of strength could not save Pitt from a financial scandal that ruined the reputation of his friend Dundas, who was forced from office in the summer of 1805 by parliamentary accusations of the malversation of government of funds —charges later found to be unsubstantiated, but not until after Pitt’s death. This constituted a severe, though not fatal, blow to the prime minister’s credibility, yet in the same year he made great strides in organizing a Third Coalition against France, which included Austria, Russia, and Sweden. Moreover, his government’s naval strategy —implemented by a first-rate fighting force and led by the country’s greatest admiral —utterly foiled Napoleon’s plans for an invasion of Britain when Nelson decisively defeated the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar on October 21. Still, Pitt’s determined efforts to contain French territorial ambitions was largely undone in a day, when the French emperor defeated the Austrians and Russians at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2. The collapse of the Third Coalition hastened the rapid decline of Pitt’s health —largely attributable to years of heavy drinking and overwork —and he died in January 1806, at the age of 46. Pitt is best remembered as a brilliant orator and a determined opponent of French imperialism. In his personal life, he had few friends, woefully neglected his personal finances (and consequently died heavily in debt, which a grateful Parliament honored), and threw himself entirely into his work —to the neglect of all other matters. He showed little ability in formulating strategy and has been heavily criticized by historians for his overzealous prosecution of those thought to have been in sympathy with Jacobinism when in fact they merely embraced the more moderate principles of the French Revolution. Yet his devotion to public service, and his success in reforming both the nation’s finances and in altering for the better Britain’s governance of India, is difficult to challenge. While on the domestic front Pitt failed to secure parliamentary reform or push through Catholic emancipation, his foreign policy led to the construction of three coalitions against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.

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Therein lies perhaps his greatest legacy: the spirit of resistance he embodied during the greatest period of national emergency prior to the twentieth century. FURTHER READING: Derry, John. Politics in the Age of Fox, Pitt, and Liverpool: Continuity and Transformation. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1990; Duffy, Michael. The Younger Pitt. New York: Longman, 2000; Ehrman, John. The Younger Pitt: The Consuming Struggle. London: Constable, 1996; Ehrman, John. The Younger Pitt: The Reluctant Transition. London: Constable, 1986; Ehrman, John. The Younger Pitt: The Years of Acclaim. New York: Dutton, 1969; Hague, William. William Pitt the Younger. London: HarperCollins, 2004; Jarrett, Derek. Pitt the Younger. New York: Scribner, 1974; Mori, Jennifer. William Pitt and the French Revolution, 1785–1795. Edinburgh, UK: Keele University Press, 1997; Reilly, Robin. William Pitt the Younger. New York: Putnam, 1979; Turner, Michael. Pitt the Younger: A Life. London: Hambledon and London, 2002. GREGORY FREMONT-BARNES

Pius VI, Pope (1717–1799) Pope Pius VI (r. 1775 –1799), Giovanni Angelo Braschi, attempted to maintain papal jurisdiction over the French church before, during, and after the French Revolution and died in captivity after the French decimated the papal administration and authority of the Roman church by imprisoning him at Valence, France, until he died. He was Benedict XIV’s secretary, the treasurer of the Apostolic Chamber (1766), and a cardinal (1773) before ascending to the papacy. Pius did not challenge the suppression of the Jesuits but did challenge ecclesiastical Gallicanism’s assertions that the authority of ecumenical councils superseded papal authority, the pope was fallible, and all bishops were apostolic successors. Pius failed to forestall the Holy Roman emperor Joseph II’s reforms (Edict of Toleration, 1781) restricting papal authority by dissolving monasteries, tolerating nonCatholic practices, redrawing diocesan boundaries, placing the seminaries under the control of the state, and limiting festivals. Pius further weakened papal authority by allowing the emperor to nominate imperial bishops (1784) and by failing to respond to the confiscation of church assets prior to the French Revolution. France responded to Pius’s belated rejection (1791) of the Revolution and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) along with his suspensions of priests who accepted them and his protest against the execution of Louis XVI by annexing the papal territories of Avignon and Venaissin. Pius’s acceptance of the Treaty of Tolentino (1797), which ended Napoleon’s invasion of Italy, cost the Vatican the territories of Avignon, Venaissin, Ferrara, Bologna, and the Romagna; 15 million francs; and numerous works of art. The French eventually occupied Rome (1798 –1799), declared a Roman Republic, deported the Curia, and imprisoned Pius. See also Gallicanism; Pius VII, Pope. FURTHER READING: Olf, Lillian Browne. Their Name Is Pius; Portraits of Five Great Modern Popes. Milwaukee, WI: Bruce, 1941. RICHARD M. EDWARDS

Pius VII, Pope (1742 –1823) Pope Pius VII (r. 1800 –23), Luigi Barnaba Gregorio Chiaramonti, succeeded in partially restoring papal authority over the French church lost under Pius VI after

Poland, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on

the French Revolution. He negotiated the Concordat of 1801, the terms of which required the pope to renounce claims to secularized ecclesiastical properties, reorganize the French dioceses, and require the resignation of the remaining bishops while Napoleon’s government agreed to acknowledge Roman Catholicism as France’s primary religion. Pius protested the French appendix of the Concordat (Organic Articles, 1802) making papal jurisdiction contingent on the consent of the French government and attempted (1804) to have the appendices amended, but Napoleon, by then Emperor Napoleon I, sought more control over the French church. Diplomatic relations between the Papal States and France were terminated and France eventually annexed the Papal States (1809) after occupying Rome (1808). Pius was imprisoned (1809) after excommunicating the occupiers and was forced to sign a degrading concordat (1813) that he abrogated two months later. Napoleon released Pius (1814) after France’s military fortunes waned. Once restored to the papacy on the revival of the Pontifical States (Congress of Vienna, 1814 –1815), Pius canceled French occupational mandates, abrogated the Organic Articles in negotiations with Louis XVIII after Napoleon’s fall, restored the Jesuits (suppressed since 1773), reestablished the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (1817), restricted the pro-French Carbonari, reinstituted the Inquisition, reinvigorated relationships with the German states and Austria (1817 –1821), condemned the Protestant Bible Societies, recognized the new Latin American states, and stood firm against anti-Catholic laws enacted by Spain’s Ferdinand VII. Pius also increased the number of dioceses in the United States (1808). FURTHER READING: Anderson, Robin. Pope Pius VII, 1800 –1823: His Life, Times, and Struggle with Napoleon in the Aftermath of the French Revolution. Rockford, IL: Tan Books, 2000; Olf, Lillian Browne. Their Name Is Pius; Portraits of Five Great Modern Popes. Milwaukee, WI: Bruce, 1941. RICHARD M. EDWARDS

The Plain The Plain, Marais in French, is the name given by historians of the French Revolution to a nebulous group of uncommitted deputies aligned with neither the Mountain nor the Girondins in the French National Convention. Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac is often considered to be the Plain’s leading orator, though he drifted toward the Mountain over time. Members of the Plain were characterized by inconsistent voting records and a generally centrist attitude toward revolutionary politics. See also Jacobins. FURTHER READING: Reilly, Benjamin. “Polling the Opinions: A Reexamination of Mountain, Plain, and Gironde in the National Convention.” Social Science History 28 (2004): 53 –73. BENJAMIN REILLY

Poland, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was strongly influenced by the thought of the Enlightenment. Starting in the 1760s, numerous publications in the spirit of the Age of Reason were published, a reform of educational system was carried out (from primary schools through universities), and serious debates concerning the reform of

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the Polish-Lithuanian political system were initiated. Hindered by various obstacles such as outside interference (partitions) and domestic opposition from a large group of privileged nobles, reformers nevertheless implemented fundamental changes to Polish society during the four-year session of the parliament (1788 –1792, referred to as the Four Years’ Parliament). The most important reforms culminated in the constitution issued on May 3, 1791. Unfortunately, due to the opposition of a group of Polish nobles (who formed the Confederation of Targowica) backed by Catherine II and Russian troops, the constitution was abolished and Poland was partitioned for the second time (1793), to be wiped off the map of Europe two years later. Since 1788 Poland had witnessed considerable activity on the part of a group of extremely radical social and political activists. They were active during the Four Years’ Parliament and later during the Russian intervention, but also after the partitions. Since their ideas and activities were inspired by the French Revolution, their political adherents referred them to as Jacobins. In 1791, the Association of Friends of the Governing Constitution was organized, which stressed the need for further social reforms, in particular the granting of rights to the burghers. Prince Adam Czartoryski, Hugo Kołła˛taj, and Ignacy Potocki were among its 200 members. The Association of Friends of National Insurrection formed in 1794 was much more radical and closer to its French Jacobin model. In May and June 1794, the group inspired demonstrations in Warsaw, which resulted in the public executions of traitors to the fatherland. When the Kos´ciuszko Insurrection was coming to its end, radical Jacobins were taken to the military criminal court, which pronounced death sentences on many prisoners. Jacobins were also active in Lithuania, where one of the most radical of them was Jakub Jasin´ski, a poet and a soldier. Polish Jacobins proclaimed the radical French ideas of equality and brotherhood, regardless of social background, race, and religion. They demanded full rights for the burghers, the enfranchisement of peasants, and even the forming of a republic in the place of a monarchy. Among the best-known Polish Jacobins were Jakub Jasin´ski, Józef Zaja˛czek, Jan Alojzy Orchowski, and Franciszek Ksawery Dmochowski. After the third partition in 1795, many Jacobins remained active in conspiracies at home or emigrated. Their radical social programs invariably included a demand for Poland’s independence. See also Poland, Partitions of; Polish Constitution; Polish Revolts. FURTHER READING: Les´niodorski, Boguslaw. Polscy Jakobini. Karta z dziejów insurekcji 1794 roku. Warsaw: Ksia˛z˙ka i Wiedza, 1960. JAKUB BASISTA

Poland, Partitions of (1772, 1793, 1795) In three territorial divisions carried out by Russia, Prussia, and Austria, PolandLithuania, one of the largest European states, with an area of about 735,000 square kilometers in 1772, was progressively reduced until, after the final partition, it ceased to exist. The Polish-Lithuanian state was politically weak and subject to foreign (mostly Russian) interference. Attempts to heal the situation through reforms after the 1764 election —as well as the military Confederation of Bar, organized by a group

Polish Constitution

of nobles directed against the king, Stanisław August Poniatowski —added to the confusion. A determination arose among Poland’s neighbors to end the critical situation through some form of interference in Poland’s affairs. The first partition was carried out when Russia was at war with Turkey (since 1768) and Polish-Lithuanian territories disturbed by the confederates of Bar. Fearful of Russia’s expansion and the domestic chaos in Poland, Austria threatened to become involved. In the end it was Prussia’s initiative, which sought to avoid a deepening of the crisis, that resulted in a Russo-Prussian agreement for the partitioning of Poland in 1771, to which the Austrian empress, Maria Theresa, gave her consent. Consequently, on August 5, 1772, Russia, Prussia, and Austria signed a treaty that partitioned Poland. The treaty was ratified by the Polish parliament on September 30, 1773. Poland lost almost 30 percent of its area and over 30 percent of its population. Russia received Belarus and Livonia, and Prussia took Royal Prussia (without Gdan´sk), while Austria received southern Poland (the area south of the river Vistula), shortly thereafter known as Galicia. On May 3, 1791, Poland-Lithuania adopted a new liberal constitution, which promised a strong, well-organized state. The Russian empress, Catherine II, could not accept this. Providing support to a group of Polish magnates opposed to the new constitution, Catherine helped them form the Confederation of Targowica (May 14, 1792) and sent Russian forces into Poland. The resulting Russo-Polish war ended in a Prusso-Russian agreement on a second partition. On January 23, 1793, Russia and Prussia agreed on formal arrangements, which were confirmed by the Polish parliament in the summer. Poland lost 40 percent of its pre-partition territory and almost 30 percent of its population. Russia annexed the remnants of Belarus and western Ukraine, including Podolia and part of Volhynia. For her part, Prussia absorbed Great Poland, part of Mazovia, Gdan´sk, and Torun´. In response to the second partition, a national uprising under the leadership of Tadeusz Kos´ciuszko broke out in March 1794 and lasted for eight months until it was suppressed by Russian forces. In an agreement of October 24, 1795, Russia, Prussia, and Austria divided the rest of Poland-Lithuania, though on this occasion there was no Polish parliament to confirm the division. In this third partition, Russia acquired Courland, most of Lithuania, and the rest of Volhynian Ukraine, and Prussia received the rest of Mazovia with Warsaw, and part of Lithuania, while Austria acquired the rest of Little Poland to the northeast in the direction of the River Bug. As a result of the partitions, Poland-Lithuania was wiped off the map of Europe. Russia received 63.75 percent of its territory and 5.5 million inhabitants, Prussia received 18.27 percent of Poland’s territory and 2.6 million people, and Austria gained 17.57 percent of Poland’s territory and 4.2 new subjects. See also Poland, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on; Polish Constitution; Polish Revolts. FURTHER READING: Lukowski, Jerzy. The Partitions of Poland, 1772, 1793, 1795. London: Longman, 1999. JAKUB BASISTA

Polish Constitution (1791) On May 3, 1791, the Polish-Lithuanian parliament accepted a document entitled Ustawa Rza˛dowa (The Governmental Act), which became the first Polish constitution.

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The parliament had been in session since 1788 and is known in history as the Four Years’ Parliament or the Great Parliament. The May 3 constitution consists of an introduction and 11 articles. Together with several acts passed earlier by the parliament, it introduced a new, modernized political system devoid of the negative phenomena of the existing political system. The text of the constitution is clear and systematic, reflecting the political thought of the Age of Reason. Articles 1–4 refer to the Catholic religion and the clergy (1), the nobility (2), cities and burghers, (3) and the peasantry (4). The next four articles (5–8) are devoted to the political system of Poland-Lithuania (the government, executive, legislative, and judicial powers). The last three articles discuss regency, education of royal children, and military forces. The constitution, although based on the ideas of the Enlightenment, is not as democratic and radical as the earlier American and later French constitutions. Although a significant change in the granting of equal rights to all citizens took place, the new constitution retained certain privileges and class divisions in PolishLithuanian society. The new political system was based on Montesquieu’s division of power, which separated the executive power of the monarch from the legislative prerogatives of the parliament and independent courts. The legislative power of the monarch was weakened, while the executive became stronger. The executive was to be controlled and limited by a group of ministers. The notorious Liberum veto, which allowed a single deputy to break the proceedings of any parliament, was abolished. The general election of the king by the nobles was replaced by hereditary monarchy, and the crown was offered to the Vettin dynasty of Saxony. Parliamentary rights were limited to those nobles who possessed real property, and a limited number of burghers were to sit in the new parliament. The new constitution and accompanying laws changed the system of local administration and the tax system and introduced a standing army. The May 3 constitution limited the omnipotent power of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility in favor of government officials and the monarch, converting the country from what some historians describe as a state of anarchy into a well-ordered state. The strengthening of political power was hard to accept for some Polish nobles and Poland’s neighbors. Catherine II, with a group of Polish nobles, organized themselves into the military confederation of Targowica and began a war to prevent the constitution from being introduced. As a result of the Russo-Polish war, the Constitution of May 3, 1791, was abolished, and in the course of the partitions of 1793 and 1795 the Polish-Lithuanian state was partitioned and wiped off the map of Europe. See also Poland, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on; Poland, Partitions of; Polish Revolts. FURTHER READING: Fiszman, Samuel, ed. Constitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Poland: The Constitution of 3 May 1791. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. JAKUB BASISTA

Polish Revolts (1768 –1772, 1794) The second half of the eighteenth century witnessed two revolts in the PolishLithuanian territory and a Russo-Polish war fought in an attempt to save Poland’s

Polish Revolts

integrity and a newly issued constitution. The first revolt, initiated by Polish nobles in 1768 and known as the Confederation of Bar, lasted for four years and was started in defense of Polish nobles’ privileges against Catherine II’s interference into Polish affairs. The second, known as the Kos´ciuszko Insurrection, took place in 1794, after the second partition of Poland. The second of these events cannot be seen as the offspring of simultaneous revolutionary events in France; indeed, only some pronouncements and declarations of the Kos´ciuszko revolt bear some resemblance to the ideas propounded by the French Revolution. The Confederation of Bar was initiated by a group of nobles in Bar, in Podolia, on February 29, 1768. A confederation in early modern Poland-Lithuania was a quasi-formal association of nobles with a clearly defined program —usually aimed at attempting to win some privileges or changes from the monarch. The 1768 Confederation of Bar, initially headed by Józef Pułaski and Michal Karpin´ski, was at first limited to Podolia but later extended to other provinces and aimed to oppose the privileges and laws affecting dissidents (non-Catholic, mostly Orthodox Poles) passed by the 1767 –1768 parliament. These privileges were issued under pressure from Catherine II and limited the rights of Polish Catholic nobles. Action was also directed against the growing level of Russian interference in Polish domestic issues. The confederates of Bar were initially defeated in Bar by Russian forces aided by King Stanisław August Poniatowski’s troops, but they were joined by numerous nobles throughout Poland-Lithuania. The confederates received the backing of France (Colonel Charles Dumouriez was sent to the confederates with money and advice) and Turkey. In 1770 a group of magnates hostile to the monarch joined the confederation and declared his dethronement. Two years later confederates even tried to kidnap the monarch, as a result of which they lost many supporters. Confederate troops, headed by Kazimierz Pułaski (son of Józef), the future hero of the American Revolutionary War, scored several local victories and held the fortresses of Cze˛stochowa and Lanckorona before finally being forced to surrender on July 18, 1772. The leaders of the confederation emigrated, while the approximately 6,000 men captured by the Russian army were exiled to Siberia. The Confederation of Bar never developed an organized, effective army —its struggle was based on an ineffective levée en masse combined with guerrilla warfare. The confederation’s program, albeit conservative and interested in retaining the nobles’ privileges, inspired interest in western Europe. Jean-Jacques Rousseau devoted his Considérations sur le gouvernment de la Pologne, Gabriel Mably his Du gouvernement et des lois de la Pologne, and Claude Rulhière his Historie de l’anarchie en Pologne to the aims of civil liberty and national independence as represented by the confederates. Following the second partition in 1793, the situation of the rump state of PolandLithuania was extremely difficult. Not only was the size of the state diminished — with a substantial part of Poland’s economy falling to the Russian and Prussian hand —but the diminished Poland had to sustain a Russian army of occupation of 40,000 men. The occupants’ economic exploitation resulted in the collapse of many enterprises, including six Warsaw banks, with the result that the situation between civilians and the army grew tense and led to a high level of emigration. In the major cities (Warsaw; Krakow; and Wilno, now Vilnius, Lithuania) conspiratorial organizations were formed to exert pressure on politicians to start a war on the occupiers.

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When at the end of February 1794 the Russians decided to reduce the size of the Polish army and arrests were made among the conspirators, a decision was made to start an uprising. On March 24, 1794, Tadeusz Kos´ciuszko, a hero of both the American Revolution and the Russo-Polish war, proclaimed an act of insurrection in Krakow, took chief command of the military operations, assumed dictatorial powers, and soon established an insurgent government called the Supreme National Council. Based on his American experience, Kos´ciuszko wanted to conduct his military operations with a regular army supplemented locally by a peasant and middle-class militia. In order to raise the necessary army, regular conscription was carried out —one infantryman to be drawn from every 5 households, and one fully equipped cavalry trooper from every 50 households. By this means, the army was to number 100,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry. With about 6,000 men (4,100 regular troops and 2,000 peasant troops), Kos´ciuszko left Krakow for Warsaw at the beginning of April. On April 4, Kos´ciuszko’s army defeated Russian troops at the Battle of Racławice, an action that became legendary due to the participation of peasants armed with scythes. Despite the Polish victory, the way to Warsaw remained blocked. On April 19, in a military camp in Bosutów, Kos´ciuszko, seeking to attract more peasants to his cause, freed all the peasants serving in the army from their feudal obligations. Two weeks later, on May 7 in Połaniec, the dictator of the uprising issued a manifesto (Uniwersał Połaniecki) granting personal freedom to all peasants and promising to diminish substantially their personal obligations to their landlords. The manifesto also threatened those who would not follow its regulations. The fortunes of the insurrection improved greatly when uprisings broke out in Warsaw (April 17) and in Wilno (April 22). Jakub Jasinski, a radical noble, soldier, and poet, headed the latter revolt. By the end of April 1794 the revolt involved the entire Polish territory as it had existed in 1793. As soon as Warsaw joined the insurrection, a temporary council was formed in Warsaw. The council, serving as the government, was not as radical as some expected. Thus, on April 24, the so-called Jacobin Club was formed, which started to exert strong pressure on the government. As a result, on May 9, several traitors who took part in the Targowice Confederation were executed. The rebel authorities in Warsaw remained divided politically between the moderates and the radical Jacobins. In May, as Kos´ciuszko was working on strengthening and enlarging the army, Prussian troops entered Polish territory, leaving the Poles trapped between their own forces and those of the Russians. In an attempt to stop the union of these two armies, Kos´ciuszko left Warsaw and fought unsuccessfully at Szczekociny ( June 6). Ten days later, on June 15, the Prussians took Krakow. At the same time, the siege and defense of Warsaw began. The siege lasted for two months, after which the Prussian and Russian troops were obliged to raise the siege in order to fight the rebel forces in Great Poland, Kujawy, and even Pomerania, as the insurrection spread. On October 2, Polish forces captured Bydgoszcz and entered Prussia. Yet this was as much as the Polish forces could achieve. With Russia obtaining a pledge of neutrality from Turkey on August 8, Austrian troops entered southern Poland, and the insurrection in Lithuania collapsed with the fall of Wilno on August 11. The days of the uprising were numbered.

Political Clubs (French)

Kos´ciuszko tried to raise additional troops, but on October 10, a numerically superior Russian army beat his 7,000 men after heroic resistance at the Battle of Maciejowice, where the Polish commander himself was wounded and taken prisoner. Thereafter, neither the moderates nor the Jacobins could effectively command the uprising. Alexander Suvorov’s troops attacked Warsaw and on November 4 took the district of Praga, where Russian troops proceeded to massacre thousands of civilians. Finally, at the Battle of Radoszyce on November 16, the remains of the insurgent army were dispersed. Kos´ciuszko’s insurrection had but a feeble chance against the combined Russian, Prussian, and Austrian troops, and it was only a question of time before it was put down. The third partition of Poland followed. Without the uprising, a rump Poland might have survived, but with it, the kingdom was doomed to destruction. The uprising had great social importance. On one hand, it was the first national struggle for the survival of the Polish state. On the other, it inaugurated democratic changes —inspired by the French Revolution —within Polish society, which sought to solve the problem of serfdom. See also Poland, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on; Poland, Partitions of; Polish Constitution. FURTHER READING: Gierowski, Jozef. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the XVIIIth Century: From Anarchy to Well-Organised State. Krakow: Polska Akademia Umieje˛tnos´ci, 1996; Kieniewicz, Stefan, ed. History of Poland. Warsaw: Polish Scientific Publishers, 1979; Lukowski, Jerzy. The Partitions of Poland, 1772, 1793, 1795. London: Longman, 1999; Stone, Daniel. The Polish-Lithuanian State, 1386 –1795. Seattle: University of Washington, 2001. JAKUB BASISTA

Political Clubs (French) French political clubs evolved out of the unshackling of people’s political consciousness generated by the ideas and events leading to the French Revolution, which effectively ended the ancien régime. In the absence of official political parties in France, political clubs became essential to the organization of revolutionary fervor. The earliest formation of political clubs in France began with the meeting of the Estates-General in May 1789. Shortly after the opening of the Estates-General to work toward a constitution, deputies from Brittany formed the Club Breton at Versailles. The official name of the organization was the Society of Friends of the Constitution (Société des Amis de la Constitution). After the club moved to Paris in October, its members became known as the Jacobins. The Jacobin Club gradually acquired branches in the provinces and acted as a center for news, propaganda, and action. By 1793, the Jacobin Club had become the dominant political voice in France, with some million members, largely respectable lawyers, shopkeepers, and independent craftsmen who had time to engage in politics. The club’s early members included Mirabeau, Sièyes, Barnave, Pétion, the abbé Gregoire, Charles Lameth, the comte de Lameth, Maximilien Robespierre, the duc d’Aiguillon, and La Revelliere-Lepeaux. The Jacobin Club also had an Indian ruler, Tipu Sultan, among its ranks. The Jacobin Club derived its popular name from the monastery of the Jacobins (the Parisian name of the Dominicans), where the members held their meetings. Successively, the club occupied the refectory, the library, and the chapel of the

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monastery. The chief purpose of the club was to highlight activities that could help secure support for the group from elements outside the Legislative Assembly. In affiliation with the Parisian branch of the club, many patriotic societies were formed in other French cities. The middle class constituted the largest part of the membership in these societies, which exercised through their journals considerable pressure on the Legislative Assembly. Once transferred to Paris, the Jacobin Club underwent rapid modifications. In a marked step, the club started expanding by admitting as their members or associates others besides deputies. On January 18, 1790, Arthur Young, an Englishman, entered the club in this manner. On February 8, the society became formally constituted on the broader basis through the adoption of the rules drawn up by Barnave, which were issued with the signature of the duc d’Aiguillon, the president. The objects of the club were defined as, first, the discussion of the questions to be decided by the National Assembly; second, working for the establishment and strengthening of the constitution in accordance with the spirit of the preamble (i.e., respect for legally constituted authority and the rights of man); and third, corresponding with other societies of the same kind. At the same time, the constitution of the club was adopted. Any member who by word or action showed that his principles were contrary to those espoused by the constitution and the rights of man was to be expelled, a rule that later facilitated the “purification” of the society through the expulsion of its more moderate elements. With Article 7, the club decided to admit as associates similar societies from other parts of France and to maintain with them a regular correspondence. By August 10, 1790, there were already 152 affiliated clubs, and by the close of the year the Jacobins had a network of branches all over France. It was this widespread yet highly centralized organization that gave to the Jacobin Club its formidable power. From the beginning, provincial branches were far more democratic; nonetheless, the leadership was usually in the hands of members of the educated or propertied classes. Up to the very eve of the republic, the club ostensibly supported the monarchy, as it took no part in the petition of July 17, 1790 for the dethronement of King Louis XVI, nor had it any official share even in the insurrections of June 20 and August 10, 1792. It only formally recognized the republic on September 21, 1792. The character and extent of the club’s influence cannot be gauged by its official acts alone. Long before it emerged as the principal focus of the Reign of Terror, its character had been profoundly changed by the secession of its more moderate elements, some to found the club of 1789, some in 1791 —among them Barnave, the Lameths, Duport, and Bailly —to found the Feuillant Club, and some to found the club monarchique. The constituency to which the club was henceforth responsible, and from which it derived its power, was in fact the sans-culottes of Paris —cosmopolitans and starving workpeople —who crowded its tribunes. It was to this audience, not primarily to the members of the club, that the speeches of the orators were addressed and by its verdict that they were judged. In the earlier stages of the Revolution the mob had been satisfied with the fine platitudes of philosophy and the vague promises of the politicians. But as the chaos in the body politic grew, and with it appalling material misery, the people began to clamor for the blood of those believed to be the traitors in office, a process that led to the elimination of the moderate elements from the club. The ascendancy of Marat, and finally of Robespierre, who shared

Pownall, Thomas

the suspicions of the populace, gave a voice to their concerns. Finally, they did not shrink from translating their declarations into action. After the fall of the monarchy, Robespierre himself symbolized the Jacobin Club; for tribunes he was the oracle of political wisdom. All others were judged by his standard. The Jacobin Club was closed after the fall of Robespierre on July 29, 1794, and some of its members were executed. An attempt was made to reopen the club, which was joined by many of the enemies of the Thermidorians, but on November 11, 1794, it was definitively closed. Its members and their sympathizers were scattered among the cafés, where the young aristocrats known as the jeunesse dorée waged a ruthless war of sticks and chairs against them. Nevertheless, the Jacobins survived, in a somewhat subterranean fashion, emerging again in the club of the Panthéon, founded on November 25, 1795, and suppressed in the following February. The last attempt to reorganize Jacobin adherents was in July 1799 and was then known as the Club du Manège. Barras patronized it, and some 250 members of the two councils of the legislature were enrolled as members, including many notable ex-Jacobins. It published a newspaper called the Journal des Libres, proclaimed the apotheosis of Robespierre and Babeuf, and attacked the Directory. But public opinion was now preponderantly moderate or royalist, and the club was violently attacked in the press and in the streets. The spread of the Revolution brought political clubs to Holland, Belgium, the Rhineland, Switzerland, and Italy after 1792. They served as meeting places for radical patriots and republicans. None survived Napoleon’s rise to power during the coup of Brumaire in 1799, and the club as such disappeared from French politics for half a century. However, the success of the revolution of February 1848 saw a proliferation of political clubs in Paris and the provinces. Politics in 1848 was inclusive rather than exclusive; it incorporated tradition and modernity simultaneously. This mass mobilization accommodated newspapers and clubs along with songs, folklore, and village fairs and cafés. The gap between intellectuals and the people was bridged in an unprecedented fashion. Sparked by an acute social and economic crisis, they served as forums for debate and aroused popular action. But they were closed in the repression following the workers’ uprising in June 1848. Revolutionary clubs remerged simultaneously in Germany, Austria, and Italy but in 1849 suffered the same fate as those in France the previous year. Political clubs reappeared in France after the proclamation of the Third Republic in 1870. Ranging from Blanquist to Jacobin to socialist, all became the focus for debates on political, social, and military questions. However, the collapse of the Commune in 1871 brought a final end to political clubs in France. See also Girondins. FURTHER READING: Amann, Peter. Revolution and Mass Democracy: The Paris Club Movement in 1848. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975; Kennedy, M. L. The Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution. 2 vols. New York: Berghahn Books, 2000; Woloch, Isser. Jacobin Legacy: The Democratic Movement under the Directory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970. JITENDRA UTTAM

Pownall, Thomas (1772 –1805) Thomas Pownall was a colonial governor and British politician. Born in Lincoln, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and his brother John Pownall, a

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long-serving secretary to the Board of Trade, gained for him his first appointment. Sent to New York in 1753 as the secretary to the new governor, Sir Danvers Osborn, Pownall attended the Albany Congress and traveled extensively through America. Appointed governor of New Jersey in 1755, he later served as governor of Massachusetts from 1757 to 1759 and was appointed governor of South Carolina in November 1759. In 1760, however, he decided to return to London to further his political career. Pownall established his reputation as a colonial expert with the publication of his Administration of the Colonies (1764), which was well received and went through five further extended editions to 1777. Elected to the House of Commons in 1767, he maintained an extensive correspondence with the popular party in Massachusetts and was instrumental in the recall of Thomas Hutchinson, the governor of Massachusetts, in 1774. Pownall became a leading spokesman for a policy of conciliation with America. Beginning with the publication of his Principles of Polity in 1752, Pownall had shown a keen awareness of the laws of nature and the often discordant influence economics played in policy formation. He was full of schemes to restore harmony to the British Empire. Initially supporting Lord North’s policy of attempting to coerce Massachusetts in 1774, Pownall came to recognize the futility of the war by 1777, and in 1780 he introduced peace proposals into the House of Commons, which would recognize, rather reluctantly, the independence of the United States. In 1781, he published Memorial Addressed to the Sovereigns of Europe, which predicted how American independence would break up the old system of European diplomacy and transatlantic trading patterns. In his 1783 Memorial Addressed to the Sovereigns of America, Pownall, an early if critical admirer of Adam Smith, predicted the breakup of the Spanish empire in Latin America and suggested that world peace would be best served by the creation of a transatlantic political federation based upon free trade. Although respected, he was often largely ignored. Governor Pownall died in Bath, England, in 1805. See also Adams, Samuel; Albany Plan of Union; American Revolution; Boston Port Act; Latin American Revolutions. FURTHER READING: Guttridge, G. H. “Thomas Pownall’s The Administration of the Colonies: The Six Editions.” William and Mary Quarterly 26 (1969): 31–46; Schultz, John A. Thomas Pownall: British Defender of American Liberty. Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1951. RORY T. CORNISH

Prairial See Law of 22 Prairial

Prairial Insurrection (1795) The Prairial Insurrection of Year III (May 20 – 23, 1795) would prove to be among the last major episodes of popular activism during the French Revolution, due in part to the National Convention’s forceful use of National Guard units, leading to the arrest of many activists and the execution of several popular leaders. The spring of 1795 proved restless. In the aftermath of the Thermidorian Reaction, the government sought to liberate the economy from the controls established by its Montagnard predecessor. Such changes, most importantly revocation of the law of

Prairial Insurrection

The death of Féraud during the Prairial Insurrection, an uprising of the Paris faubourgs against the Directory in May 1795. Courtesy of Alexander Mikaberidze.

the Maximum, created a free market, but with disastrous consequences. Inflation skyrocketed, and the assignat became devaluated in record time, losing 28 percent of its value in October, another 24 percent in November, 20 percent in December 1794, and 17 percent in January 1795. In some places, the increase in food prices brought about near-famine conditions. In March 1795, meat was unobtainable in Paris, while the price of bread increased over 12 times to 16 livres a pound and was rationed at one to one-and-a-half pounds per head in March. It then fell rapidly to 8, 6, and even 2 ounces over subsequent weeks. As in 1789, bakeries were frequently raided and ransacked, and merchants were threatened. Economic hardship led to the revival of radical Hébertiste agitation among the sans-culottes, who called for the restoration of the Constitution of 1793. Social discontent boiled over on April 1, 1795 (12 Germinal, Year III), when the Jacobins unsuccessfully attacked the Tuileries Palace and the Convention. Large crowds from various sections (Paris was divided into 48 sections or districts) burst into the hall of the Convention, many shouting, “Bread! Bread!” while some wore caps with the slogan “Bread and the Constitution of 1793.” However, the rebels were driven out without much difficulty by troops under General Pichegru. It was

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a significant victory for the Convention, which immediately exploited this occasion to deport the surviving Jacobin leaders, among them Jean Marie Collot d’Herbois, Jacques Nicholas Billaud-Varenne, Bertrand Barère, and Marc-Guillaume Vadier. As economic conditions continued to worsen, discontent in Paris and other large cities increased and the government turned to repression to keep agitation under control. However, it failed to prevent an armed uprising that began on 1 Prairial (May 22, 1795). Like the Germinal riots, the new uprising started in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, where armed crowds gathered in the morning and quickly advanced against the Convention. Although their first attack was repelled, the rebels attacked again around 3:30 p.m. and, after overpowering the guards, rushed into the hall of the Convention. There, amidst confusion and uproar, the deputy Jean-Bertrand Féraud was killed and his head paraded on a pike in front of the deputies. The Convention president, Boissy d’Anglas, did not dissolve the meeting and instead continued the session until late evening. As in Germinal, the main demands of the insurgents included better economic conditions and the enforcement of the Jacobin constitution of 1793. Breaking government ranks, some Montagnard deputies supported the uprising and adopted legislation releasing the militants arrested after the Germinal riots, restoring sectional assemblies, establishing an extraordinary food council, and sanctioning searches of houses of suspected hoarders. However, the insurgents acted disjointedly, as they lacked good leadership. Despite initial concessions, the government responded with ruthless efficiency. The jeunesse dorée (gilded youth), a parallel militia recruited from the ranks of minor officials and small shopkeepers who opposed the sans-culottes and Jacobins, was immediately summoned from their homes. National Guard units were quickly assembled in the capital and the Convention was cleared during the night. On 2 Prairial, government troops clashed with the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which was supported by other sections as well. However, the rebels failed to incite a general uprising in the capital and allowed their last chance of success slip through their fingers. On 3 Prairial, General Menou led some 20,000 men into the capital and seized control of the mutinous neighborhoods, chiefly the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which surrendered after being surrounded and threatened with bombardment and starvation. The government immediately ordered the shooting without trial of anyone captured carrying arms, as well as those wearing Jacobin symbols other than the cockade. Almost all the members of the old Committee of Public Safety, except for Lazare Carnot, and Montagnard deputies, who supported the uprising, were arrested, among them Jean-Michel Du Roy, Philippe Rühl, Charles-Gilbert Romme, Claude-Alexandre Goujon, François-Joseph Duquesnoy, Pierre Bourbotte, and Pierre-Amable Soubrany. Known as the Prairial Martyrs, the deputies were quickly tried, and as they were leaving the courtroom, the condemned men passed around a knife and stabbed themselves to death. Still, Du Roy, Soubrany, and Bourbotte were taken, bleeding, to the scaffold and executed on the guillotine. In the weeks after the uprising, dozens more Jacobins were arrested, and some 30 of them executed while others were imprisoned. The Prairial unrest was not limited to Paris alone, and a similar, albeit smaller, uprising took place in the provinces as well. They were all suppressed as the more conservative provinces became apprehensive about the possibility of the country again falling under the dictatorship of the Jacobins. The White Terror swept through many regions and the provincial jeunesse dorée was especially

Price, Richard

active in repressions in Bordeaux, Nantes, Avignon, Marseilles, and Le Havre, where dozens of Jacobins were executed and many more arrested and imprisoned. The Prairial uprising was the largest and most powerful Montagnard uprising that the Thermidorian government faced, and its success would certainly have changed the course of the Revolution. This was the first time since 1789 that a government succeeded in putting down a popular uprising and that the army was used as a mechanism of suppression. Its suppression represented the triumph of the men of Thermidor, who went on to establish the Directory. The National Guard was carefully purged of men suspected of Jacobin sympathies, and workers were barred from joining the Jacobin Club. A new police infrastructure was created for better control of the sections. Provisions were made for the removal of the Convention to Châlons in the event of future threats. In August 1795, as a direct result of Prairial and in order to secure it power, the Convention decreed that instead of free elections for the new Corps Législatif, two-thirds of both the councils of the Ancients and of the Five Hundred must, the first year, be members of the existing Convention. The Prairial insurrection signaled the end of the cohesive Jacobin party, although its elements would survive until 1799. As Lefebvre remarked, “This date should mark the end of the Revolution: its mainspring had been broken.” With the Left in tatters, the Convention, and later the Directory, would be at the mercy of the Right and the muscadins (royalist sympathizers), while the jeunesse dorée, previously a useful auxiliary militia, developed into a powerful force that no longer served to offset a rival force and presented a new threat. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Council of Five Hundred; Hébertistes; Legislative Assembly. FURTHER READING: Furet, François, and Denis Richet. La Révolution française. Paris: Hachette-Pluriel, 1986; Gendron, François. The Gilded Youth of Thermidor. Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1993; Lefebvre, Georges. Le Directoire. Paris: Armand Colin, 1946; Lefebvre, Georges. Les thermidoriens. Paris: Armand Colin, 1937. ALEXANDRE MIKABERIDZE

Price, Richard (1723 –1791) Born the son of a Dissenting minister in south Wales, Price was educated by Dissenting ministers in Wales and in London and became a Dissenting minister himself in and around London. He gained fame and notoriety because of the range of his intellectual accomplishments and the depth of his commitment to religious, civil, and political liberty. He made many famous friends, including Lord Shelburne, Joseph Priestley, and Benjamin Franklin, and conducted a prolonged correspondence with leading American and French intellectuals and reformers. His defense of liberty led to offers of both American and French citizenship. Price’s mathematical writings helped insurance companies to calculate life expectancy and to assess premiums to be paid for annuities and advised the government how to raise loans on favorable terms and to reduce the national debt. In his writings on moral philosophy (particularly A Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals in 1758), he stressed the importance of reason and sought to erect a universal moral system resting on truth and reason. Price believed that moral law existed independent of man and could be understood by human reason, and that once perceived, it was the duty of man to seek to follow its dictates. He stressed the importance of education, integrity, and effort

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so that men would do their best to observe this moral law. He accepted that men were not perfect, but he believed in the indefinite progress of human understanding and ability. In religion, Price was weaned away from the strict Calvinism of his father. He became an Arian and rejected the divinity of Christ, predestination, and eternal damnation but still accepted general and particular providence. He insisted that men must be allowed to follow their conscience in their religious beliefs and practices; these should never be subject to any political or ecclesiastical authority. He opposed the idea of a state church and he supported campaigns for religious liberty, including the repeal of the Test and Corporation acts. Price’s moral philosophy and religious opinions greatly influenced his political attitudes. He admired John Locke’s political writings and promoted natural rights, the sovereignty of the people, and the right of resistance. In Britain, he supported the Glorious Revolution, the Hanoverian succession, and Britain’s mixed government and balanced constitution. But he was increasingly concerned about the growth of the executive, the misuse of patronage, the increased national debt, and the size of the standing army. While never a republican or a complete democrat, he supported parliamentary reform and was ready to extend the franchise to any man who had the rationality, independence, and integrity to use it wisely. During the American Revolution he wrote Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty (1776) and Additional Observations (1777). In these famous tracts he attacked the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty, the British efforts to tax the American colonies, and all the British legislation on America from the Stamp Act to the Coercive Acts. He believed it was the British who had driven the Americans to rebel. He did not want to see an independent America, and he supported a loose Atlantic confederation, but he could not accept that Britain had the right to impose its authority on the colonies. After the American Revolutionary War, he produced his Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution (1784), which praised the United States as an asylum of liberty and for rejecting aristocracy and a state church. But he warned against the dangers of luxury and corruption and condemned slavery. Critical of the ancien régime in France, Price welcomed the French Revolution. He praised early developments extravagantly in his address to the Revolution Society in London on November 4, 1789. Published as A Discourse on the Love of Our Country, this address was subject to a vitriolic and undeserved attack in Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. Price was never a rash revolutionary, and he was not aware that the French Revolution would turn bloody and violent. He died before it did so. FURTHER READING: Cone, Carl B. Torchbearer of Freedom: The Influence of Richard Price on Eighteenth-Century Thought. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1952; Dickinson, H. T. “Richard Price on Reason and Revolution.” In Religious Identities in Britain 1660 – 1832, ed. William Gibson and Robert Ingram. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005; Laboucheix, Henri. Richard Price as Moral Philosopher and Political Theorist. Translated by Sylvia and David Raphael. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation at the Taylor Institution, 1982; Thomas, D. O. The Honest Mind: The Thought and Work of Richard Price. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977. H. T. DICKINSON

Priestley, Joseph (1733 –1804) The great English chemist and philosopher Joseph Priestley was a passionate political and religious radical. He came from a family of Protestant Dissenters

Prieur de la Marne

opposed to the established Church of England and served as a Dissenting minister and schoolmaster. His most important political book, An Essay on the First Principles of Government, and on the Nature of Political, Civil and Religious Liberty (1768), built on the tradition of John Locke to distinguish between civil and political liberty. Civil liberty meant the right of individuals to be unhindered by government in their lives and was more important to Priestley than political liberty or the power to serve in office or to elect to office. In 1773 he was hired as a librarian and tutor in the household of William Petty, Earl of Shelburne, a statesman and a supporter, like Priestley himself, of conciliation with the American colonists. (Priestley was also a friend of Benjamin Franklin and shared his scientific interests.) Priestley wrote political pamphlets, such as Address to Protestant Dissenters on the Approaching Election (1774), opposing religious discrimination and British oppression of the American colonists. Priestley became a Unitarian, denying Jesus’s divinity although continuing to believe him to be the Messiah, a technically illegal view. He was also a millenarian, interpreting the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon as signs of the forthcoming apocalypse. The reaction against the French Revolution in Britain made Priestley’s intellectual and political radicalism increasingly dangerous. In 1791 a conservative “Church and King” mob, tacitly supported by local magistrates and Church of England clergy, attacked his dwelling in Birmingham. Priestley emigrated with his family to the United States in 1794. FURTHER READING: Schofield, R. E. The Enlightened Joseph Priestley: A Study of His Life and Work from 1773 to 1804. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004. WILLIAM E. BURNS

Prieur de la Marne (1756 –1827) Pierre-Louis Prieur is referred to as Prieur de la Marne in order to distinguish him from another member of the Committee of Public Safety who shared the same last name (Claude-Antoine Prieur-Duvernois, referred to as Prieur de la Côte-D’Or). A practicing lawyer before the French Revolution, Prieur de la Marne was one of the original representatives to the first meeting of the Estates-General. He soon distinguished himself by his passionate speeches against the monarchy and the Old Regime; he voted for the death of Louis XVI. In July 1794, Prieur became a member of the Committee of Public Safety. Like the other members, he often acted as a representative on mission, principally to western France. Here, at the port of Brest, he was active in managing the town and the naval base, and giving direction to French fleet commanders. In the fall he directed actions against the anti-republican forces in the Vendéan rebellion. In December 1793, he established what became one the most extreme courts at Nantes. At one time this court condemned 2,905 people, many of whom were executed by being placed on barges that were then sunk. In May 1794, he returned to Brest to govern the city; he was there during the Thermidorian Reaction and was immediately removed from the committee, although he remained a representative on mission. In 1795, he participated in an attempted revolt by fellow Jacobins against the Directory, which failed, and went into hiding. After an amnesty, he went into private practice and did not participate in politics, although he did accept

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Napoleon. With Napoleon’s defeat in 1815 at Waterloo, Prieur was forced to go into exile in Belgium, where he died in 1827. See also National Assembly. FURTHER READING: Andress, David. The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006; Cormack, William S. Revolution and Political Conflict in the French Navy, 1789 –1794. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995; Palmer, R. R. Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005; Secher, Reynald. A French Genocide: The Vendée. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003. ROBERT N. STACY

Primary Assemblies Elections above the local level were conducted on a two-tier basis during the French Revolution. All adult male citizens who fulfilled the basic requirement for the franchise were eligible to attend primary assemblies, which met on seven occasions, in 1790, 1791, 1792, 1795, 1797, 1798, and 1799. The broad electorate was invited to assemble at the chefs-lieux of some 3,000 cantons, where they chose seconddegree electors entrusted with the election of district and departmental personnel, as well as national deputies. This process of indirect election was partly inspired by a concern to balance “number and reason,” by which most voters were excluded from the more important decisions. The electors acted as a counterweight to an extremely wide suffrage, because they were generally recruited from among the more wealthy citizens. The subordinate role played by the primary assemblies, not to mention the distance to be traveled by rural inhabitants to vote in the chef-lieu, inhibited participation. By 1799, average turnout was little more than 10 percent, yet in 1790 it had reached 50, and in 1797, some 25 percent. These assemblies thus involved millions of Frenchmen during the 1790s and acted as significant schools of citizenship, a function graphically illustrated by two constitutional votes taken in 1793 and 1795, when discussion on the proposed texts took place. FURTHER READING: Aberdam, Serge, et al. Voter, élire pendant la Révolution française, 1789: Guide pour la recherche. 2nd ed. Paris: Editions du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, 2006; Crook, Malcolm. Elections in the French Revolution, 1789 –1799: An Apprenticeship in Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; Gueniffey, Patrice. Le nombre et la raison. La Révolution française et les elections. Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1993. MALCOLM CROOK

Privileges All across Europe, privilege was one of the hallmarks of the ancien régime and was a primary means of dividing people into social orders rather than economic classes. All nobles, for example, were exempt from most taxation, whether they were extremely rich or extremely poor. It was the entrenchment of privilege, chiefly pertaining to the clergy and nobles, but also to judicial and financial elites, that necessitated not just reform but revolution in France. The refusal of the privileged elements of society to compromise with the needs of society as a whole caused the

Privileges

termination of their privileges, and very nearly their complete destruction. But privilege was not always seen as a negative drain on the community. The source of this system was the creation of feudalism in the early Middle Ages, in which members of society were divided into orders for the benefit of the entire community: those who prayed, those who defended, and those who labored. In return for the first two services (eternal salvation and protection from banditry and barbarian invasions), the third group worked the fields and provided sustenance for the whole community. As the state developed into an autonomous entity of its own (whether monarchical or republican) and took over the defense of the entire community, it became necessary to generate revenues through taxation to support troops and build walls, castles, roads, and so forth. Those praying for the safety of the community were unable to feed themselves, and those who maintained themselves in fighting conditions (and required expensive items like horses and armor) paid with their lives. Thus the burden of taxation fell completely on the third order, the laborers. Privilege over the course of the early modern period transformed, however, into a means by which the richer orders (the clergy and the nobility) maintained their control of most of the country’s resources and prevented most of the rest of the population from rising through the social hierarchy. This varied across Europe from countries where the privileges were extensive, such as France, to those in which social mobility was much more fluid, like England. In France, not only did medieval privilege continue well into the early modern era, but it increased in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, partly as a reaction against the increasing upward mobility of the middle classes. Not only were nobles exempt from most (but not all) taxation, but they had exclusive access to certain offices in the government, exclusive access to the monarch (the font of most privileges), and, from the mideighteenth century, a near-total monopoly on officer ranks in the army as well as to the elite military academies. As the military served as one of the easiest routes for social advancement in ancien régime France, this was a severe blow to the aspirations of the families of lawyers and merchants, as well as a contributing factor in the decline of the effectiveness of the French army in the eighteenth century. Privileges for nobles in most of Europe included symbolic honors (the rights to own and display heraldry, to appear at court wearing a sword, and precedence in public processions), useful rights (exemptions from taxation and labor services, monopolies on public facilities like mills), occupational preferences (for ecclesiastical or military posts or positions at court), and judicial privileges (ranging from having cases heard in superior courts, fines rather than prison sentences, and execution by decapitation rather than hanging). These varied from country to country. One of the first things to be abolished during the French Revolution was the system of hereditary privilege, by decree of August 4, 1789. FURTHER READING: Chaussinand-Nogaret, Guy. The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: From Feudalism to Enlightenment. Translated by William Doyle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985; Descimon, Robert. “Orders and Classes.” In Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, ed. Michel Delon. Translated by Philip Stewart and Gwen Wells. 2 vols. Chicago: FitzroyDearborn, 2001; Dewald, Jonathan. The European Nobility, 1400 –1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; Mousnier, Roland. The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 1589 –1789. Vol. 1. Translated by Brian Pearce. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979. JONATHAN SPANGLER

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Proclamation of 1763 Parliament issued the Proclamation of 1763 in response to the challenges of governing the territory in the Old Northwest. At the close of the Seven Years’ War (1756 –1763), the French relinquished their claims to the Ohio Valley, leaving the Indian inhabitants to contend with eager American settlers. In the summer of 1763, Pontiac, an Ottowa chief, led a rebellion against white settlers, prompting the declaration of the royal proclamation. The proclamation was meant to strengthen control of the enlarged British Empire. Its most important measure was a proscription on colonial settlement west of an imaginary line down the Appalachian Mountains. The edict reserved the lands west of the line for Native Americans, expressly forbidding either private individuals or colonial governments from negotiating cessions. In addition, the proclamation restricted commerce and travel in the western region to licensed traders. Parliament framed these measures as safeguards against Native American aggression, but they were also meant to limit provocations by colonists. The proclamation also created four new colonies in the acquired territory: Quebec, Grenada, East Florida, and West Florida. French colonists remained in Quebec, which presented the British administration with the task of protecting French religious and property rights secured by the Treaty of Paris (1763). The law was difficult to enforce. Many colonists resented the proclamation and continued to emigrate to the Northwest; recent settlers refused to leave. Furthermore, land grants to veterans of the Seven Years’ War and existing colonial charters extending to the Pacific Ocean created legal loopholes for land speculation. The proclamation did produce revenue, and it remained in effect, albeit with some changes, until 1776. Although a genuine attempt to manage relations between the British and Native Americans, the proclamation contributed to the rift between the British Empire and the American colonies that eventually led to the American Revolution. FURTHER READING: Alden, John Richard. John Stuart and the Southern Colonial Frontier: A Study of Indian Relations, War, Trade, and Land Problems in the Southern Wilderness, 1754 –1775. New York: Gordian, 1966; Cashin, Edward J. Governor Henry Ellis and the Transformation of British North America. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994. ROBERT LEE

Prohibitory Act (1775) Enacted by Parliament at the outset of the American Revolution, the Prohibitory Act greatly influenced the debate over independence at the Second Continental Congress. After the actions at Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress met on May 10, 1775, to decide whether the interests of the colonies would best be served by remaining a part of the British Empire. In the spring of 1775, many colonists remained undecided about the proper course of action: independence or reconciliation with Britain. Samuel Adams and other radicals favored independence, while moderates such as John Dickinson favored reconciliation. Pursuing a middle course, the Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petition —one last attempt at reconciliation. The Crown rejected the petition and in August 1775 issued a proclamation declaring the colonies to be in rebellion. On December 22, 1775, Parliament adopted

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the Prohibitory Act, a retaliatory measure that closed colonial ports to overseas trade and authorized the seizure of American ships at sea. The Prohibitory Act ended any chance for reconciliation between the colonists and the Crown. The Declaration of Independence was the ultimate response of the Continental Congress to the Prohibitory Act. FURTHER READING: Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763 –1789. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982; Morgan, Edmund. The Birth of the Republic, 1763 –1789. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956; Wood, Gordon. The American Revolution: A History. New York: Modern Library Chronicles, 2003. BRIAN W. REFFORD

Prussia and Germany, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on The French Revolution not only influenced political and social relations in France; it transformed all of Europe. Revolutionary events and French expansion brought about new political awareness not only in France but also in neighboring countries. For the German states, the year 1789 started a series of events that eventually brought about the redistribution of territories and the secularization of church principalities and property and transformed the government and political structures of the Holy Roman Empire. These changes, together with Prussia’s defeat in 1806 –1807, forced the introduction of political and social reforms and a significant shift in thinking about society and politics. At the outset, all but the most conservative German writers and intellectuals viewed the French Revolution in a benevolent light. By 1789, German intellectuals considered the decadence of the French aristocracy and the court, the pressing financial situation, and the burden of taxes indications of a crisis within the French state. By that time, modern political theory, including the contract theory of government, ideas of popular sovereignty, and Rousseau’s doctrine of the general will, was exemplified in the ideology of the new American republic and was well known to German intellectuals. Very few German observers doubted the right of the French people to a better form of government. In the early stages of the Revolution, many German observers tended to believe that the events would spread the Enlightenment, religious tolerance, and ideas of liberty and equality and establish a efficient system of political organization. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) put into words aspirations concerning these new ideals and gave people a new sense of dignity. The Constitution of 1791 seemed to be a model document of the Enlightenment. Those Germans who sympathized with the Revolution were generally enthusiastic about the establishment of the constitutional monarchy that the French established in September 1791. For the great majority of Germans, French politics became a main preoccupation. Germany was littered with pamphlets, articles, and odes. A plethora of travel accounts, journals, treatises, pamphlets, and poems about freedom, equality, and fraternity was published daily. German writers and publishers perceived a vast demand for news from and about France. Translations of French books, journals, and political pamphlets were not enough to satisfy the demands of the German readership. A number of writers actually moved to France and sent home firsthand reports. Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746 –1818), a proponent of the Enlightenment and

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educator, wrote his Briefe aus Paris zur Zeit der Revolution geschrieben, first published in Braunschweigisches Journal in the form of letters addressed to the editor, and then republished as a book in 1790. Campe arrived in Paris soon after the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, and devoted considerable time to the description and analysis of the event and its aftermath. Positive and negative implications of current events were continuously discussed, and there was considerable debate about the different views on the Revolution, as exemplified in Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (1791). The journals of J. W. von Archenholtz (1741– 1812) and Christoph Friedrich Nicolai (1733 –1811) declared their approval of the events, and the crowded salons of the Berlin hostesses Henriette Herz (1764 –1847) and Rahel Levin (1777 –1833) were buzzing with excitement. Georg Wilhelm Hegel (1770 –1831) and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775 –1854) declaimed the principles of 1789 at Tübingen and hoped to plant a liberty tree there, while Johann Georg Kerner (1770 –1812) burned his family’s patent of nobility on the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastille. Hölderlin wrote a Hymn to Humanity, and leading intellectuals, including Kant, Fichte, Klopstock, Herder, Schiller, Wieland, Tieck, and Jean Paul expressed similar sentiments. The influence of the French Revolution was particularly strong in Brunswick, Hamburg, and the Rhineland. During the first months of the Revolution, there was considerable excitement among the peasants in several German states. Uprisings occurred in Saxony and Silesia, in Mecklenburg, Trier, and Speyer. Participants in peasant disturbances demanded the return of old rights to use the meadows and woods that were taken by the feudal seigneurs and often refused to provide feudal services. Sporadic outbreaks also occurred in several Free Cities. Since the discontent was mainly based on the notion of the old right, not the revolutionary declarations, it seems that Revolution only intensified chronic discontent. With the development of events during the Revolution, German states were flooded with emigrants fleeing from the French and Mainz republics. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Conversations of German Emigrants (1795) contains an analysis of the political and ideological situation in which the émigrés found themselves. In the Conversations, an aristocratic family is described escaping the French revolutionary army in 1793 from their lands on the left bank of the Rhine to their property on the right bank. The family members represent the whole political spectrum of the time, from Karl, a cousin who is an enthusiastic advocate of the Revolution, to the old privy councilor ardently defending the ancien régime. The defeat of the republic in Mainz increased political argument, leading both Karl and the privy councilor to advocate terror as a way of achieving their revolutionary and reactionary aims. In general, the activities of émigrés in the German states made them the unwilling champions of the Revolution. This, combined with the activities of French propaganda, with its headquarters in Strasbourg, supported the idea of equality and the dislike of the privileges of the nobles and made German intellectuals support the Revolution as a vehicle of reform after all previous less radical attempts had failed. The great majority of Germans empathizing with the French Revolution rejected the idea of revolution in Germany. Wieland was optimistic that Germany could not be fully receptive to French ideas because Germany was in a better state than pre-revolutionary France. Many were simply skeptical about Germans’ political maturity. Scientist and author Georg Forster (1754 –1794), for instance, even after

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committing himself to the revolution in Mainz, emphasized that the Germans were not yet ready for a revolution. Instead, he believed that the German rulers should learn from the French example and actively promote reforms and improvements. In fact, the truly radical “Jakobiners” were a distinctly small group in Germany, while the term was broadly used by German conservatives to refer to those who were in any way sympathetic to the French Revolution, extending later to embrace all advocates of social change. Many intellectuals who applauded the French Revolution but rejected the idea of a revolution in Germany felt that Germany had already had its revolution in the Reformation. Those Germans who idealized the values of the Lutheran Reformation believed that the principles of the Catholic Church clashed with the intellectual values propagated by the leaders of the French Enlightenment. The issue of freedom of thought and religious tolerance was one of the most pressing concerns of German observers (especially to German Protestants) early in the Revolution, and the role of the Catholic Church in French national life was closely scrutinized. Every indication of the weakening of the Catholic Church in France, including the confiscation of church lands, was widely approved of. German intellectuals followed the debates of the National Assembly about the role of the church in France with intense interest and applauded the reforms that were introduced. The developments in the northern German states in the 1780s had predisposed German observers of the Revolution to concentrate their attention on the treatment of religion. A religious edict introduced to Prussia was causing considerable controversy at precisely the same time revolutionary events were unraveling in Paris. Tolerance and freedom of thought and religious choice had been burning issues in Prussia since the accession of Frederick William II in August 1786. Frederick William, under the influence of J. C. Woellner (1732 –1800) and Rudolf von Bischoffwerder (1741–1803), was known for his strong interest in Christian mysticism, Kabbalah, and theosophy, which led Berlin intellectuals like Friedrich Nicolai to raise an alarm in the Berlinische Monatsschrift throughout 1785 over a supposed conspiracy of former Jesuits (formally dissolved in 1773) to infiltrate Protestant territories under the guise of secret societies. Frederick William’s Religious Edict of July 1788, the replacement of Enlightenmentminded officials, and the sharpened Censorship Edict of December 1788 raised even more concerns about the direction official policies in Prussia were taking. With few exceptions, the courts and cabinets of Germany looked at revolutionary events with suspicion from the start. Many government circles propagated ideas about a revolutionary world conspiracy led by Illuminati and/or Freemasons. Although the Order of the Illuminati, a secret society organized at the Bavarian University of Ingolstadt in 1776, was suppressed by Bavarian authorities in 1785, various conspiracy theories assigned it an important role in the French Revolution. It was presumed that Masonic lodges, secret organizations popular with German intellectuals and the bourgeoisie, were being infiltrated by the Illuminati and Jacobins to be used for the destruction of order in the German states. Another group that was frequently condemned was the German Jacobins, who welcomed French soldiers into the Rhineland from 1792 and supported the French administration there for a time. The Jacobin Club played a vital role in declaring Mainz a republic in 1792 –1793 under the protection of French troops. Georg Forster, the most prominent member of the Mainz Jacobin Club, went to Paris in March 1793 as a delegate of the Rhenish Republic organized on the left bank. Nominated vice

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president of the provisional administration and a deputy of the Rhineland German National Convention, Forster petitioned the French National Convention for the annexation of the left bank territories to the French Republic. The short-lived republic in Mainz ended in the middle of 1793 when the Prussian army occupied the city. Although the Mainz Jacobin Club had a relatively large membership, those Jacobins who regarded revolution by force in Germany as a necessity constituted an insignificant minority. However, a hysterical fear that the Jacobins were scheming and plotting in Germany only intensified with the development of the Revolution in France. On the sympathetic side, there existed a large body of writings that sought to explain the principal concepts of French revolutionary ideology, the French Constitution of 1791, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in an attempt to relate these concepts to accepted notions of human or natural rights, while denying that the assertion of those rights represented an unlawful rebellion against a hereditary sovereign. On the conservative side, critics of revolutionary ideas considered the French (and their German sympathizers) radicals, dangerous for their religious and moral teachings, and eager to limit the traditional rights and duties of sovereigns and religious authorities. To counteract the spread of revolutionary values, conservatives advocated strict enforcement of censorship regulations that, eventually, prepared the way for a tighter control of political writing and commentary over the course of the 1790s. There were also a number of German observers, especially in territories such as Brunswick, Danish-controlled Schleswig, and Holstein, Prussia, and the northern Imperial Free Cities, who considered themselves already to be living under better and more modern political conditions than the Revolution was ever likely to bring about in France. Their interest in the Revolution was primarily a disinterested one — the view of a spectator. In the early stages of the German analysis of the Revolution, the idea of spectatorship became an important one. Before the beginning of the wars between the German states and the French Republic, there was a certain feeling of safety in Germany. The Revolution was a peculiarly French concern. In the beginning, many Germans were spectators —uninvolved directly in events —though emotionally and intellectually touched by them. In this vein, Wieland identified the French Revolution as the greatest and the most fascinating of all dramas ever being played out on earth. In 1798, Immanuel Kant published his treatise The Contest of the Faculties, in which he wondered what historical events or experiences would allow the conclusion that humankind possesses a moral aptitude and that progress in general leads to better conditions. In his view, this event could not be a revolution itself but the way of thinking of the spectators, which becomes evident in the revolutionary drama of great transformations. Thus, the importance lies not in repeating the experiment, but in the participation of the spectators who are not involved in the spectacle themselves. Whether observing, empathizing, or criticizing revolutionary events as they unfolded, views on the Revolution grew more and more somber. The German public was shocked by the excesses of the French Revolution, especially the execution of the king, and apprehensive about the possibility of their repetition in Germany. The Reign of Terror marked a turning point in the Revolution’s effect on Germany. Many leading intellectuals, like Klopstock and Wieland, turned away from the Revolution. In his Phenomenology of Mind (1806), Hegel identified Jacobin terror with the hour of death. Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution and Friedrich

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von Gentz’s (1764 –1832) translation of that book crystallized anti-revolutionary thinking in German states. The scale of the violence and the high death toll were staggering, and the political implications of the abolition of monarchy were hardly conceivable. After the outbreak of war between revolutionary France and the German states it was difficult for Germans to distinguish between their views on the Revolution and their views on the war. French insistence on annexing German territories in the Rhineland and on extending the so-called natural frontiers of the country (the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees), combined with French military successes, caused the initial enchantment with the Republic to fade away. The French decision not to limit themselves to defending the achievements of the Revolution, but rather to pursue a policy of aggressive territorial expansion at the expense of the Germans, inevitably created a negative public image in Germany. Two concrete causes of friction between the new France and the old Europe arose over the abolition of the feudal rights of German princes on the left bank of the Rhine and the harboring of French émigrés in German states. The war that had begun in 1792 between France and the German states was extensively discussed in the press. The public was eager not only to hear the news but also to debate the decisions made by their respective governments. However, despite the rise in anti-French sentiment, there was no enthusiasm for war against France until 1813. The Peace of Basel in 1795 was welcomed by Germans, but friction began when France abolished feudal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the German lands in Alsace. Prussia joined the antiFrench coalition, led by Austria, in 1792 but was defeated at the battles of Valmy and Jemappes. Many considered the Napoleonic Wars to be a direct continuation of the French Revolutionary Wars, so that the struggle against the Revolution became the source of emerging national feeling in Germany. Although it could be argued that German nationalism existed long before 1789, it was the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars that started transforming German cultural nationalism into political nationalism. Concurrent with the military struggle against Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, leading German intellectuals, including Lessing, Klopstock, Hamman, and Herder, provided a solid foundation for a nationalist literature and a nationalist system of education, thus freeing German thought from French models. Ultimately, the experience of the Revolution became a prerequisite for the aesthetic theories and great works of art of German classicism and romanticism. The notion of art as a means of attaining the unity of the individual and of humankind in the works of Schiller, Novalis, and Hölderin was a reaction to fragmentation and violence in society and politics. In their declaration of the autonomy of art, art was equated with philosophical reason and sociopolitical activity due to its ability to exercise a humanizing social effect. In its autonomous essence, art could act as an ideal and model for man’s self-determination. This new definition of art was exemplified by Friedrich Schiller in his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (1794), a fundamental text on the theory of aesthetics. Drafted as an alternative to political revolution, it was built on the revolutionary postulates of freedom, self-determination, and humanity. According to Schiller, under existing social conditions, it was aesthetic experience, not a revolutionary experience akin to the French Revolution, that could liberate man in the fullness of his moral character. Improvements in political life could follow from man regaining his integrity and freedom in the aesthetic

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condition. This freedom is not equated with political freedom but rather facilitates it. While Schiller called the aesthetic condition the “second creator” of humankind, Goethe regarded his claim as an excessive demand on aesthetic elements and classified it as aesthetic Jacobinism. Another consequence of political events in France in general and revolutionary ideology in particular was the introduction into Germany of new terminology, symbols, and principles, including those of political and legal freedoms and national unity. New terms of political jargon came to symbolize these changes. An important part of German political vocabulary derives from the political language of the era of the French Revolution. The concept of the division of the political spectrum into Left and Right; the concepts of citizenship, representation of the people, majority, minority, and aristocracy; and the words “monarchist,” “democrat,” “demagogy,” “reaction,” and “propaganda” were all introduced. A large number of dictionaries of revolutionary language were published to reflect these changes in vocabulary. Thus, by 1795, the word “patriot” had come to signify not the ardent lover of fatherland, but an opponent of abuse of the old constitution, and later came to signify an opponent of monarchy. The new French symbols of political struggle were also introduced in Germany. In the early stages, cockades were worn, liberty trees were planted (as reflected, for instance, in Goethe’s sketch Landscape with the Tree of Liberty), and revolutionary clubs were founded. The combined influence of the revolutionary ideas of 1789 and the wars that followed produced several concrete results in Germany. First, the political framework of the country changed. The reaction to the Revolution rendered German society very political and brought about a splitting and a polarization of society into various political and ideological factions, though such a tendency could also be seen before 1789. Second, the weakness the Holy Roman Empire demonstrated in the war, the fall of Prussia, and the disintegration of the Ecclesiastical Electorate clearly revealed that the German states needed to be reformed. Following Germans’ disappointment with the course of the French Revolution and the lack of reform from above in the German states after 1793, another opportunity for the realization of the reformist objectives arose after the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. The war with Napoleon gave further impetus for reform. In a way, the Napoleonic reforms introduced into the states of the Confederation of the Rhine, together with the earlier reforms of the revolutionary period, became a model for Prussia’s extensive post1807 reforms that guaranteed equality before the law, freedom of the individual, property rights, the independence of the judiciary, the abolition of serfdom, and open access to public office. Thus, Prussia’s renaissance after its military debacle of 1806 may be considered an indirect consequence of the principles promulgated by the French Revolution. FURTHER READING: Blanning, T.C.W. The French Revolution in Germany: Occupation and Resistance in the Rhineland 1792 –1802. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984; Gooch, G. P. Germany and the French Revolution. New York: Russell & Russell, 1966; Kurtz, Gerhard. Germany and the French Revolution. Bonn: Inter Nationes, 1989; Saine, Thomas P. Black Bread —White Bread: German Intellectuals and the French Revolution. Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture 36. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1988; Träger, Claus, ed. Die Französische Revolution im Spiegel der deutschen Literatur. Leipzig: P. Reclam, 1975. NATALIE BAYER

Pugachev Rebellion

Pugachev Rebellion (1773 –1775) The Pugachev rebellion was the greatest peasant rebellion in eighteenth-century Russia. The leader of the uprising, a Don Cossack, Emil’ian Ivanovich Pugachev (c. 1742 –1775) assembled a diverse group of Cossacks, peasants, serfs, Ural mine workers, ethnic minorities, and religious dissidents dissatisfied with heavy taxation and military recruitment, the disruption of the traditional foundations of society, the tightening of state regulations, and the curtailing of local political autonomy. The spontaneous outbreak of disaffected elements grew into a rebellion aimed at changing the social and political foundations of society. During the first phase of the revolt, in the fall and winter of 1773 –1774, Pugachev led the attack on Orenburg, the seat of government authority in the Ural Mountain region, though the rebels soon had to retreat to the mountains. The second phase began in the late spring of 1774, when after amassing an army of followers, Pugachev took several fortresses in the Volga valley, including Kazan, by which time the rebels had established an imitation of the imperial court, complete with a government and a regular army. With the uprising at its height, Tsarina Catherine II redirected some troops from the war with Turkey to the Urals. The rebels were pushed into the mountains, where Pugachev was captured. Without its leader, who was publicly executed in Moscow in 1775, the uprising dissipated. Claiming to be Tsar Peter III (1728 –1762) and to have escaped death in Catherine’s plot of 1762, Pugachev projected himself as an ideal ruler. While he granted only temporary relief from serfdom, taxation, and recruitment, he endeavored to establish a simple society where the ruler represented a father to his people. Pugachev aspired to limit the mediating power of the nobility and to restore the natural bond between the tsar and the people. FURTHER READING: Alexander, John T. Autocratic Politics in a National Crisis: The Imperial Russian Government and Pugachev’s Revolt, 1773 –1775. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969; Raeff, Marc. “Pugachev’s Rebellion.” In Preconditions of Revolution in Early Modern Europe, ed. Robert Forster and Jack P. Greene. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970. NATALIE BAYER

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Q Quartering Act (1765) The Quartering Act was passed by Parliament in 1765 and was intended to offset the cost of housing British troops in the North American colonies in the years following the close of the French and Indian War (1754 –1763). The provisions called for soldiers to be housed in barracks and provided basic provisions, including bedding, cooking utensils, and a daily ration of cider . The initial act was amended in 1766 to include unoccupied buildings, inns, and taverns as potential billets for British regulars. The underlying motivation of this parliamentary action was to minimize outlays and to discern colonial reactions to indirect taxation. The colonial leaders resented this infringement on their basic rights and registered their concerns with British officials. On a philosophical level, colonists opposed the act because their views were not considered and because they feared standing armies during periods of peace. On a practical level, the quartering of soldiers placed a financial burden on the colonies, albeit a relatively minor one, and compromised the privacy of many colonists. The opposition to this legislation was particularly strong in New York, where the British commander in North America was headquartered with a sizable contingent of soldiers. The New York Assembly announced in 1766 that it would only pay a fraction of the cost of housing troops, and Parliament promptly suspended the legislature and declared the Assembly’s actions null and void. While tensions did eventually subside, the quartering of soldiers was a source of tension throughout the decade prior to the American Revolution. A major component of the Coercive Acts of 1774 was an amendment to the Quartering Act, which allowed soldiers to be housed in occupied dwellings. The quartering of troops was listed as a grievance in the Declaration of Independence and motivated the passage of the Third Amendment to the United States Constitution. FURTHER READING: Ammerman, David. In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774. New York: W. W. Norton, 1973; Countryman, Edward. A People in Revolution: The American Revolution and Political Society in New York, 1760 –1790. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981. JAMES T. CARROLL

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Quebec Act (1774) An act of Parliament considered by the rebellious 13 colonies to be one of the Coercive Acts contributing to the mounting case in favor of independence from Britain. Assuming that they would gain access to new territory to their west, the colonists had cooperated with Britain’s successful efforts to eliminate French control of Canada and Louisiana in the French and Indian Wars (1754 –1763). The Proclamation of 1763, however, halted settlement beyond the Appalachians, whereupon the Quebec Act gave administration of the Ohio Valley to Canada by extending the boundaries of Quebec to the Ohio River in the south and to the Mississippi River in the west. The act’s purpose was twofold. First, Britain wanted to reconstitute the former French Empire in North America by restoring its economic unity through the integration of the area of the Gulf of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes with Quebec in such a way as to project British authority into the interior of North America beyond the Appalachians. Second, the act was designed to put Britain’s relationship with its new French-speaking and Catholic subjects in Quebec on an amicable basis. In addition to new territory, the act therefore guaranteed to Quebec its seigneurial system of land tenure and civil law and confirmed the rights of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada, including the right to control of education. The act halted 50 years of expansion of the American colonies and cut off the Crown’s American subjects from territories to which they felt entitled after having aided Britain in expelling French power from North America. Additionally, Britain was now in principle establishing Roman Catholicism in the Ohio Valley . It confirmed the suspicions of the rebellious American colonies that the Crown sought to thwart their westward expansion even as it told the more militantly Protestant among them that George III tended toward “popery ” and would surrender vast territory to a social and political system they regarded as a feudal tyranny in order to do so. FURTHER READING: Alden, John. A History of the American Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1969; Mackesy, Piers. The War for America, 1775 –1778. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964; Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Oxford History of the American People. New York: Oxford University Press, 1965; Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Vintage, 1991. CARL CAVANAGH HODGE

Quincy, Josiah (1744 –1775) Josiah Quincy’s place in history would be more prominent today had he lived longer . Although he was an important figure in Massachusetts, what is most important in considering his legacy are his travels to the other colonies. In traveling as far south as the Carolinas, Quincy gave a face and a personal presence to the ideas emerging from Massachusetts. Under the name “Hyperion,” Quincy wrote papers and articles that defined and supported opposition to Parliament’s legislation. With John Adams, he defended the British soldiers tried for killing civilians in the Boston Massacre of March 1770. Although none of the Patriots believed the soldiers to be innocent, it was thought necessary to provide the defendants with the best courtroom defense possible to avoid accusations that justice could not function in Massachusetts.

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In 1773 Quincy traveled to other colonies, meeting with local political leaders. Because most, if not all, of their knowledge of events in New England derived from correspondence, pamphlets, and newspapers, these personal meetings helped to create a feeling of common cause among different regions. In 1774, Quincy wrote and published “Observations on the Act of Parliament, commonly called the Boston Port Bill, with Thoughts on Civil Society and Standing Armies.” Advocating a pact among the colonies to oppose British policies, it was printed and distributed throughout the colonies as well as in Britain. Later that year he sailed to Britain, where he met with Benjamin Franklin and sympathetic Whig leaders and advocated American rights. Leaving Britain in March 1775, he died at sea just offshore from Massachusetts. See also Boston Port Act; Coercive Acts; Navigation Acts; Whigs. FURTHER READING: McFarland, Philip James. The Brave Bostonians: Hutchinson, Franklin, Quincy, and the Coming of the American Revolution. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998; Quincy, Josiah. Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy . New York: Da Capo Press, 1971. ROBERT N. STACY

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R Rabaut de Saint Etienne, Jean Paul (1743–1793) A prominent French revolutionary, Jean Paul Rabaut de Saint Etienne (also spelled Rabaut-Saint-Etienne, or Rabaut or Rabaud de Saint-Etienne) was born to a Protestant family in Nîmes. He followed his father’s footsteps in becoming a pastor. He was educated at the Lausanne seminary in 1763–1765 and was ordained as a pastor in 1764. Serving as a Protestant pastor in Toulouse and Nîmes, he worked energetically to secure civil rights for Protestants, which Louis XVI granted in 1787. After writing Lettres sur l’histoire primitive de la Grèce, he gained national prominence and was elected as a representative of the Third Estate of Nîmes and Beaucaire to the Estates-General in 1789. He participated in the debates leading to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, was elected a member of the committee for drafting the constitution, and was elected president of the National Assembly (March 15–27, 1790), despite protests among the nobles and Roman Catholic clergy, who opposed his demands for equal rights for Protestants. In 1791, Rabaut de Saint Etienne worked on the framing of the constitution of that year and edited the Chronique de Paris and the Moniteur Universel. To publicize his views, he also published the Feuille villageoise. He was elected administrator of the département of Gard in September 1791 but chose to remain in Paris. In 1792, he was elected to the National Convention as a deputy for the département of Aube and sat among the Girondins at the trial of Louis XVI, where he voted for the detention, and later for the delay, of the king’s execution. In late May 1793, he served as a member of the Committee of Public Safety to ensure the security of the Girondincontrolled government but failed to prevent the Jacobin coup on June 2, 1793. He was put on the list of the Girondin deputies subject to arrest and went into hiding in Versailles and Paris for the next few months. He was arrested and guillotined on December 5, 1793. Rabaut de Saint Etienne was the elder brother of JacquesAntoine Rabaut, dit Rabaut-Pommier, deputy of the National Convention. See also French Revolution; Jacobins; Reign of Terror.

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FURTHER READING: Dartique, J. A. Rabaut St-Etienne à l’Assemblee Constituante. Paris, 1903; Dupont, André. Rabaut de Saint-Etienne. Strasbourg: Editions Oberlin, 1946; Rabaut de Saint Etienne, Jean-Paul. Œuvres. Paris: Laisné frères, 1826; Robert, Adolphe, Edgar Bourloton, and Gaston Cougny, eds. Dictionnaire des parlementaires français. Paris: Bourloton, 1889–1891. ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE

Randolph, Edmund (1753–1813) Edmund Randolph was born on August 10, 1753, into a prominent Williamsburg, Virginia, family that was very closely associated with colonial politics in Virginia and the movement for independence. His father was the attorney general of Virginia, and his uncle served as the first president of the First Continental Congress. He attended the College of William and Mary and read law under the tutelage of his father—a partnership that endured until the two men split over the issue of independence. His father affirmed his Loyalist perspective and left for Britain when war broke out, while Edmund committed himself to the cause of revolution and sought out a commission in the Continental Army. During the American Revolutionary War, Randolph made a very favorable impression on General George Washington, who in 1775 invited him to be his aidede-camp, a position reserved for men devoted to both the revolutionary cause and to Washington personally. In 1776 Randolph served as delegate to the Virginia Convention and was chosen as the attorney general of the newly independent Commonwealth of Virginia. He was elected to the Second Continental Congress in 1779 and was governor of Virginia between 1786 and 1788. Randolph’s most important contribution to the early republic came at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. With significant assistance from James Madison, Randolph drafted and presented the Virginia Plan, which proposed scrapping the Articles of Confederation and forming a national legislature based on state population. This proposal—sometimes called the Randolph Plan—engendered intense debate and serious divisions in the Constitutional Convention yet provided an essential framework for the nascent federal constitution. The Connecticut Compromise, which called for a bicameral legislature in which the Senate would defend the interests of the individual states and the House of Representatives would reflect the interests of the general population, borrowed heavily from Randolph’s plan. Concerns over the lack of checks and balances prompted Randolph’s refusal to give his approval for the United States Constitution, yet he encouraged Virginia to ratify the instrument. In spite of his misgivings regarding the power of the federal government, Randolph served as the first attorney general and second secretary of state during President Washington’s administration. He resigned as secretary of state in August 1795 amid speculation fueled by France that he was soliciting bribes. He returned to the practice of law and defended Aaron Burr during his trial for treason in 1807. He died in Millwood, Virginia, on September 13, 1813. FURTHER READING: Reardon, John. Edmund Randolph: A Biography. New York: Macmillan, 1975. JAMES T. CARROLL

Randolph, Peyton

Randolph, Peyton (1721–1775) Peyton Randolph was a leading figure in colonial politics and was elected as the first president of the First Continental Congress in 1774 but died before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Randolph was born to a wealthy and prominent family in Williamsburg, Virginia, on September 21, 1721. He graduated from the College of William and Mary and studied law in London, where he was admitted to the bar in 1743. Randolph returned to Virginia and established a law practice, but in 1748, through his father’s influence, Randolph was appointed the king’s attorney (attorney general) for the colony. He was also elected a member of the House of Burgesses. Randolph gained fame throughout the colonies in 1751 when he claimed that the Toleration Act, which applied to religion, did not apply to the colonies. Randolph also led opposition to a fee imposed by the royal governor of Virginia on land transactions and secured the removal of the tax during a mission to London in 1754. Infuriated, the governor suspended Randolph, but the government in London ordered his reinstatement. Randolph became a close confidant of George Washington, and he was both a friend and cousin to Thomas Jefferson. He had a series of very public disagreements with Patrick Henry. Randolph personified the older, conservative colonial elite, while Henry and his counterparts were more radical. Nonetheless, in 1760, Randolph approved Henry’s appeal following the rejection of his law license. In 1764, Randolph chaired the committee that crafted the response of the Burgesses to the Stamp Act, though he opposed the series of amendments offered by Henry, known as the Virginia Stamp Act Resolution (five of Henry’s seven amendments were adopted by the legislature). Although he favored settlement of the outstanding disputes between the colonies and Britain, Randolph gradually came to favor independence. In 1766, he was elected Speaker of the Burgesses and resigned as king’s attorney. Randolph continued to serve as a counterweight to the more impetuous Henry, but both increasingly worked to garner support for more autonomy for the colonies. Randolph supported Henry’s proposed measures to oppose the Townshend Acts. In 1769, the Burgesses were dissolved by the governor because of their opposition to restrictive trade regulations. In May 1773, Randolph became the chair of the Virginia Committee of Correspondence, and he chaired the Virginia Convention the following year. The Convention appointed Randolph as one of its delegates to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The Congress unanimously elected Randolph as its president. The position was largely ceremonial, but the election of Randolph was seen as a unifying gesture among the colonies. He served from September 5 to October 21, 1774. Randolph then resigned but returned to Virginia to serve again as Speaker. He was elected to the Second Continental Congress, and again elected president on May 10, 1775, but again only served a brief period (less than one month) due to ill health. Randolph died in Philadelphia on October 22, 1775. See also Adams, John; American Revolution; Boston Port Act; Boston Tea Party; Committees of Correspondence; Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms; Declaratory Act; Randolph, Edmund; Virginia Resolves. FURTHER READING: Daniels, Jonathan. 1972. The Randolphs of Virginia. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1972; Henderson, H. James. Party Politics in the Continental Congress.

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New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974; Reardon, John. Peyton Randolph, 1721–1775: One Who Presided. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1982. TOM LANSFORD

Rankin, William (1745 –1830) William Rankin was a Pennsylvania landowner and militia colonel who secretly passed information to British headquarters for five years during the American Revolution. After fleeing across British lines, he served as an advisor to Sir Henry Clinton and died in exile in Britain. William Rankin was a member of a prominent family in western Pennsylvania. In 1776, he served in the Continental Congress but broke with American Patriots over the Declaration of Independence. He secretly offered his services to the British that year. The British instructed him to pass on intelligence but were too cautious to approve Rankin’s more audacious schemes, especially after a 1778 plot to seize a magazine failed and Rankin came under suspicion. As the war continued, Rankin languished on the Pennsylvania frontier, closely watched by his superiors and neighbors. Rankin was not idle; he built a formidable force of at least 1,800 Loyalist spies and agents. Rankin reported to General Clinton that he had as many as 8,000 men ready to rise up and seize forts along the western frontier. Clinton could not spare the men to assist a rising in western Pennsylvania, however, and Rankin decided not to risk his men without British support. Suspicion caught up with Rankin in March 1781, when he was arrested. He managed to escape and fled to British-occupied New York. He became an officer on Clinton’s staff and devised a number of new plots, including the seizure of Philadelphia by a flying column and the establishment of a Loyalist refuge in the upper South. Clinton decided this idea had merit and divided his forces to hold coastal Virginia. This decision led indirectly to the capture of Cornwallis’s army at Yorktown. In 1783, Rankin followed the evacuating British Army to Britain and his estate was seized by the U.S. government. Rankin received a generous pension from the British government and died in England in 1830. See also Continental Congress, Second; Loyalists. FURTHER READING: Burgess Shenstone, Susan. So Obstinately Loyal: James Moody, 1744 –1809. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000; Clinton, Henry. The American Rebellion: Sir Henry Clinton’s Narrative of His Campaigns, 1775 –1782, with an Appendix of Original Documents. Edited by William B. Willcox. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1954; Van Doren, Carl. Secret History of the American Revolution. New York: Viking, 1941. JAMES L. ERWIN

Reign of Terror (1793–1794) The phrase “Reign of Terror” refers to the most violent episode of the French Revolution, which took place from the summer of 1793 to the summer of 1794. That period of brutal repression is principally associated with the figure of Maximilien Robespierre, the most prominent member of the Committee of Public Safety. Ideologically, the Reign of Terror shows how principles of democracy, freedom, and virtue can be dangerously taken to the extreme to justify totalitarianism and the suspension of civil liberties.

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The Reign of Terror did not start on a specific date in summer 1793. In the absence of any salient event such as a political coup, historians have proposed different dates to mark the beginning of the Terror. Many have adopted the date of September 17, 1793, when the National Convention (the legislative assembly) passed the Law of Suspects authorizing the charging of all alleged counterrevolutionaries with vaguely defined “crimes against liberty.” Some historians tend to prefer the date of September 5, 1793, when the Convention officially adopted terror as its national policy (the phrase “to make terror the order of the day” is often quoted in that respect, though it is not clear who coined it). Other scholars favor the earlier date of June 2, as the arrest of Girondin deputies (including Jean-Pierre Brissot) prefigured the deleterious way the Jacobin republic was to deal with all its opponents. Other symbolic dates include July 13 (assassination of Jean-Paul Marat, who was soon to become a patriotic martyr), July 27 (when Robespierre joined the Committee of Public Safety), and even October 16 (the beheading of Marie Antoinette, nine months after Louis XVI). In any case, the end of the Reign of Terror can be more precisely pinpointed: July 27, 1794 (arrest of Robespierre and other key “terrorists” such as Saint-Just and Couthon), and July 28–30 (execution of over 100 supporters of Robespierre in Paris), marking the beginning of the Thermidorian Reaction. The key characteristics of the Reign of Terror include a state of emergency in which violence was justified to protect the young Republic, with a well-organized terrorist apparatus nationwide, resulting in many arrests, fines, imprisonments, and sentences to death. Historians concur that during these 10 to 12 months, up to a half-million people were imprisoned for political crimes. Revolutionary courts and tribunals sent over 16,000 men and women to the guillotine, and over 40,000 were executed without trial or died in prison awaiting trial. If one includes the 200,000 deaths from the Vendéan rebellion, the total number of deaths due to the Terror is over 250,000. With the exception of the Vendée and parts of Brittany, the Terror was predominantly an urban phenomenon; besides Paris, the cities most affected were Lyons, Marseilles, and Toulon. The systematic repression of all perceived enemies of the Republic was made possible by a government highly centralized around the Committee of Public Safety. Set up in April 1793, the Committee of Public Safety has become closely associated with the Reign of Terror, as it imposed terror as the national policy in order to safeguard the legacy of the Revolution. This group of 12 men is sometimes referred to as the Commission of Twelve. They all originated from the French petty bourgeoisie, and their average age of 38 years, the youngest member, Louis de Saint-Just, being only 26. This unique political organization within the Jacobin republic was essential to the mechanisms whereby the Terror spread across France with systems of arrests, show trials, and public executions. The Committee of Public Safety operated as an executive government responsible for the implementation of the laws passed by the Convention. Two other institutions, the Committee of General Security (responsible for the surveillance of the police force) and the insurrectionary Paris Commune (whose military power was supported by the sans-culottes and by a Parisian revolutionary army from September 1793 onward) initially competed with it. The law of December 4, 1793 (14 Frimaire, Year II, in the French revolutionary calendar, hence its name, the Law of Frimaire), reorganized the revolutionary government, and by spring 1794, the Committee of Public Safety had substantially strengthened its authority and was leading the country and the policy of terror. Through an original system of collective decision making, shared responsibility, and

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confidential debates, the 12 members of the committee—Bertrand Barère (1755– 1841); Jean Nicolas (sometimes Jacques Nicolas) Billaud-Varenne (1756 –1819); Lazare Carnot (1753–1823), Jean Marie Collot d’Herbois (1750?–1796); Georges Couthon (1755? –1794), Marie Jean Hérault de Séchelles (1759–1794); Robert Lindet (1743?–1825); Claude-Antoine Prieur-Duvernois, also known as Prieur de la Côte-d’Or) (1763–1832); Pierre-Louis Prieur, also known as Prieur de la Marne (1756 –1827); Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794); André Jeanbon Saint-André (1749–1813); and Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just (1767–1794), who was nicknamed the Archangel of Terror—co-led a quasi-dictatorial regime. With different areas of expertise, different personalities, and different interests, the 12 men were hardly ever together in Paris at the same time; some were often away on mission in the provinces, supervising the local implementations of the Terror through watch committees as well as the regional enforcement of the continuously new laws and decrees originating from the Paris-based Convention. Although Robespierre did not formally occupy any leadership role on the Committee of Public Safety, he was its de facto figurehead. He was often the committee’s spokesman at the Convention, at the Jacobin Club, and at the Paris Commune; he was also the key ideological force behind the Terror: while other committee members (such as Carnot and Collot) were men of action, Robespierre was rather a man of rhetoric and a thinker and was mainly responsible for the ideology behind the Terror. Ideologically, the Reign of Terror did not follow any preplanned or prewritten political strategy: it was rather a continuous creation through the pragmatic application of the principles of the Enlightenment in a context of national chaos and anarchy, whilst the young French Republic was threatened both internally and externally. The writings of Rousseau (especially The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right, 1762), and to a lesser extent those of Voltaire and Montesquieu, were a particular inspiration to Robespierre, who took their concepts of liberty, individual rights, and democracy to the extreme, turning them into an ideology of terror. He was only 35 and had had limited experience in public office and with political responsibilities when his executive position on the Committee of Public Safety gave him the power and authority to turn his theoretical ideas into reality. He used terror as the process to create his utopia, a truly democratic society where virtue, equality, and freedom would reign. From his perspective, terror was necessary in order to ensure the eventual triumph of revolutionary ideals and the implementation of a morally united patriotic community. Both as a theory and as a practice, terror was inevitable and laudable. Extreme measures of repression, purges, bloodshed, and autocratic control were justified by the long-term public good and the supreme need to preserve the heritage of the Revolution and to ascertain the demise of the ancien régime: the end justified the means. Robespierre gradually conceptualized the notion of terror, referring to it in several speeches and texts: “Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a special principle as it is a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country’s most urgent needs.” Robespierre often associated terror with virtue, the two being inseparable: “If the aim of popular government in peacetime is virtue, then the aim of popular government in a time of Revolution is virtue and terror at one and the same time: virtue without terror is disastrous, terror without virtue is impotent.” Such statements provide an insight into Robespierre’s thinking and into the ideology of terror he developed and implemented through the Committee of Public Safety.

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There is more to the Reign of Terror than its well-known excessive repression. Other aspects need to be considered in order to appreciate the political ambition of that failed yet original ideology, especially with regard to economics and religion. With regard to economics, the Terror initially occurred during a troubled period of food shortages and food riots. A range of measures were taken, such as the creation of public granaries. Price control was the strategy advocated by the Committee of Public Safety: on September 29, 1793, the Convention passed a Law of General Maximum on the price of food, including bread, wine, cider, meat, fish, fruit, vegetables, and honey, as well as the price of goods such as wool, leather, cloth, soap, steel, and copper. Hoarders and speculators were arrested, fined, and even guillotined. These economic restrictions also included wage control, which shows a clear attempt by the state to try to control and stabilize the economy. Although it was never fully implemented, the Terror was underpinned by a program of redistribution of wealth; the Ventôse Decrees of February 26 and March 3, 1794 (8 –13 Ventôse, Year II), were written in that spirit: eliminating pauperism and ensuring some welfare for all were parts of the socioeconomic goals of the Terror. With regard to religion, one may distinguish between two phases: first, a brutal dechristianization (in autumn 1793), and second, an attempt at creating a new revolutionary religion (in spring 1794). The first years of the Revolution had already been marked by a strong anti-clericalism, and under the Terror this phenomenon intensified, with the looting of religious buildings, more deportation of priests or forced marriages, and even symbolic actions such as the removal of the word “Saint” from street names, as well as the desecration of the royal tombs at Saint-Denis. It is not possible in a few weeks to erase centuries of Catholic tradition though, especially in rural areas. The Committee of Public Safety realized that this policy would not rally national support but would lead to even more anarchy, so a change of direction was taken. Instead of eradicating religion across France and imposing atheism by force with little chance of success, Robespierre proposed a new cult to replace Christianity: the revolutionary eradication of the Catholic cult would take place through the cult of the Supreme Being. It was not a godless cult of reason, but rather a monotheist belief in a godhead who was watching over France and would help the Revolution triumph over its enemies. The cult of the Supreme Being was declared the state religion, and on June 8, 1794 (20 Prairial, Year II), the nation celebrated the first official Festival of the Supreme Being, orchestrated in Paris by the French artist JacquesLouis David. This new religion only lasted a few months, as it never gained popular support, but it shows how ideological the Terror was—a vast enterprise of social and moral regeneration that aimed to create a new culture and even a new society. Fiercely chasing and eliminating all apparent opponents was the method that enabled the Terror to carry on for almost a year, until even its figureheads found themselves outlawed and eliminated. The Terror fed on fights: military fights (against the Chouans in the Vendée, or against the coalition armies of Prussia and Austria on the northeastern borders of France, or against Britain with the siege of Toulon on the Mediterranean coast), civic fights (with national agents and representatives from the Convention sent to the provinces with the power to remove and condemn local administrative chiefs), and ideological fights (even against previous friends and allies such as Georges Danton and the Indulgents, who suddenly appeared too moderate, or Jacques Hébert and his supporters, who became too extreme). Under the pretext of protecting national security, crushing all types of

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resistance and opposition was the motto and the tenet of the Terror. Following the military victories of the autumn of 1793—the Battle of Hondschoote on September 8, the defeat of the Austrian army at the Battle of Wattignies on October 16, and the French victory against the British at Toulon in December)—the Terror focused its energy internally in the spring and summer of 1794, resulting in an increase in the number of condemnations and executions. France was then living in an overwhelming climate of threat and suspicion: it was said that even flowers in a woman’s hair could be a secret sign for possible conspirators. Although some regions were more affected than others, all over the country anyone could be arrested and suspected of being an enemy of the Revolution. Trials were swift and the guillotine was often used, especially in Paris. Its most important excesses took place in the last months of the Reign of Terror, as emblematized by the arrest of Danton on March 30, 1794 (10 Germinal, Year II). After a rapid trial over the following days, during which Danton was removed from the courtroom and unable to defend himself, he was found guilty on April 5 and guillotined a few hours later (16 Germinal). Two months later, the draconian law of June 10, 1794 (22 Prairial, Year II, hence the Law of 22 Prairial), streamlined the operations of the revolutionary tribunals and took legal procedures to the extreme: suspects lost the right to a lawyer and could be convicted even in the absence of any material proof. The Law of Prairial, which started a period called the Great Terror, is emblematic of the way the Terror was starting to self-destruct, having lost touch not only with the masses, but also with common sense and all rationality. Declining support from the population and from its representatives at the Convention, disillusion, moroseness, growing hostility, divisions, and internal tensions within the Committee of Public Safety all explain the paradoxical end of the Terror in July 1794, when Robespierre himself became a victim of the system he had designed and put in place. Following a conspiracy at the Convention, Robespierre, Saint-Just, and Couthon were declared enemies of the Republic on July 27, 1794 (9 Thermidor, Year II); they were arrested and guillotined the following day, without trial, in the pure style of the Terror. As the bloodiest episode of the French Revolution, the Reign of Terror ended abruptly with the execution of Robespierre and over 100 Robespierrists. A few days later, the Law of Prairial was repealed, and within a few weeks, the whole machinery of the Terror was dismantled. The Convention explicitly signaled a political move into a different direction, yet the so-called Thermidorian Reaction could not avoid a phenomenon of repression very reminiscent of the Terror itself. Hundreds of Jacobins and previous proponents of the Terror were arrested and executed. During this White Terror of the Year III (September 1794 –September 1795), the terrorists of the previous few months became the new targets; it was a form of revenge on the part of all the previous suspects, now released from prison, and many royalists. Violence followed violence, and anti-Jacobin terror replaced the Reign of Terror, whilst “Jacobin” became a term of opprobrium. Sporadic attacks across France lasted about a year until the formal demise of the Convention as a republican institution on September 26, 1795, when the Constitution of the Year III took effect, installing the Directory with the first bicameral legislature in French history, which started a new political era. The ideological heritage of the Reign of Terror is still controversial: it has been interpreted in several ways because of its intrinsic contradictions. In 1793–1794, the fear of a counterrevolution and the fear of invasion by foreign monarchist powers created the frenzied paranoia of

Religion

the governing bodies and the terrorist chaos that ensued. The state-sanctioned violence was paradoxically accompanied by a concern for humanitarianism, as emblematized by the decree on the abolition of slavery in the French colonies on August 23, 1793, and by the plans to redistribute to the poor the belongings of political prisoners. One can also see the beginnings of modern interventionism and socialism with social reforms, a new tradition of parliamentary democracy, and the separation of church and state, although all this occurred within a repressive and highly centralized government that prefigured twentieth-century totalitarian regimes (hence the frequent comparisons of Robespierre to Stalin and Hitler). The Reign of Terror arguably saved the French Revolution from disintegration, yet its extreme intransigence could only lead to self-destruction. It is mainly remembered for its violence and arbitrary executions, which is why, from an etymological viewpoint, the terms “terror” and “terrorist” took on the meaning and connotations they still carry today. FURTHER READING: Andress, David. The Terror: Civil War in the French Revolution. London: Abacus, 2005; Baker, K . M., ed. The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture: The Terror. London: Pergamon, 1987; Bouloiseau, M. The Jacobin Republic, 1792–1794. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984; Feher, F. The Frozen Revolution: An Essay on Jacobinism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987; Gough, H. The Terror in the French Revolution. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998; Kerr, W. B. Reign of Terror, 1793 –1794. London: Porcupine Press, 1985; Palmer, R. R. Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005; Scurr, R. Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution. London: Chatto and Windus, 2006; Wright, D. G. Revolution and Terror in France 1789 –95. London: Longman, 1991. L. L. LOMINÉ

Religion Religion in the revolutionary era of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was perceived in two primary ways: as a positive force for change and as a target for elimination by anti-clerical reformers. In America, nearly all the Founding Fathers believed traditional religion to be helpful in the development of the new nation. While some, like Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson, had become increasingly deistic in their beliefs, meaning they denied divine revelation and limited their faith to that of a Supreme Being, most, if not orthodox themselves, were respectful of the masses’ faith. Evidence for this is found in the overwhelming number of references to the scriptures and Christian tradition in the writings of the Founding Fathers. A study conducted recently showed that of the 3,154 different citations found in their collected writings, 34 percent came from scripture, whereas only 300 came from Enlightenment figures like Montesquieu, William Blackstone, John Locke, and David Hume. Traditional Christian faith, therefore, was not only a narrative backdrop for the founding of the American republic; it was also believed to be a primary source of virtue for the average citizen. John Adams articulated this clearly when he wrote, “It would be better to turn back to the gods of the Greeks than to endure a government of atheists.” In Europe, however, where the dominant intellectual force of the eighteenth century was the anti-clerical French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, institutional religion was about to enter a period of rapid decline. Though

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Voltaire believed religious observance to be integral to the human identity and the health of the nation, his followers did not. Part of the problem for the institutional churches and the papacy in Europe was the close ties to government held by church leaders. While the church would often claim that its welfare and the people’s were synonymous, many critics argued that the church’s welfare was more closely tied to the maintenance of monarchies and the various despots than to the people’s. Despite the somewhat spurious motives of the clergy, however, the masses remained faithful in their religious faith. The revolutionary leaders, however, were not so patient with and sympathetic to the interests of the institutional church. In France, soon after the Revolution’s launch, dechristianization became an integral part of the revolutionary National Assembly’s agenda. The anti-clerical measures began with the National Assembly’s passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, on August 26, 1789. This legislation included the provision that “No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.” As many Frenchmen considered the pope a foreign power, this article was designed to minimize his influence in the nation. The next assault on Christendom came with the expropriation of church properties in late 1789 (under the guise of paying off national debts). When hardly a cry came from the papacy or the clerics, however, the revolutionary leaders were emboldened in their efforts, and so, on July 12, 1790, a systematic eradication of clerical influence began in France with the legislation known as the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. This measure placed France’s Catholic Church under state control and made the ministers state employees. To make matters worse, on November 27, 1790, the Assembly prompted a civil war within the church by requiring an oath of allegiance from the clergy to the constitution. The revolutionary leadership, however, was not content with mere dechristianization. In November 1793, they attempted to replace traditional faith with their own state-sponsored cult of Reason, the celebration of which included the desecration of the cathedral at Notre Dame. The nation’s mostly observant Catholic populace, however, did not respond kindly to the ridicule and denigration of their church. Sensing an emerging backlash against the National Assembly, Maximilien Robespierre decided to soften the leadership’s image by creating the cult of the Supreme Being. Through a series of deistic rites and rituals, Robespierre attempted to inspire religious enthusiasm and patriotic morality in the state-sponsored Feast of the Supreme Being, held in June 1794. His efforts were for naught however, as the cult of the Supreme Being died with him the following month. Anti-clericalism was not limited to the French Revolution, though it was most devastating there. This is not to say that religion died in Europe with the Revolution in France. It did not. There were some successful revivals and reformation movements in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Within Catholicism, there were several isolated revivals in addition to the ultramontanist movement, the most famous of which was the Oxford Movement of the 1830s, which produced one of the great Catholic thinkers of the last 200 years, John Henry Newman. Within Protestantism, there were also several revival movements, some of which were reform oriented, like the antislavery efforts of William Wilberforce, and others that were prophecy oriented, like John Nelson Darby’s Plymouth Brethren. Despite these varying efforts,

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however, the institutional church in Europe has yet to recover from the secularization of the revolutionary era. On the other hand, in America, the various mainstream denominations experienced a great deal of growth throughout the nineteenth century. Through a combination of evangelical efforts and ecclesiastic-inspired social reforms, the American church remained a vibrant force for many years. Only recently has European revolutionary secularism and anti-clericalism been widespread. Through a rapid dechristianization of American schools and universities, and the governmental assumption of welfare duties, the church in America, like the church in Europe, continues to struggle for relevance and influence. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Ultramontanism. FURTHER READING: Johnson, Paul. A History of Christianity. New York: Atheneum, 1977; Noll, Mark A. Turning Points, Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1997; Novak, Michael. On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding. New York: Encounter Books, 2002. PETER R. MCGUIRE

Representatives on Mission Members of the National Convention were dispatched to the departments as soon as it assembled in September 1792. Yet it was the decree of March 9, 1793, that created the unique system of representatives on mission, dividing the country into groups of departments and assigning deputies to each. Others were sent to the armed forces, like Louis Saint-Just, who went to the Armée du Nord or Jeanbon Saint-André, who went to the navy, while yet others were entrusted with the task of supervising new means of making gunpowder. At any one time over 100 deputies might be absent from the Convention on mission, playing their part in a system that lasted until October 1795. Unlike intendants before them, or prefects later, they were representatives of the people on temporary assignments, not permanent administrators. In order to overcome the difficulty of enforcing the law on uncooperative or recalcitrant local authorities, however, they were given broad emergency powers. For their part they were tremendously energetic, not to say sometimes violent in their conduct, but they played a key role in ensuring the survival of the embattled Republic during its period of great crisis in the mid-1790s. Representatives had a largely free hand to issue their own decrees as well as to suspend existing laws, though they had to work with people on the ground as well as keeping in touch with Paris. Indeed, the best way to understand them is to read the proclamations and reports they regularly submitted to the Committee of Public Safety. They were empowered to requisition resources for the war effort as well as levy taxes, dismiss elected officials, and appoint replacements. Most controversially, they were given powers of arrest and the authority to condemn guilty parties to death. Even after the passage of the law of 14 Frimaire, Year II (December 4, 1793), which attempted to impose some order on the various measures that had grown up with the revolutionary government during the past nine months, some representatives continued to act in a more independent fashion. Their reluctance to return to the Convention when summoned to do so was in some cases out of fear of being held to account for corrupt or excessive practices, though many of these

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republican proconsuls were loath to abandon the influence they exercised over the localities. In many parts of the country they were simply emissaries for the Revolution, frequently expressing surprise at the ignorance they encountered. Clearly they were concerned to establish personnel who would continue after they had moved on, so typically, they would commence with a visit to the Jacobin Club of a major town. There they would seek intelligence to help shape their policy and choice of personnel. Unreliable local administrations were purged, and more humble individuals were often appointed to office, partly for political reasons, but also because wealthier inhabitants had become increasingly unwilling to serve. Since representatives were nominated by the Committee of Public Safety, then approved by deputies in the National Convention, it is no surprise that they largely reflected the dominant political tendency. Most of the 400 deputies who went on mission were regicides, and half of them may be classed as Montagnards, but the teams in which they traveled might well have been mixed in terms of affiliation. Those dispatched to rebellious areas like the west or the Midi had little choice but to concentrate on breaking resistance to the Republic. This was achieved through military force—in the Vendée or at Lyon or Toulon—followed by severe repression. Establishing tribunals and overseeing executions seems to have enthused some representatives, such as Jean Marie Collot d’Herbois at Lyon and Louis-Stanislas Fréron at Toulon, who exulted in the liquidation of hundreds of “enemies of the people.” There is no doubt that even though they were faced with desperate circumstances, some représentants vastly exceeded their punitive brief. Jean-Baptiste Carrier, who drowned more than 2,000 prisoners from the Vendée in the freezing waters of the Loire in January 1794 is a classic case in point; he would later pay for his crime with his own life, at the hands of fellow deputies a year later. Claude Javogues pursued a personal vendetta in his native Montbrison. The closure of churches and defrocking of priests that characterized dechristianization was often the work of representatives, especially if they were former priests like Joseph Fouché. As the machinery of the Terror was gradually dismantled after the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in Thermidor ( July 1794), representatives continued to be sent on mission for another year. Their political composition, however, altered considerably, and it was now the turn of moderate deputies from the Plain, or survivors of the Girondin purge lately readmitted to the Convention, to generally supervise the pursuit of former terrorists in their devastated departments. Some of these représentants gained as notorious a reputation as their Montagnard predecessors, among them Henri Isnard, who, confronted with a Jacobin uprising at Toulon in May and June 1795, urged opponents who lacked weapons to “dig up your fathers’ bones and use them to exterminate this horde of brigands.” Yet a myth has grown up around these roving deputies. They were by no means just bloody agents of the Terror, as the exaggerated attention accorded to certain extreme cases would suggest. Many of them engaged in constructive measures aimed at improving education and welfare, as well as ensuring compliance with existing legislation, not least in the quieter departments where the political pressure was rather less intense, and violence rare. In the Isère, for instance, a department on the eastern frontier, defensive measures were extremely important, but représentants like Deydier and Petitjean proceeded calmly. Intervention from the center overriding the decentralized regime that had marked the early years of the Revolution had

Republicanism

become essential for the infant Republic, not least in a context of foreign war and internal instability. Without the indefatigable efforts of the representatives on mission, the Republic would surely have come to grief in the Year II. See also Girondins; Jacobins; The Mountain. FURTHER READING: Aulard, François Victor Alphonse, ed. Recueil des actes du Comité de salut publié avec la correspondance officielle des représentants en mission. 28 vols. Paris, 1889–1962; Biard, Michel. Missionnaires de la République: Les représentants du peuple en mission (1793–1795). Paris: Editions du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, 2002; Gross, Jean-Pierre. Fair Shares for All: Jacobin Egalitarianism in Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997; Lucas, Colin. The Structure of the Terror: The Example of Javogues and the Loire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973; Palmer, R. R. Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of Terror in the French Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1941. MALCOLM CROOK

Republicanism Throughout early modern Europe and into the eighteenth century, republicanism developed as a potent political ideology that challenged the political norms expressed within monarchical structures. In contrast to the monarchical system, where the king exercised personal authority over his subjects and ruled his kingdom as a personal possession, republicanism revived the norms and concepts of antiquity, arguing that government was the common business (res publica) of the citizens that governs according to the common good. Republicanism emerged as an oppositional political discourse that rejected the theory of absolutism and the divine right of kings and looked to secure the freedom of the citizen within a constitutional framework that included representative institutions. Republicanism was first and foremost a theory of political liberty. Secondly, republicanism articulated a theory of government and a moral theory of citizenship that aimed to define the institutions and conditions necessary for the experience of liberty. Republicanism grew out of the practical experience of the Italian city-states of the late Middle Ages. It was out of the fifteenth-century city-states such as Florence, Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, where there were no kings or princes, only citizens who lived by common laws and statutes, although only a minority had the full privileges of citizenship, that Italian jurists, historians, and political theorists developed the basic tenets of a republican theory of liberty, government, and citizenship. They theorized about their practical situation by appealing to the republics of antiquity for political values and drawing from a wide body of ancient texts: the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, the political and moral writings of Cicero and Seneca, and the Roman histories of Livy and Tacitus, to name the most prominent. From Italy, largely owing to the work of Machiavelli, republican discourse spread to the political culture of many European nations. It became a central part of the political struggles in seventeenth century England, including the English republic of 1649, and a potent force in the revolutionary struggles of the late eighteenth century, when both the American and French revolutions culminated in the project of founding a new republic. The experience of revolution transformed the early modern discourse of republicanism, marking a transition to a modern revolutionary republicanism that would play an important part in nineteenth-century political struggles, especially in France.

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Republicanism begins with a theory of freedom as nondomination. For republicanism, the experience of freedom means the absence of domination by the will of others. The republican does not live, as Romans said, in potestate domini (in the power of a master.) According to republican theory, freedom required the political status and political institutions that could prevent the arbitrary will of another from imposing itself upon the citizen. This view of freedom conditioned the opposition to monarchy, where the arbitrary will of the king was a constant presence within the political community, even if the king acted benevolently toward his subjects. In contrast, republicanism emphasized the rule of law insofar as it argued that whatever interference or restraint the citizen was forced to accept must be dictated by the laws that citizens have given themselves through their participation within free institutions. Drawing on Roman sources, republicanism emphasized the importance of law as an expression of freedom, and a republic was defined as a government where the law was more powerful than any individual. In this sense, republicanism drew a central distinction between being subject to domination and being subject to restraint, and what it rejected about the monarchical structures of early modern Europe was the absence of free institutions and the rule of law. The problem of government was central to its theory of freedom, and republicanism sought to define the sort of government that could secure the experience of nondomination. Republicanism was a theory of representative self-government, where government was organized according to constitutional limitations. Republican theorists argued that government was necessary for the experience of freedom, but it was also a danger that, without check, could threaten to dominate the citizen. This led republicanism to favor a theory of a mixed constitution, whereby the various institutions of government would check and balance the power of one another. For republicanism, the best government is one that combines the three classical forms of governance—the rule of one (monarchy), the rule of the few (aristocracy), and the rule of many (democracy). This was expressed by a theory of a balance of powers within the sovereign body, whereby the legislature, deliberative, and executive powers check the power of each other while enabling different interests to be represented within constituted bodies. The classic model of the republican theory of mixed government was exemplified by the Republic of Venice, and the theory served as the basis for the system of republican government created by the American Revolution. In contrast to the classical practice, the revolutionary republicanism of the French Revolution rejected the theory of mixed constitution, and drawing largely on the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the revolutionaries defined the Republic as “one and indivisible.” According to this view, sovereignty could not be divided among different powers, and the Republic that was created in 1792 rejected the classic view of mixed government. This was a significant departure from early modern republicanism, and it exemplifies one of the ways that the French Revolution developed a distinctive vision of republican government. While republicanism emphasized the centrality of freedom, it combined with this concern for freedom a moral discourse about citizenship. In a republic, according to republican theory, a citizen is free, but he has the duty to care for his freedom and to care for the republic. Republicanism emphasized the value of civic virtue and the necessity of a political way of life that would enable the citizen to lead a virtuous life. Furthermore, politics is theorized as a central component of living a full and good life. The republic is defined not merely as an assemblage of political

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institutions, but as a moral community. By participating in the life of this community, the citizen is able to realize his full potential for a full and good life. Republican discourse emphasized that the common good of the republic required the citizen to perform certain duties and services, and it demanded that citizens place the needs of the community above their own private interests. As a moral discourse, it argued that the freedom the republic secured for the citizen came with the moral commitment to lead a life of virtue, which was the only true preservation of both the republic and the freedom its institutions enabled. For this reason, republicanism was a moral theory of virtue, patriotism, and duty as well as a political theory of liberty and free government. The republican theory and practice of the Italian city-states, derived as it was from Roman sources, was not democratic or egalitarian. It was the experiences of revolutionary America and France that combined a democratic and egalitarian discourse with the central republican themes of liberty, law, government, and republican virtue. The experiment of constructing a republic for a large nation, as opposed to a city-state, forced the revolutionaries to make important innovations within republican theory. At the same time, by combining a theory of the rights of man with republican theory, the American and French revolutions produced a distinctive change that led to the creation of modern republicanism. For this reason, modern republicanism can place considerable emphasis on the importance of political participation within democratic institutions and the centrality of equality that was not expressed within the broader tradition of early modern republicanism. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Hamilton, Alexander; Jacobins; Jefferson, Thomas; Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity; Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de le Brede et de; Paine, Thomas; Robespierre, Maximilien; United States Constitution. FURTHER READING: Van Gelderen, Martin, and Quentin Skinner, eds. Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002; Viroli, Maurizio. Republicanism. Translated by Antony Shugaar. New York: Hill and Wang, 2002; Wootton, David, ed. Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society, 1649 –1776. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994. BRODIE RICHARDS

Revenue Act (1766) The Revenue Act of 1766 (also known as the American Trade Act) was a response by the Marquess of Rockingham’s short-lived Whig administration to the outrage over the Stamp Act and other taxes levied by Parliament in the North American colonies. The Rockingham government followed a general policy of conciliation with the colonies while not relinquishing any parliamentary claims to authority. After repealing the Stamp Act, the government turned its attention to other issues, which, in turn, also divided the colonists from Britain. One was the high tax on sugar imported to the colonies from the French islands of the Caribbean in the form of molasses. This tax, more strictly enforced since the passage of the Sugar Act in 1764, was borne by the powerful American rum industry and supported by British West India sugar planters. In return for concessions relating to inter-island trade in the Caribbean, the West India planters acquiesced in a reduction and remodeling

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of the tax. The Revenue Act, passed into law on June 6, 1766, reduced the duty on molasses from three pennies to the gallon to one penny. It also applied the duty to both foreign molasses and molasses from the British Empire. Since this modification rendered the sugar tax a pure revenue-raising device, rather than as a means of forcing colonists to buy British sugar, the tax was an effective moneymaker for the government and aroused little opposition in America. FURTHER READING: Langford, Paul. The First Rockingham Administration, 1765 –1766. London: Oxford University Press, 1973. WILLIAM E. BURNS

Revere, Paul (1735–1818) Paul Revere, a multitalented Boston artisan, was recognized by contemporaries for his work as a silversmith and engraver but is best known today as one of two messengers dispatched by Dr. Joseph Warren the night of April 18, 1775, to alert John Hancock and Sam Adams that the British intended to arrest them and put them on trial in Britain for treason. Born in Boston, Revere was the eldest of seven children of Paul Revere (originally Apollus Rivoire, born in France in 1702) and Deborah Hichborn. Upon leaving Boston’s North Grammar School, Revere apprenticed with his father to learn the gold- and silversmith trade. He married twice: to Sarah Orne in 1757 (d. 1773), and then five months after Orne’s death to Rachael Walker. During the Seven Years’ War, Revere served in a New England militia expedition to Canada organized to seize (French-controlled) Crown Point. But after waiting six months at Fort William Henry on Lake George, the expedition was abandoned and never saw military action. Following this conflict, Revere returned to Boston and worked as a silversmith. In the late 1760s he expanded his vocational repertoire to include creating engraving plates used to produce printed illustrations. Revere’s engravings captured on paper significant episodes of the revolutionary movement. His engraving of the March 5, 1770, Boston Massacre distorted actual events but was enormously successful as a piece of Whig propaganda. Revere was a staunch Whig and ardent Patriot, but as an artisan he was never included in the inner circle of Massachusetts Whigs or elected to public office. He did serve on subcommittees of the Boston Committee of Correspondence and was a member of most of Boston’s Whig-leaning social clubs, including the North End Caucus and the Sons of Liberty. As a Son of Liberty, Revere participated in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. Revere’s skill as a dentist introduced him to Dr. Joseph Warren, who, along with Sam Adams and John Hancock, led Boston’s Whigs. This contact led to Revere’s now-celebrated role as a hired messenger. He frequently carried dispatches between Massachusetts’s Provincial Congress and the First Continental Congress but also carried the Suffolk Resolves to the Continental Congress in September 1774. On April 18, 1775, Warren dispatched Revere (along with William Dawes) to alert Hancock and Adams in Lexington that he believed the British intended to arrest them for treason and send them to London for trial. Revere’s ride was dramatized by Longfellow in the poem “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” published in Tales of the Wayside Inn (1863). After Revere delivered Warren’s message, he continued toward Concord but was quickly captured and briefly detained by a small British

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detachment. Though released as soon as the first shots were heard at Lexington, Revere did not return to Boston for fear of being arrested for treason. He remained with his family in Charlestown until the siege of Boston ended with the departure of the British for Nova Scotia in March 1776. During the American Revolutionary War, Revere printed currency for both the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and the Continental Congress, established a gunpowder mill, and served as a lieutenant colonel in the militia stationed at Fort William on Castle Island in Boston Harbor. Following the war, he established a foundry in Boston’s North End that cast bells and cannon as well as supplied the copper work for the frigate Constitution (“Old Ironsides”) and the copper plates for Robert Fulton’s first steamboat. Revere was also instrumental in organizing the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, an organization of laborers that predated the first organized labor unions of the mid-nineteenth century. See also Boston Port Act; Lexington and Concord, Actions at; Tea Act. FURTHER READING: Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere’s Ride. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994; Triber, Jayne E. A True Republican: The Life of Paul Revere. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998. CHRISTINE LAHUE

Revolutionary Committees of the French Revolution Although they predate the Reign of Terror by several months, the revolutionary committees of the French Revolution were probably its most ubiquitous instrument. The first committees were the spontaneous creation of a few communes across France during the fall of 1792 (most notably in Paris) in response to the fears generated by the disastrous course of the war with Austria. Their anomalous and quasi-legal position was clarified and legalized on March 21, 1793, by the National Convention. Every commune was henceforth required to set up a committee in each city section and to periodically renew its membership through elections. Initially, they were responsible only for registering and monitoring foreigners, but the definition of “foreigner” was amorphous enough that most suspects were, in fact, Frenchmen who came from outside the local community and were thus foreigners only in the broadest sense. By the fall of 1793 many municipal and departmental governments had begun to delegate portions of their authority to the committees and thus saw their tasks dramatically augmented. Among these new assignments were not only the supervision of foreigners but also suspects in general, the issuance of certificates of civism and residence, censorship of the mail, and the enforced observation of the décade (the new 10-day week, which took the place of the 7-day week). These functions gave them a unique perspective on the activities of resident foreigners as well as every city resident as denunciations began to accumulate on the desks of the committees. Despite the clear requirements of the law, most communes failed to create committees until the fall of 1793, when various representatives from the National Convention were sent out to the departments to organize a response to the civil war. The representatives on mission created committees wherever they went in order to both identify and arrest suspects but also to assist efforts in organizing the war effort. These appointed committees outnumbered elected committees in most places,

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and their assiduity often depended upon the activities of the representatives and the tasks they were charged with; the Convention’s attempts to create a uniform system of committees was never achieved, as not only did some communes fail to create any committees (and were never visited by a representative), but the powers allocated to and assumed by existing ones were quite disparate. Some communes elected committees that met only to formally acknowledge receipt of the new laws from Paris, discuss mundane issues, and adjourn, while others tried very hard to peer into as many private matters in their communities as they possibly could, whether such invasions were legal or not. The committees were provided with various tools by the Convention, including a national standard, which defined suspects on September 17, 1793, and was known popularly as the Law of Suspects. The committees were empowered to identify people who satisfied the terms of the law, arrest them (using the National Guard or local gendarmes), and hold them until the war ended. The law, which was intentionally vague, permitted the committees to seize a wide range of people who were not able to sufficiently prove their favorable opinion of the Revolution. Most of the suspects arrested under the Law of Suspects were either ex-nobles or clergy, groups that were generally assumed to harbor a serious antipathy toward the Revolution. The committees lost their reason for existence after the French began winning the war and civil war, and the overthrow of Maximilien Robespierre led most to begin wrapping up their activities and releasing their suspects. See also Committee of Public Safety. FURTHER READING: Sirich, J. B. The Revolutionary Committees in the Departments of France, 1793–1794. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1943. LEE BAKER

Revolutionary Tribunals The revolutionary tribunals were established as political courts for trying and executing anyone deemed to be an enemy of the Republic—especially supporters of the monarchy—but quickly became instruments of broad terror, overseeing the execution of tens of thousands of people from all social backgrounds. Almost 200 tribunals oversaw executions throughout France. The genesis of the revolutionary tribunals can be found in the efforts of Maximilien Robespierre, Georges-Jacques Danton, and Jean-Paul Marat to abolish the monarchy completely and establish and defend France as a republic under the governing National Convention. Initiated by decree of the Convention in March 1793, on the recommendation of Danton, the revolutionary tribunals were presented as a means of defending the Republic during its early stages against the actions of provocateurs, whether in the services of royalists, the church, or foreign powers. Each revolutionary tribunal was made up of 12 members: a 9-person jury and 3 public prosecutors. Decisions of the tribunals were final and there were no appeals. In Paris the revolutionary tribunal was headed by M. J. A Hermann with Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville serving as public prosecutor. Political purges not only were directed at counterrevolutionaries, monarchists, and those who sought alliances with other countries but also came to target political moderates and even the poor who became frustrated that the Revolution was not radical enough. Eventually the purview of the revolutionary tribunals was expanded

Rhode Island

to such an extent that any criticism of the government could become the basis for criminal charges. The range of charges that might send an accused individual before the tribunal became increasingly broad, including such vaguely outlined transgressions as seeking to inspire discouragement, abusing the principles or purity of revolutionary or republican principles, seeking to mislead opinion, and depraving morals or corrupting public conscience. Furthermore, every citizen was called upon to ferret out counterrevolutionaries and required to denounce them immediately upon identification. It was not long before Robespierre recognized the strategic political value of the revolutionary tribunals as a means of dealing with his political opponents and, as importantly, his rivals among the Jacobins and their allies. The extremes of injustice carried out under the revolutionary tribunals mirrored the growth of Robespierre’s influence within the Committee of Public Safety. They soon became the primary mechanism of the Reign of Terror. On 22 Prairial ( June 10, 1794) Robespierre and his supporters on the Committee of Public Safety proposed a law to release the revolutionary tribunals from the control of the Convention. This proposal sought to limit the opportunities available for the accused to defend themselves, thereby increasing the power of prosecutors. In addition to preventing the accused from employing defense counsel, the Law of 22 Prairial also dispensed with the hearing of witnesses, except where this might contribute to the discovery of accomplices. Moral “proof ” became sufficient to establish guilt. The new law further imposed the death penalty as a mandatory sentence for anyone found guilty. Over the course of 49 days, between the law’s enactment and the fall of Robespierre, more people, almost 1,400, were condemned to death under the revolutionary tribunal than had been throughout the previous year. The revolutionary tribunals eventually devoured their own, as both founder Danton and first prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville, found themselves standing accused before it. The revolutionary tribunal in Paris was abolished on May 31, 1795, almost a full year after the rise of the Thermidorians and their coup against Robespierre and the Paris Commune. It might be noted that despite their professed opposition to the Terror, the Thermidorians saw fit to deploy the tribunal toward their own ends. FURTHER READING: Andress, David. The Terror: Civil War in the French Revolution. London: Abacus, 2005; Fife, Graeme. The Terror: The Shadow of the Guillotine, France 1792–1794. London: Portrait, 2004; Hardman, John. Robespierre: Profiles in Power. London: Longman Ltd, 1999; Palmer, R. R. Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005; Scurr, Ruth. Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution. London: Chatto and Windus, 2006. JEFF SHANTZ

Rhode Island Rhode Island, like every other American colony, found itself divided into regions with differing and competing economic, social, and political interests. The two centers in the colony were the port cities of Providence in the north and Newport in the south. While the majority of Loyalists were in Newport, they still formed a minority in that area. When the Stamp Act was introduced in 1765, both cities saw riots and demonstrations against it.

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Before the American Revolution, Rhode Island actually elected its own governor. His position as executive was weak and subordinated to the Assembly and the Council. Rhode Island participated in the Continental Congresses and adopted the Articles of Confederation in 1778. At the conclusion of the war, the state strongly opposed the ability of the states under the Articles of Confederation to collect taxes. Within the state there had, however, been some expressed interest in strengthening the Confederation, but not enough to support a Constitutional Convention. Rhode Island sent no delegates to Philadelphia in 1787 for the Confederation and would not even convene a state convention to ratify the United States Constitution. Eventually the new United States brought pressure to bear. If it did not ratify the Constitution, Rhode Island would be treated as a foreign power in terms of commercial transactions and duties. In 1790, therefore, Rhode Island gave its ratification. See also American Revolutionary War; Constitutions, American State; Continental Association; Continental Congress, First; Continental Congress, Second; New England Restraining Act; Sons of Liberty; Stamp Act Congress. FURTHER READING: Bishop, Hillman Metcalf. Why Rhode Island Opposed the Federal Constitution. Providence, RI: n.p., 1950; James, Sydney V. The Colonial Metamorphoses in Rhode Island: A Study of Institutions in Change. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2000; James, Sydney V. Colonial Rhode Island: A History. New York: Scribner, 1975; Millar, John Fitzhugh. Rhode Island: Forgotten Leader of the Revolutionary Era. Providence: Providence Journal, 1975. ROBERT N. STACY

Riot at Golden Hill See Golden Hill, Riot at

Rivington, James (1724–1802) James Rivington was a bookseller and printer and the most effective Loyalist newspaperman during the American Revolution. Born in London, he was a member of one of Britain’s most important publishing dynasties, but his own wish to seek easy profits, a need fuelled by his gambling problem, led to his bankruptcy and immigration to New York City in 1760. Rivington established bookshops in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and in 1773 he began to publish Rivington’s New York Gazette, which, due to its excellent editing and news content, established a subscribership of 3,600 by 1775. During the rising imperial crisis, Rivington initially attempted to remain politically objective in his paper, a policy that targeted him for Patriot hatred and increasingly focused his Loyalism. Rivington’s contribution to the notion of a free press in America is now difficult to establish. Twice his printing shop at the foot of Wall Street was attacked by the Sons of Liberty, and finally in January 1776 he returned to London in September 1777, only to return to New York City as the king’s printer. Under the protection of the British garrison, he established the Loyalist Rivington’s New York Loyal Gazette, which was published from 1777 to 1783. Later renamed the Royal Gazette, this proBritish paper attacked American leaders, especially Governor William Livingston of New Jersey, and by successfully coordinating the publishing schedules of the other city printers, Rivington was able to produce the first daily newspaper in America. His

Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore

often-outlandish stories, such as the assassination of Benjamin Franklin and a report that Russia was sending Cossacks to America to fight for Britain, led his enemies, however, to dub his paper “Rivington’s Lying Gazette.” Rivington’s later wartime activities remain hard to access. When it became clear that Britain was losing the war, his attacks on American leaders decreased and eventually ceased altogether. In 1783, he refused to leave New York City with other Loyalists, and he renamed his paper Rivington’s New York Gazette and Universal Advertiser. His property was never seized, nor was he persecuted by his enemies, developments that have led to speculation that he was, after all, a spy for Washington during the war. Whatever the truth may be, Rivington never regained his prosperity and after a long spell in debtor’s prison died in poverty on July 4, 1802, in New York City. See also Newspapers (American). FURTHER READING: Bailyn, Bernard, and Hench, John B., eds. The Press and the American Revolution. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981; Cacy, Catherine S. “The Tory and the Spy: The Double Life of James Rivington.” William and Mary Quarterly 16 (1959): 61–72. RORY T. CORNISH

Robespierre, Maximilien François Marie Isidore (1758–1794) Maximilien Robespierre has achieved notoriety as the arch ideologue of the French Revolution and the prime instigator of the Reign of Terror. His unswerving devotion to the cause led to his nickname “the Incorruptible.” He entered politics at the age of 31 in 1789 and went on to become one of the foremost revolutionary leaders. His influence on the Committee of Public Safety, the ruling executive, ensured the Jacobin consolidation of his faction’s power during the bloody years of the Terror. Robespierre was, paradoxically, a somewhat elusive figure, especially in his later life. He finally became an almost total recluse who addressed the National Convention just once in the last two months of his life. It is too simplistic to dismiss Robespierre as a mere dictator who fell on his own sword, although the Committee of Public Safety was primarily involved in repression. He was an exponent of the bourgeois Left, which was subject to the bitter factionalism of the time. A man who dominated France during its struggle for modernity, by Thermidor of the revolutionary calendar’s Year II (1794), he had fallen victim to the vicissitudes of revolutionary politics and was executed. Politically, he was a follower of Rousseau and was said to sleep with a copy of his works under his pillow. Most works about Robespierre underline his fanaticism and blind faith in the Revolution. Robespierre was born in Arras, the provincial capital of Artois in the north of France, and became a lawyer. Contrary to some reports, his family were not descendants of Irish immigrants, as several genealogists have traced his roots back to the Middle Ages in northern France. Perhaps significantly for his later development, Robespierre was left an orphan at the age of eight and experienced poverty more than any other revolutionary leader, except possibly Marat. Rudé tells us that “There are evident signs in his early writings and pleadings of a deep concern for greater justice and equity, of a man acutely sensitive to poverty and outraged by the abuses of power and once convinced that virtue alone was the basis of happiness.” In 1788, he became involved in the debate over how the Estates-General should be formed. He argued that if previously used methods of election were employed,

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Maximilien Robespierre. Courtesy of Alexander Mikaberidze.

the body would be wholly unrepresentative. He had started to make his mark in politics and was eventually elected fifth deputy of the Third Estate of Artois at the age of 30. It was in the Estates-General and its successor body, the Constituent Assembly, that he achieved his reputation as something of a rabble-rouser. He was a frequent speaker in the Constituent Assembly and made a significant impression. He shifted his attentions from the newly formed Assembly to the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, known as the Jacobin Club, one of many political clubs that mushroomed in France. Consisting originally of the Breton deputies but eventually attracting artisans and shopkeepers, it was here that Robespierre found a receptive audience that would go on to idolize him. His name first appears in club records in April 1790, and between January and September 1791, he took to the floor some 35 times. The prospect of war was never far away at this time, and the intrigues over the looming conflict with Austria were a major part of Robespierre’s political development. From October 1791, the leftist group in the new Legislative Assembly, led by Jacques-Pierre Brissot, wanted a people’s war against the monarchies of Europe in order to spread the principles of the Revolution. The Girondin party was not alone in clamoring for war: Marie Antoinette hoped that war would restore the authority of the crown. Robespierre was originally attracted by the pro-war argument, but following Marat and others, he eventually aligned himself against the hawks. War would benefit the

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royalists, he argued, leave France vulnerable to military dictatorship, and threaten the nascent Revolution itself. These judgments indicate that Robespierre was more in tune with political realities than he is normally given credit for. Following the insurrection of August 10, 1792, and the taking of the Tuileries, Robespierre took his seat on the Commune of Paris, which had overthrown Louis XVI, as a means to check the political ambitions of the Girondins. The Commune was glad to have him, purely because of his popularity, his reputation for virtue, and his influence over the Jacobin Club and its branches across France. As proof of his personal popularity, he was later elected first deputy for Paris to the National Convention, where he was again attacked and vilified by the Girondins, whose federalist plans he in turn rejected. The Girondins lacked support in many areas, and with the idea that federalism threatened to divide the country in the face of the enemy, steps were taken to destroy their influence. On July 27, 1793, the Convention elected Robespierre to the new Committee of Public Safety. It was thought that the country needed strong executive government to prevent the victory of foreign armies. The solution was found in the Committee of Public Safety, and the Convention was not long in strengthening its powers. The Committee of General Security was also created to rule alongside and was given the management of the internal policing of the country. Georges Couthon and Louis Saint-Just, acolytes of Robespierre, sustained his policy. Over time, Robespierre’s maneuverings systematically weakened and removed his opponents from the committee, enhancing his position, powers, and prestige. Some have tried to belittle Robespierre’s role in the Terror, but as he was the mouthpiece of the new order, it is difficult to exonerate him totally. Georges Danton is often cited as the prime mover when it came to the Terror, as he was one who felt it was necessary to resort to extreme measures to keep France united and strong at home to successfully meet and see off her enemies. Robespierre had an influential following and was one of the most popular speakers in the Convention, where his pronouncements on revolutionary order led many to believe that the Terror was a means to an end and was indeed necessary, if not inevitable. His perceived integrity and incorruptibility gave further credibility to the committee. In 1793–1794, it became certain that the Hébertiste party must fall, or its opposition within the committee would make Robespierre’s own position untenable due to their significant influence in the Commune of Paris. Robespierre had a personal reason for intensely disliking that party of atheists and sans-culottes, as he was a deist who believed in the necessity of religious faith of some sort. Danton’s voice of moderation and his rejection of the continued series of sacrifices under the guillotine were unacceptable to Robespierre and his followers and left them open to attack. For Robespierre, Danton and his followers threatened the Revolution with their reluctance to continue with any means necessary to further the cause. He reached the conclusion that the end of the Terror would mean the loss of the impetus to enforce and promote the ideals of Rousseau. Robespierre abandoned Danton and cooperated in the attacks of the committee on the Dantonists and Hébertistes. Both men and their supporters were guillotined. The fall of the Hébertistes, in particular, served to augment and improve Robespierre’s patronage and power, bringing the Commune, the National Guard, and most of the executive commissions under his auspices. But considering the turbulence of the times, his grasp on power, despite appearances, was always tenuous. The main

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threat came from the Parlement, where Danton’s comrades were intent on not only wreaking revenge but implementing his strategy for peace and the end of the revolutionary government. In May 1794, at Robespierre’s insistence, the National Convention proclaimed as an official religion the cult of the Supreme Being, which was based on Rousseau’s theory of deism. This decree antagonized both Roman Catholics and atheists, but Robespierre still had the powerful backing of the Commune of Paris, and in June he was elected president of the National Convention. In Paris, Robespierre wanted to increase the tempo of the Terror. Georges Couthon, an ally in the committee, proposed the draconian Law of 22 Prairial, which put paid to any semblance of justice and created a kangaroo court, in effect. As a result of this law, between June 12 and July 28, the day of Robespierre’s death, no fewer than 1,285 victims perished by the guillotine in Paris. Robespierre’s increasingly aggressive speeches caused many influential members of the National Convention and the Jacobin Club to fear for their own safety. A series of French military victories then made the extreme security measures seem less imperative, and a conspiracy was formed for the overthrow of Robespierre. On July 27, 1794, he was barred from speaking at the National Convention and was placed under arrest. An uprising in his support by soldiers of the Paris Commune was thwarted, and on July 28 Robespierre died on the guillotine with his close associates Saint-Just and Couthon, along with 19 other supporters. Eighty more of his followers were executed the next day. Robespierre is the only one of the revolutionary leaders of whom it can be claimed that when he fell from power, the Revolution itself came to an end. Despite the historical tarnishing of his reputation, there are a number of positive aspects of his leadership. He was one of the greatest strategists of revolution who set an example that would be followed by Marxist-Leninists of subsequent generations. He was bold in his promotion of novel ideas and has even been directly compared by Rudé to Lenin, “with his genius for adapting the teachings of Marx to the circumstances attending the Russian Revolution of 1917; and, in particular, of his adoption of the Soviet form of government and of the bold experiment of the New Economic Policy following the devastation of war and civil war.” Robespierre’s persistence in communicating his political ideas has also been applauded. He was not the type of orator to rabble rouse on the streets. His was a more refined, subtle approach. One contemporary German visitor described him thus: “When he mounts the rostrum, it is not with a studied indifference or exaggerated gravity, nor does he rush upon it like Marat; but he is calm, as though he wished to show from the outset that this is the place, which without challenge, is his by right.” Robespierre was ever vigilant against any form of recidivism and a slide toward the tyranny of ancien régime monarchy. Known as a watchdog of the Revolution, he stands in stark contrast to Danton, who was eager to slip away to the country for a peaceful life at the first opportunity. In a speech of February 1794, he made his constant quest for vigilance clear: The first concern of the legislator must be to strengthen the principles on which the government is founded. Thus, it is your duty to promote or establish all that tends to arouse a love of country, to purify matters, to elevate the spirits and to direct human

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passions towards the general good. Conversely, you must reject and suppress all that tends to direct these passions towards a love of self or to arouse infatuation with what is petty and contempt for what is great. In the system we have created all that is immoral weakens the body politic, all that corrupts is counter-revolutionary. Weakness, vice, prejudice are so many sign-posts leading back to monarchy.

Mao and other communist leaders used a similar approach when they emphasized the need to purge the party and uproot dangerous vestiges of bourgeois culture and ideology within the party and the state. Robespierre is akin to Napoleon in that he can provoke widely divergent views from historians to this day. He remains a highly controversial figure. His staunch defenders have a tendency to view most of the measures of the Committee of Public Safety as necessary for the defense of the Revolution and tend to play down his responsibility for the bloodshed. Others tend to ignore Robespierre completely, as if his role was too despicable and tangential to merit a mention. In Paris he was not understood till he met his audience of fellow disciples of Rousseau at the Jacobin Club. His fanaticism won him supporters, his singularly sweet and sympathetic voice gained him hearers, and his upright life attracted the admiration of all. As matters approached nearer and nearer to the terrible crisis, he failed, except in the two instances of the question of war and of the king’s trial, to show himself a statesman, for he had not the liberal views and practical instincts that made Gabriel-Honoré Mirabeau and Danton great men. His admission to the Committee of Public Safety gave him power, which he hoped to use for the establishment of his favorite theories, and for the same purpose he acquiesced in and even heightened the horrors of the Reign of Terror. It is here that the fatal mistake of allowing a theorist to have power came about: Billaud-Varenne systematized the Terror because he believed it necessary for the safety of the country; Robespierre intensified it in order to carry out his own ideas and theories. His legacy has been greatest in Marxism. Politicians admired and aped his tactics, his interpretation of the democratic ideal, and what Hardman calls his “sense of moral superiority.” Robespierre’s characteristics, Hardman maintains, “are present in the militant tendency all over the world: mastery of procedures, invention of a pompous jargon concerning them, late night votes when all the moderates have gone home or reversing ‘bad’ decisions in the morning before they have got up.” The historian Andrew Roberts recently argued that Robespierre and his Jacobin acolytes were not simply reacting to the Bourbons’ “political idiocies” but were actively trying to create what Robespierre called Virtue, stating: “Intimidation without virtue is disastrous; virtue without intimidation is powerless.” Roberts argues: It was to build a brave new world, and make a definitive break with the pre-1789 past, that the revolution abolished Sunday and Christianity, creating instead a new calendar that started at year zero, and a new state religion. It guillotined so many people because it was a way of cleansing and purifying France, imbuing her with Virtue. Concentration on the fear of counter-revolution is only half the answer, and the less important half at that. The revolutionaries were not killing out of paranoia, but because they believed they were making a better world.

Ending the Terror was not as simple as dispatching the so-called arch terrorists, and it would be some time before France could enjoy a truly stable government, as

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the Napoleonic era, arguably, merely papered over the cracks left by the Revolution. With the focus of the world on terrorism as never before, it is doubtful that interest in Robespierre will wane any time soon. It would appear that his influence is alive and well to this day. See also Guillotine; Parlements. FURTHER READING: Fife, Graeme. The Terror: The Shadow of the Guillotine, France 1792–1794. London: Portrait, 2004; Gallo, Max. Robespierre the Incorruptible: A Psycho-Biography. New York: Herder and Herder, 1971; Hardman, John. Robespierre: Profiles in Power. London: Longman, 1999; Matrat, Jean. Robespierre: On the Tyranny of the Majority. London: Angus & Robertson, 1975; Palmer, R. R. Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005; Rudé, George. Robespierre. London: Collins, 1975; Scurr, Ruth. Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution. London: Chatto and Windus, 2006. STEPHEN STEWART

Rockingham, Watson-Wentworth, Charles, Marquess of (1730–1782) Born Charles Watson-Wentworth, the second marquess of Rockingham was a politician and twice prime minister (1765–1766, 1782) of Britain. The eighth child and only surviving son of the first marquess of Rockingham, he was educated at Westminster School and St. John’s College, Cambridge. He succeeded to his father’s title in 1750 and took up a seat in the House of Lords the following year. He thereafter rose to so dominate political life in Yorkshire that the Whig Club in York renamed itself the Rockingham Club in 1753. With the accession to the throne of George III in 1760, Rockingham became critical of the admission of Tories to court offices from which they had been excluded under George I and George II and quickly came to share the distrust of veteran Whig politicians concerning the policies of the new monarch. Due more to his skill and personal appeal than to any forthright pursuit of power, this parliamentary faction accepted his leadership and was soon commonly referred to as the Rockinghamite Whigs. Rockingham was appointed first lord of the treasury under the premiership of the Duke of Cumberland in July 1765 and became a caretaker prime minister the following October upon Cumberland’s death. As prime minister, Rockingham inherited the crisis in the American colonies precipitated by the Stamp Act, a bill Rockingham repealed in March 1766 even as he passed the Declaratory Act proclaiming the right of Parliament to pass laws binding on all the colonies. For Rockingham there was an important distinction between the powers Parliament possessed and those it chose to exercise—a distinction lost on many of his contemporaries in Britain and the American colonies alike. Rockingham was dismissed from the premiership by the king in a quarrel over appointments and thereafter spent most his life in parliamentary opposition, supporting the claims of the American colonists that their rights were being usurped by George III’s government. As early as 1799 Rockingham stated that the colonists should be given their independence. He was also an advocate of religious toleration and extended civil liberties for Catholics in England. In March 1782, the resignation of Lord North forced the king to appoint Rockingham prime minister for the second time. Because the Marquess died on July 1, 1782, his second ministry lasted only 14 weeks. His first action as prime minister, nonetheless, had been to acknowledge the existence of the United States.

Roland, Marie-Jeanne Philipon

FURTHER READING: Hoffman, R. J. S. The Marquis: A Study of Lord Rockingham, 1730 – 82. New York: Fordham University Press, 1973. CARL CAVANAGH HODGE

Roland, Marie-Jeanne Philipon (1754 –1793) Marie-Jeanne Philipon Roland was a revolutionary activist and the wife of Jean Marie Roland, minister of the interior. Daughter of a Parisian engraver, and well educated at home, Madame Roland claimed to have read Plutarch by age seven. A devotee of Jean-Jacques Rousseau from her youth, Madame Roland actively supported the French Revolution. When she and her husband arrived in Paris in 1791, she hosted a political salon in their Paris apartment. Members of this salon included left-wing deputies of the Assembly such as Maximilien Robespierre, François Buzot, and Jérôme Pétion in addition to journalist friends Jean-Pierre Brissot and Thomas Paine. Madame Roland was a regular contributor to Brissot’s Patriote Français. Her anonymous articles appeared under the title “Letters from a Roman Lady.” Although she could not be a member of the Jacobin Club, Madame Roland was frequently present in the public galleries. Perhaps more politically ambitious than her husband, Madame Roland assisted her husband in the running of his ministry when

Marie-Jeanne Philipon Roland. Courtesy of Alexander Mikaberidze.

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he was appointed minister of the interior in 1792. She drafted the famous letter to Louis XVI dated June 10, 1792, that resulted in her husband’s dismissal. Madame Roland was arrested following the uprising of May 31 through June 1793, when her Girondin friends were purged from the Convention. She spent time in the Abbaye and Saint-Pélagie prisons, where she drafted her famous Memoirs in the months before her execution on November 8, 1793. See also Girondins; Jacobins; Newspapers (French). FURTHER READING: May, Gita. Madame Roland and the Age of Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press, 1970; Roland, Manon. The Memoirs of Madame Roland: A Heroine of the French Revolution. Edited and translated by Evelyn Shuckburgh. Mount Kisco, NY: Mayer Bell, 1990. LEIGH WHALEY

Roland de la Platière, Jean Marie (1734–1793) Jean Marie Roland de la Platière was a French revolutionary politician and minister of the interior in 1792. Roland was the fifth child of a provincial magistrate in Villefranche-en-Beaujoulais. His mother came from an old noble family. The Rolands added “de la Platière” to their name after the family domain of Thizy, where Roland was born. Four of Roland’s brothers were priests, and he was also meant for the church, but at the age of 18, he entered a commercial business in Nantes, where he worked until 1754. The following year he began working as an inspector of manufactures. He met his future wife, Marie-Jeanne Philipon, in 1776 on a business trip to Paris. They married in February 1780 and began their intellectual partnership. Between 1780 and 1789, the two collaborated on numerous publications concerning economics, the most important of which was the Encyclopédie méthodique (1784–1785, 1790), which was devoted to arts and manufacturing. Roland obtained the post of inspector of manufactures at Lyon on the eve of the French Revolution. The elections to the Estates-General sparked Roland’s interest in politics. He was elected a municipal official in Lyon in 1790 and in the same year went to Paris to negotiate Lyon’s debt. He also assisted in the founding of the Lyon Jacobin Club. The Rolands moved to Paris in December 1791, when they began associating with Jean-Pierre Brissot and his circle. Roland also became a member of the Paris Jacobin Club. He supported the views of many revolutionaries by collaborating on their newspapers, such as Brissot’s Patriote Français and the Marquis de Condorcet’s Chronique du Mois. Roland was appointed minister of the interior on March 23, 1792, through Brissot’s influence. Although an able minister, Roland was dismissed from this post on June 13, 1792, when Madame Roland drafted a threatening letter, signed by her husband, pressuring Louis XVI to sign decrees that he had vetoed concerning refractory priests and émigrés and the formation of an armed camp around Paris. After the insurrection of August 10, Roland was reappointed to his post. Although elected to the National Convention from the department of the Somme, Roland did not take up his seat but continued as minister of the interior. Roland, under the influence of his wife, began attacking Georges Danton. This in turn led Danton to seek an alliance with Maximilien Robespierre. On November 20, 1792, Roland found Louis XVI’s papers in a secret safe at the Tuileries. Since he went through the papers without witnesses, he was condemned

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by the Mountain for allying himself with the former monarchy. Although this episode ended his second ministry and his revolutionary career, he did not resign from his post until January 23, 1793. Roland fled Paris after the purging of the Girondins on June 2, 1793, and later committed suicide when he learned of his wife’s execution. See also Jacobins; Roland, Marie-Jeanne Philipon. FURTHER READING: Bernardin, Edith. Jean-Marie Roland et le ministère de l’intérieur (1792– 1793). Paris: Société des études Robespierristes, 1964; Le Guin, Charles A. “Roland de la Platière: A Public Servant in the Eighteenth Century.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. New ser., 56, pt. 6. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1966. LEIGH WHALEY

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778) Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a French social philosopher whose ideas about politics and society spread throughout Europe. His writing influenced a wide range of people, from philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, to the leaders and supporters of the French Revolution, to generations of romantics including artists, spiritual seekers, and counterculturists. He also produced important works on the education of children and the meaning of nature, as well as minor works in music and the arts. However, Rousseau was also a controversial figure who spent much of his life moving throughout Europe to avoid political persecution and the problems brought about by his difficult personal relations. Today, his works remain controversial, especially among those who believe his ideas about communal self-rule are authoritarian because they limit individual freedom. However, others see him as trying to reconcile personal freedom with communal solidarity. Life and Background Rousseau was born in Geneva at a time when it was a Calvinist city-state. His father was a watchmaker who, when Rousseau was a youth, was forced to leave Geneva to avoid personal disputes. His mother had died when he was born, and Rousseau spent his adolescence unhappily under the care of her family. At 16, he left the city and was taken in by a somewhat older baroness named Madame de Warens in Savoy, who later became his lover. In her library, he was able to broaden his reading of classical and contemporary works in philosophy, history, and politics. Rousseau also benefited from her tutelage in acquiring the social skills that allowed him to meet and impress important people throughout his later travels. In addition to other romantic attachments, Rousseau had a long-term relationship with a servant, Thérèse Lavasseur, the daughter of a family that had fallen into poverty. Rousseau fathered five children with her, but each was given up to an orphanage because, as he declared, he was not suited for parenthood. In Paris, Rousseau met leading members of the French Enlightenment, the optimistic intellectual movement that emphasized the ability of science to solve all social problems. Rousseau at first joined them, contributing to the Encyclopédie, the great project intended by its creators to be a definitive survey of Enlightenment thought. However, he later rejected the optimism of the movement, arguing instead that modern society was a form of entrapment that limited the natural freedom and goodness with which humans were originally born.

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Rousseau’s break with the Encyclopedists was not just intellectual. Throughout his adulthood, his relationships with other thinkers often followed a pattern in which he sought acceptance at first but later rejected his new allies. As he aged, he became increasingly suspicious of the motives and actions of those around him. Many commentators today believe he was clinically paranoid in late adulthood. However, his final years were by his own accounts more peaceful, spent in spiritual introspection, the contemplation of nature, and the writing of autobiographical works. Major Works Rousseau first articulated his reaction against the optimism of the Enlightenment when he entered an official essay contest on the question of whether new scientific ideas contributed to the advancement of morals. In his later autobiographical writing, Rousseau reported that this question caused him to have something like a religious epiphany, a sudden vision of great clarity about the corrupted state of society and the lost possibilities of human life. His prize-winning essay, Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts (1750; often called the First Discourse), described the development of civilization as a downward spiral in which humans give up their natural freedom in exchange for superficial comforts and the artificial constraints of modernity. Here Rousseau first developed his idea that prior to the social problems of modern life, humans in their original state of nature were happy, prosperous, and free. While he did not use the term “noble savage” in any of his works (though he did refer to “the savages of America” as “happy and simple” in the First Discourse), this phrase has come to summarize Rousseau’s belief that humans are naturally good but become corrupted by modernity. In Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755; also known as the Second Discourse), Rousseau further developed his ideas about the fall of humanity from its original state of natural goodness. Civilization develops in stages, and at each stage humans lose more of their natural freedom. The first humans lived happily and freely in conditions of independence from each other. Only when they began to live together in social groups did problems arise: love turned into jealously, achievement turned to envy, self-esteem became self-importance. With the development of civil society came the unnatural institution of private property, which led to the creation of restrictive laws and social rules to protect the rich from the poor. In short, the source of human inequality is social organization. As society becomes more complex, the people within it increasingly become unhappy, unfree, and unequal. Although Rousseau’s two Discourses expressed a yearning for the lost state of nature, Rousseau did not propose to overthrow modernity and return to the past. In his best-known book, The Social Contract (1762), Rousseau argued instead for a different kind of revolution, not back to the state of nature but forward to a new form of society. The human race had outgrown its original condition and could no longer survive naturally. Instead, the inequalities that arose from civilization could be eliminated with a radically new form of political unity—a new social contract based not on material self-interest but on the united will of the community. If the will of each individual were to combine into a single great voluntary force, which Rousseau famously called the General Will, a new form of society could be created. He argued that the loss of personal liberty that comes from fusing one’s private will with that of the community would be more than offset by the gain of power in the larger entity. Although later writers objected that the rule of the community inevitably involves

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the rule of some individuals over others, and that individual wills are too disparate to unite so completely, Rousseau believed that the power of community is much greater than the sum of its parts. The particular will of every individual is weak, but the General Will of the community is strong. Only by uniting into a greater power may individuals find their true freedom. Rousseau argued that it was only inequality and self-interest that kept communities apart. By eliminating those unnatural constraints, a new community of free wills could be born. In addition to his political works, Rousseau wrote a well-received popular novel, La nouvelle Héloïse (1761), and a treatise on education written in novel form, Emile (1762). The latter described the education of a boy meant to develop his innate potential while maintaining his natural liberty. It also outlined the education of his future wife, Sophie, but within the limits that Rousseau believed were natural to women. In an important section of Emile entitled “The Profession of Faith of a Savoyard Vicar,” Rousseau described his own religious beliefs. Although during his travels he underwent repeated conversions between Protestantism and Catholicism, the “Profession” depicts a peculiar form of deism (the belief that God’s will can be discovered in nature rather than in biblical revelation) in which the natural world is ruled not by the materialistic laws of Newtonian physics but by the spontaneous forces of growth and self-development. His later autobiographical works include the Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques (1780), The Reveries of the Solitary Walker, and The Confessions (1782–1789). Influence on Revolution and Ideology After Rousseau’s death in 1778, events were underway that would culminate in the French Revolution, in which social and political institutions were overthrown in an attempt to create a new French republic of equal citizens. Although the Revolution had a range of social, economic, and political causes, Rousseau’s ideas were widely influential in stimulating the desire for radical social change. The popular slogan of the Revolution—Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity—may be seen as an encapsulation of his political vision. However, his ideas also had a more troubling influence on those events. In 1793, the Revolution entered its bloodiest phase, known as the Reign of Terror, during which Robespierre’s Jacobin party guillotined not just aristocrats but also earlier revolutionaries and others in the name of the General Will. Today, these events continue to fuel the controversy over whether Rousseau’s ideas favor liberty or whether his deeper themes are authoritarian and even totalitarian. Rousseau was widely influential among philosophers, including the most famous thinker of the European Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant (1724 –1804), who had a portrait of the French thinker in his study. Kant was especially interested in Rousseau’s idea of liberty as self-rule or autonomy. (From the Greek auto- for “self” and nomos for “law,” “autonomy” literally means the power to give law to oneself.) To be autonomous, both men agreed, humans must neither by ruled by others nor be governed solely by the laws of nature. Instead, to be truly free one must have the power to give one’s own defining laws to oneself. Kant tried to show that every autonomous being should give itself laws that also apply equally to every similarly autonomous being. By arguing that individual freedom is consistent with universal willing—a form of will even more general than the General Will—Kant sought to reconcile

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individual freedom with communal autonomy. However, Kant’s philosophy is also seen by some as implicitly authoritarian. Among political thinkers and social critics, Rousseau influenced a wide range of revolutionary writers, including Karl Marx (1818–1883), who followed Rousseau in seeing private property as a key source of social problems. Marx’s communism is one version of a wider family of political-economic theories generally called socialism, in which economic equality is the most important prerequisite to social unity. Like Rousseau, socialists generally believe that the ultimate goal of society is not just equality but communal autonomy—that is, the collective power to give defining laws to ourselves as a group. Thus, Rousseau can be understood as a precursor to modern socialism. Rousseau’s beliefs about the natural goodness of humanity also influenced later thinkers known as anarchists, such as the Frenchman Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1862) and the Russian Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876). Although anarchists diverge in their beliefs and proposed solutions, most would agree that humans are naturally virtuous and that vice comes about only from the pernicious influence of social institutions and authorities. However, while the themes of natural goodness and the oppressive nature of social institutions were clearly influenced by Rousseau’s two Discourses, not all anarchists would agree with the proposal in The Social Contract to construct a new form of political authority. Most anarchists would endorse the idea of the General Will only if it could be shown to arise from, and to be compatible with, the freedom of individuals. Rousseau’s ideas about the spirituality of nature, described in such works as the Reveries and the “Profession,” were influential among later “back to nature” thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) and Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862). Similarly, the late modern belief that we find our true selves when we commune with nature or become one with the natural world reflect Rousseau’s naturalism in combination with his holism. Thus he can be seen as the author of a range of today’s environmentalist themes. More generally, he was a founding figure of the romantic movements among artists and counterculturists who see freedom as creativity and social spontaneity. See also Jacobins. FURTHER READING: Bertram, Christopher. Rousseau and the Social Contract. London: Routledge, 2003; Cranston, Maurice. Jean-Jacques: The Early Life and Work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712–1754. New York: W. W. Norton, 1983; Cranston, Maurice. The Noble Savage: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1754–1762. London: Penguin, 1991; Riley, Patrick, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001; Wokler, Robert. Rousseau: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. BORIS DEWEIL

Royer-Collard, Pierre-Paul (1763–1845) Enthusiastic about the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard subsequently became wary of the popular energies and violence it had unleashed. During the Bourbon restoration, he used his position in the Chamber of Deputies to support a moderate form of constitutional monarchy rather than liberal republicanism or ultraroyalism. As a philosopher at the Sorbonne and as head of the Commission for Public Instruction, he promoted the humanities,

Rule of Law

history, and a worldview that rejected the materialism deemed characteristic of the Enlightenment philosophes. Born to a family of landowning farmers, he was strongly influenced by the Catholic piety of his mother and his uncle. He excelled in school and became a lawyer in Paris, where he joined elite intellectual circles and absorbed the reformist ideas of the day. In 1790, he was elected to the National Assembly and became assistant secretary for the revolutionary Paris Commune. He distanced himself from the Revolution as it entered its radical phase in August 1792, however, for he disliked the destruction and opposed the abolition of the monarchy. From his family home in Sompuis, he watched the rise and fall of Robespierre. Royer-Collard returned to public life in 1797 as a member of the Council of Five Hundred. He earned a reputation as a fine orator for his advocacy of clemency for émigrés and of freedom of religion. He became one of the future king’s councilors in 1799 and worked to promote the accession of Louis XVIII. This did not prevent him from supporting Napoleon, however, for which Royer-Collard was rewarded in 1811 with the chair in modern philosophy at the Faculté de Paris. He switched his loyalty back to Louis XVIII during the Hundred Days, and the new king made him head of the Commission for Public Instruction in 1815. Royer-Collard determinedly fought against the ultraroyalists in the Chamber, and he became the leader of the Doctrinaire party of royalists who sought to retain the charter of 1814 and the new constitutional monarchy. By 1820, the Doctrinaires had become the opposition; Royer-Collard resigned his public functions. He returned to the Chamber in 1821 and became its president in 1827. In the same year, he was elected to the Académie Française. In 1830, he read Address from the 221, which denounced the king’s authoritarian proclivities, to Charles X. Given Royer-Collard’s desire for a liberal monarch balanced by a parliament, he found it easy to back Louis-Philippe’s rise to power. Due to his advancing age, he exercised no important public functions under the July Monarchy. He retired from political life in 1842, but he continued to serve as a friend and political inspiration to French liberals such as François Guizot and Alexis de Tocqueville. Royer-Collard is now best remembered for his efforts to realize a political system that would reconcile the need for authority and stability with the people’s desire for liberty. FURTHER READING: Laski, Harold Joseph. Authority in the Modern State. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1968; Remond, Gabriel. Royer-Collard. New York: Arno Press, 1979; Spuller, Eugène. Royer-Collard. Paris: Hachette, 1895. MELANIE A. BAILEY

Rule of Law The rule of law is the principle that government can exercise authority only in accordance with written laws that have been adopted through a formal, established procedure. The purpose of the principle is to safeguard against arbitrary action by the government. The concept of rule of law was expressed as far back as Aristotle, who theorized that the law was a system of rules that were inherently discoverable in the natural world. The modern concept developed largely in Britain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a counterargument to the principle of the divine right of

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kings and, by extension, lesser nobility. The theory of divine right held that the king was the maker of law, and also above it. He was free to act in any way he saw fit, because he inherently manifested the state and its subjects. Thus, in the Anglo-American system, the rule of law originally developed as a guard against tyranny—the unchecked rule of the leader. This protection is, in practice, far more sweeping than the implications of its origin—protection from an arbitrary or capricious king. As the United States and, later, western Europe became more democratic, the rule of law began to develop a second meaning—the protection of the minority from the unfettered exercise of authority by the majority. In this context, the rule of law works to extend certain minimum protections to the minority, thereby protecting them from tyranny of the majority. The concept of rule of law in the twenty-first century encompasses several more meanings. Corruption of government officials is now considered a major impediment to a functioning society. Regardless of how fair and progressive a nation’s written laws may be, if its citizens must bribe officials to gain access to the benefits of those laws, the rule of law has not really been established. Transparency—the idea that the decision-making process should be open and visible to the population at large—is becoming an increasingly important aspect of the rule of law. Government officials should not only follow the rules but also show that the rules were drafted in a fair manner, without undue influence from those who stand to benefit. It is also increasingly understood that a functioning society must have strong institutions that are committed to the concept. Strong and independent police, investigative, and judicial institutions are necessary to enforce the rules. In recent years, business and economic interests have expanded the concept to explicitly include laws affecting commercial relations, such as contract terms and government regulation of business and financial markets. These interests maintain that predictability and consistency in the enforcement of business law is essential to the expansion of commerce. Their argument is that businesses and individuals need to know ahead of time how any given law will be enforced and that it will be enforced consistently in all circumstances, regardless of whether an interested party is favored by the people in charge of the government. In other words, from a business perspective, the application of the rule of law means the government will not show favorites in either enforcing laws or awarding contracts. The concept of rule of law does not address the justice or fairness of the laws themselves, but simply how the legal system establishes and upholds those laws. In theory, an undemocratic or authoritarian state can exist with the outward forms of the rule of law. In practice, however, authoritarian governments tend to disregard even the appearance of legality. As a result, the rule of law is considered, at least in the Atlantic community, a prerequisite, or at least a contemporaneous requirement, for the development of democracy. As such, it has served as a common basis for human rights discourse with authoritarian states. There are two ideological arguments against the concept. First, majoritarians object to the restrictions on the rights of the majority. Protections of minorities restrict the rights of the majority. In practice, in dynamic societies consisting of multiple interest groups, these limitations are constantly subject to modification in the ebb and flow of democratic politics. A second objection is that the concept leads to an emphasis on procedure to the detriment of substantive issues. Put another way, too much focus on how a law is

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prepared and how it is enforced can lead to less focus on the substance of that law. Overemphasis on the procedures required to obtain any given outcome can result in the system losing sight of whether that outcome is just or appropriate in a moral and ethical sense. The red tape so often complained of in dealings with governmental institutions is a manifestation of this problem. FURTHER READING: Maravall, Jose Maris, ed. Democracy and the Rule of Law. Cambridge Studies in the Theory of Democracy. London: Cambridge University Press, 2003; Posner, Richard A. Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003; Tamanaha, Brian Z. On the Rule of Law: History, Politics, Theory. London: Cambridge University Press, 2004. JOSEPH ADAMCZYK

Rush, Benjamin (1746–1813) Benjamin Rush was a Princeton- (1760) and Edinburgh-educated (MD, 1768) colonial American physician, Patriot, natural philosopher, and educator known as the father of American psychiatry because his Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind (1812) was the first formal exposition of psychiatry in America. Rush practiced medicine and taught chemistry, the theory and practice of medicine, the institutes of medicine, and clinical medicine at the College of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania College of Physicians. He published the first American textbook in chemistry, entitled Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Chemistry, in 1770 and authored over 65 publications in medicine. Rush was a staff physician at Pennsylvania Hospital (1783–1813) and served as the president of the Philadelphia Medical Society. As an early proponent of colonial rights and an advocate of American independence, Rush assisted Thomas Paine in his writing of Common Sense (1776). He was a member of the Pennsylvania Provincial Congress and drafted a resolution urging independence (1776) before being elected to the Second Continental Congress, where he chaired the committee that recommended the Declaration of Independence (1776), which he signed. He was critical of the single-house legislative structure created by the Articles of Confederation (1776), attended the Continental Congress in Baltimore (1777), was a member of the Pennsylvania state convention that ratified the United States Constitution (1787), and coauthored with James Wilson the Pennsylvania state constitution (1790). Rush served as surgeon to the Pennsylvania navy (1775–1776) and was appointed surgeon general and then physician general of the Middle Department of the Continental Army (1777–1778). He treated soldiers at the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, and Valley Forge. Though he resigned his position in the Continental Army due both to a disagreement with his superior (who had the support of General George Washington) regarding the management of military hospitals and his criticism (1777) of Washington’s prosecution of the Revolutionary War, he published Directions for Preserving the Health of Soldiers (1778) and later recommended health measures for the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806). Rush assisted David Ramsey in writing History of the American Revolution (1789), proposed a secretary of peace (1793), helped reconcile John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (1809–1812), and served as the treasurer of the U.S. Mint (1797) until his death.

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Rush is also known as the father of public schools under the Constitution for his promotion of free public schools for all (On the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic, 1784), the limited and appropriate use of corporal punishment (Thoughts upon the Amusements and Punishments Which Are Proper for Schools, 1790), and the use of the Bible as a public school textbook (A Defense of the Use of the Bible as a School Book, 1791). Rush was publicly laudatory of the role of women in the American Revolution and supported their participation in government (1784) and education. He also helped found five colleges and universities: the College of Philadelphia (later the University Pennsylvania), the University of Pennsylvania College of Physicians, the Young Ladies Academy of Philadelphia, Dickinson College, and Franklin College. Rush was a noted humanitarian, helping to found the Philadelphia Dispensary for the Poor (1786) and the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons (1787), as well as an advocate for the involvement on government in the economy; for example, he supported funding textile manufacturing in Philadelphia (1775). When Rush’s use of bleeding to treat yellow fever epidemics in Philadelphia during the 1790s was attacked by a paper called Peter Porcupine’s Gazette, he sued, won a jury verdict, and distributed the proceeds among Philadelphia’s poor. He advocated prison reform (An Inquiry into the Effects of Public Punishment upon Criminals and upon Society, 1787) and was an early advocate of the abolition of slavery (An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America upon Slave Keeping, 1773), co-founding, with Benjamin Franklin, America’s first antislavery society, the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of the Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. Rush helped fund the organization with a gift of 5,200 acres of land in Bedford County. He served as the president of the national convention of abolition societies in Philadelphia, published To the Free Africans and Other Free People of Color in the United States (1796), and became the president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery (1803). He also helped found the first African church in Philadelphia (St. Thomas; 1791–1793). Rush believed that total abstinence from alcohol and tobacco was best for the health of society and the individual and published extensively on this subject: An Inquiry into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors upon the Human Body, and Their Influence upon the Happiness of Society (which urged presidential prohibition of the use of alcohol and urged ministers to preach against its use; 1784); Sermons to Gentlemen upon Temperance and Exercise (1772); Observations upon the Habitual Use of Tobacco upon Health, Morals, and Property (1798); and An Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits upon the Human Body and Mind (1804). Rush believed that Christianity was an essential element of the American ethos and asserted that the United States Constitution was divinely inspired on the level of the Bible. He recommended a congressional day of thanksgiving and then urged national days of prayer and fasting at the beginning of the War of 1812. He helped begin the American Sunday School movement with the founding of the First Day Society (1790); served as vice president of the Philadelphia Bible Society, which he founded (1808); and helped publish America’s first mass-produced Bible (1812). Rush helped to found the American Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge (1768) and, at the combined American Philosophical Society (1769), presented its annual speech in 1774 (“Natural History of Medicine among the Indians of North America”) and served as its vice president (1799–1800). Among Benjamin Rush’s

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many honors was a medal awarded him by the king of Prussia (1805) in appreciation of Rush’s replies to inquiries concerning yellow fever, and a Yale University LLD (1812). See also American Revolutionary War; Slavery and the Slave Trade. FURTHER READING: Barton, David. Benjamin Rush: Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder Press, 1999; Brodsky, Alyn. Benjamin Rush: Patriot and Physician. New York: Truman Talley Books, 2004. RICHARD M. EDWARDS

Russia, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on For Russia, the eighteenth century started with an introduction to Western science, technology, and values undertaken by Peter the Great (1672–1725). By the middle of the century, with access to a wide range of ideas and values from western Europe and having been shaped by Western tastes and manners, the Russian educated elite had become fully incorporated into the European cultural sphere. At the end of the century, Russians faced a Europe that was undergoing profound changes originating in France. Russia itself had changed. The violence of the Pugachev Rebellion (1773–1775) at home and the turn of the French Revolution to the Reign of Terror led many Russian intellectuals to reject the critical and analytical ideas of the Enlightenment and invest in romantic moral concerns. Throughout the eighteenth century, the goal of bringing Russia into Europe was closely connected with the efforts of the state, especially during the reign of Catherine II, a Russian philosophe on the throne. Catherine’s taste for everything French was actively replicated by the educated among Russian society and by the court. No writer was more widely read in eighteenth-century Russia than Voltaire, and on the surface, French literary, artistic, and cultural models dominated the Russian scene. However, French philosophical ideas played a relatively minor role in shaping the Russian mind. For a small part of the educated elite the introduction to radicalism brought from the West was combined with disappointment in the Orthodox Church in a phenomenon called Voltairianism. Voltairianism can be defined as an attempt to create a worldview that was not based on the authority of the church but the autonomy of reason propagated by radical French philosophes. For the majority of Russian intellectuals, Voltaire and the French philosophy were associated with superficial anti-clericalism and godlessness. The course the revolutionary events in France took did little to change this perception. The excesses of the Revolution quickly alienated the sympathies of those few who applauded it in the beginning. The Russian general public muddled together French philosophy, the Revolution, and France itself into one and condemned them all. Following the tone set by the royalist émigrés, most Russian contemporaries considered the Revolution a series of absurd Saturnalia. Even the fashion of the day extolled dresses à la reine and hairdos à la counterrevolution over Jacobin hats and cravats. The court actively propagated and supported the negative perception of the Revolution. The first mention of revolutionary events in official sources appeared in the St. Petersburg Gazette in an article on the fall of the Bastille. The events were characterized as “absolute madness” of “freethinking, greed, and godlessness.” In the same newspaper, the storming of the Tuileries palace on August 10, 1792, was associated with the fall of Christian Jerusalem. Despite Catherine’s personal sympathies

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with French thought, with the onset of the Revolution she rejected many of the foundational ideas of her philosophe friends. She became strikingly conservative and increasingly hostile to criticism. Although the empress counted on Russia’s geographic remoteness to block the French revolutionary “disease” from spreading to her empire, she nevertheless established special procedures to preclude the “contamination” of Russian society. In August of 1790, all Russian travelers were recalled from revolutionary Paris. French émigrés in Russia were forced to cut all ties with France. After breaking diplomatic ties with the Republic, Catherine prohibited ships flying the tricolor from entering Russian ports. From 1790 to 1796, the two main sources of information emanating from France and reaching Russia were the officially censured articles of the St. Petersburg Gazette and censured private correspondence. Nevertheless, radical ideas and news about revolutionary events were able to find their way in Russia. While Russian society in general was more interested in French literature and fashion than in French political theory, it was well known to the educated public. The transmission of ideas was not restricted to books. Many young Russian aristocrats were educated by French teachers and were well traveled. For example, the young Count Stroganov, who was raised by an ardent French radical, joined the Jacobin Club. Inspired by their freethinking friends, the princes Golitzin disregarded Catherine’s orders and fought on the streets of Paris in support of the Republic. Despite intense Russian interest in the revolutionary events occurring far to the west, revolutionary ideas failed to receive wide reception in Russia. In addition to a relatively small and vulnerable public sphere, which was not conducive to revolution, the three essential elements of the French Revolution were lacking in Russia: a privileged but powerless nobility, an ambitious middle class, and a proprietary peasantry. Alexander Radishchev (Radischev) (1749–1802), a prominent forerunner of Russian radical intelligentsia, observed this in his A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, published anonymously in 1790. Catherine, one of the first readers of the Journey, immediately associated the author’s ideas with what she called “French fallacies” and considered Radishchev a more dangerous rebel than Pugachev—a threat to the very foundations of the state. Criticizing serfdom and autocracy, the author emphasized popular sovereignty and the rights of people. The Journey revolved around two main themes that were at the center of concern for Russian intellectuals familiar with the English Glorious Revolution, and the American and French revolutions: constitutionalism and abolitionism. Radishchev, on the other hand, rather than trying to envision a free society in Russia, relied not on the controversial French model, but on the model of American liberalism. Throughout the Journey, he praised the legacy of the American Revolution and the foundations of American society as based on a universal reliance on law, constitution, and selfgovernment. Radishchev was condemned to death for his book, but Catherine changed the verdict to a 10-year period of exile in Siberia. Radishchev’s tribunal coincided with the trial of Nikolai Novikov (1744–1818), publisher, journalist, and the leader of the Moscow Freemasons, who fell under suspicion for harboring political designs and having extensive contacts abroad. Both trials, which involved leading Russian intellectuals, proved shocking, for the defendants’ ideas violated many of Catherine’s earlier principles. Her references to Radishchev’s “infection” with French ideas and her questioning of Novikov over his foreign connections demonstrate that the empress

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was frightened by the French Revolution and feared that revolutionary ideology could spread among the literate Russian nobility—her main pillar of strength. When Catherine died in 1796, she was succeeded by her son Paul I (1754 –1801), who led the first Russian military campaigns against revolutionary France (1798–99). Paul continued to enforce his mother’s measures against the French “contamination,” tightened control over travel to and from Russia, established an embargo on all foreign literature, and even banned the use of such words as “citizen” and “society.” Nevertheless, it was to be Paul’s son Alexander I (1777–1825) who would take a leading role in defeating Napoleon and returning the Bourbons to power in France. FURTHER READING: Radishchev, Aleksandr. A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Edited by Leo Weiner. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958; Raeff, Marc. “The Enlightenment in Russia and Russian Thought in the Enlightenment.” In The Eighteenth Century in Russia, ed. J. G. Garrard. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973; Raeff, Marc. Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia: The Eighteenth-Century Nobility. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1996; Yarmolinsky, Avrahm. Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism. New York: Collier Books, 1971. NATALIE BAYER

Rutledge, Edward (1749–1800) A South Carolina politician and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Edward Rutledge was the youngest son of Dr. John and Sarah Rutledge. He studied law at the law office of his older brother, John Rutledge, and then at London’s Middle Temple. In 1772, he was admitted to the English bar, and to the South Carolina bar the following year. In 1774 Rutledge was elected to the First Continental Congress along with his older brother. In 1775 he was elected to the extralegal Provincial Congress, which elected him to the Second Continental Congress. By early 1776 Rutledge had apparently begun to support independence, although he opposed a declaration until a confederation had been adopted. However, for the sake of unity, Rutledge eventually became the youngest signer of the Declaration of Independence. He also served as a peace commissioner (along with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams) that negotiated with General William Howe. He returned to South Carolina in late 1776 to assume a seat in the General Assembly and a captaincy in the Charleston Artillery Company. Rutledge served in a number of battles in the 1779 campaign to defend Charleston. He was captured while leaving the besieged city to report to his brother, Governor John Rutledge. Edward was imprisoned at St. Augustine. He was exchanged in July 1781 and returned to the state House of Representatives, where he advocated retaliation against Loyalists. During the 1780s Rutledge served in a number of municipal offices, including justice of the peace, fire master of Charleston, trustee of the College of Charleston, and eventually major in command of the Charleston artillery. In 1788 he was elected to the state ratifying convention and chaired a committee to draft proposed amendments to the new United States Constitution. Rutledge turned down appointments to Congress and the Supreme Court. He was a presidential elector in 1788, 1792, and 1796. In 1796 he was elected to the state senate. In 1798 the state legislature elected Rutledge to his final office as governor of South Carolina. FURTHER READING: Haw, James. John and Edward Rutledge of South Carolina. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. ROBERT J. ALDERSON

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Rutledge, John (1739–1800) A South Carolina politician during the colonial and early national periods famous for being the first president of South Carolina and second chief justice (temporarily) of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Rutledge was the first son of Dr. John and Sarah Rutledge. After studying at a local attorney’s office, John Rutledge was accepted at London’s Middle Temple in 1754. In 1760 he was admitted to the English bar. He was admitted to the South Carolina bar and elected to the Commons House of Assembly the following year. Rutledge’s rise was rapid; in 1764 he was named the colony’s interim attorney general. He quickly joined the Patriot cause, serving or chairing a number of committees that championed the cause of the Assembly. The Assembly elected Rutledge a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress in 1765 and to the First Continental Congress in 1774. In 1775, Rutledge was elected to the extralegal Provincial Congress, which elected him (with the approval of the Assembly) to the Second Continental Congress. Rutledge chaired a committee that recommended the colonies move temporarily to a government based on popular sovereignty. Soon after, Rutledge returned to South Carolina and was once again elected to the Provincial Congress and the Council of Safety. As a member of a Provincial Congress committee, Rutledge helped draft the temporary state constitution. In March 1776 the new General Assembly elected Rutledge president and commander-in-chief of South Carolina. In March 1778 he resigned when the General Assembly passed a new, more democratic state constitution. After a stint in the state legislature, Rutledge was elected governor by the legislature in February 1779, just in time to defend the state from British invasion. He left Charleston before the city’s fall in May 1780 and spent much of the rest of the war as a governor in exile. Rutledge helped organize resistance in the state, supplying and commissioning partisans like Francis Marion as generals. In August 1781 Rutledge returned to South Carolina with General Nathanael Greene’s army and began to restore the state’s government. In 1782 Rutledge accepted a seat in the legislature, which elected him to Congress. In 1784, Rutledge returned to South Carolina, where the legislature elected him judge of the Court of Chancery. In 1787, the state legislature selected Rutledge as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, where he served as the chairman of the committee of detail, charged with organizing and fleshing out the resolutions of the convention. Rutledge defended the United States Constitution in the state’s legislature and ratifying convention. In September 1789, Rutledge accepted an appointment by President George Washington as associate justice of the Supreme Court. In 1791, Rutledge resigned when the legislature elected him chief justice of South Carolina. In 1795, President Washington gave him a recess appointment to chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Although he presided over the court for one term, the Senate refused to confirm him because of his opposition to the Jay Treaty and his mental and physical decline. See also Constitutions, American State; Rutledge, Edward. FURTHER READING: Haw, James. John and Edward Rutledge of South Carolina. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. ROBERT J. ALDERSON

S Saint-Just, Louis Antoine Léon Florelle de (1767–1794) Louis Antoine Saint-Just was a radical deputy in the National Convention, a Jacobin, and a member of the Committee of Public Safety who played a significant role in the founding of the First French Republic and the Reign of Terror. He exemplified the austere morality of Jacobin politics, combining with this austerity, tremendous energy, political skill, and devotion to the revolution. Idealistic and severe, Saint-Just’s vision of the Republic and revolutionary politics was grounded in moral terms, emphasizing the centrality of civic virtue to republican politics. His speeches and written works emphasized the themes of virtue, purity, and devotion. His application of these themes to the practical work of founding the Republic made him a central architect and theorist of the Terror. Relying on his youthful zest and his oratorical skills, Saint-Just rose from obscurity to become one of the leading Jacobin deputies. As a member of the Committee of Public Safety, he exercised considerable influence and was a key figure in drafting the Constitution of 1793, purging the Convention, and establishing the revolutionary government. SaintJust was a central leader in the Jacobin dictatorship of Year II ( June 1793– June 1794) who, alongside Maximilien Robespierre, was targeted by the Thermidorians and was guillotined following the Thermidorian Reaction of the Convention. Saint-Just led a rather unremarkable childhood. Born at Decizes (Nièvre), he spent his childhood at Nampcel (Oise) and Blérancourt (Aisne). His father rose from a peasant family, through military service, as sergeant of the guard and captain in the artillery, to settle in Blérancourt, where he owned considerable property, and died in 1777, leaving a modest inheritance that his mother used to secure her son an education suitable for the legal profession. Educated at the Oratorian college of Saint-Nicolas at Soissons, where he studied from 1777 to 1785, he later pursued legal studies at the Faculty of Law at Reims. Upon completing his courses, he returned to Blérancourt and seemed destined to live the life of a provincial lawyer, although the publication of a scandalous poem, Organt, and his trips to Paris in 1786 and then again in 1789 suggest that he was seeking something beyond the world of law and provincial life.

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Louis Antoine de Saint-Just. Courtesy of Alexander Mikaberidze.

The outbreak of the French Revolution offered Saint-Just the opportunity to get involved in local politics. Due to his friendship with the radicals who controlled the municipal government of Blérancourt, Saint-Just entered the National Guard as a lieutenant colonel despite the fact he did not meet the fiscal qualification. In October 1790, he attempted to gain election as a justice of the peace, although the law clearly specified that the minimum age was 30, and Saint-Just was only 23. For the time, Saint-Just was forced to be content with his role in the National Guard and the influence he was able to exercise through his friendship with members of the radical faction in municipal government. Saint-Just made a name for himself in the defense of peasants in their seigneurial disputes with landowners. He gained some fame at Blérancourt for defending local peasants against a large landowner, a former marquis named Grenet. Finally, in 1790, he was selected by the town of Blérancourt to act as deputy to a departmental meeting organized to decide whether Laon or Soissons should be the capital for the new department of Aisne. Saint-Just felt no particular passion for the debate, although he was instructed to plead the case of Soissons, and he used the opportunity to showcase his oratory skills and present himself to a wider audience, obviously with the hopes of preparing for future

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electoral success. His activities in local affairs exemplify Saint-Just ’s strong desire to bring attention to himself in Paris, and having begun a correspondence with Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins, he actively sought opportunities within his local setting to distinguish himself as an orator and politician. In June 1791, Saint-Just published Esprit de la Révolution et de la constitution de France. Borrowing heavily from Montesquieu, the book explained the fundamental principles implicit in the new institutions being created by the Legislative Assembly and the constitution that was being finalized. The book was part history, celebrating the actions of the National Assembly, and part political program, examining the principles of the new political order and suggesting how they should be implemented into new institutions of civil society. He divided the work into five books analyzing the constitution, which he argued exemplified the moderation and balance of powers that Montesquieu praised, as well as examining what civic institutions were required as the logical consequences of the constitution. The book presents a clear indication of the central themes that would preoccupy Saint-Just in his practical political activities and his other theoretical works. The work consistently proposed that the Revolution must be moral and not strictly political and argued that the true objective of the revolutionary assemblies was to guide the people through a moral regeneration and to build the institutions that would secure this regeneration. The problem that would face France as it sought to make itself a republic was outlined with considerable clarity in this work. While Saint-Just consistently lamented the role of force, and the corruption of natural society through the application of political force, the book’s concern for moral regeneration anticipates the Terror, when the use of force was justified as a necessity to compel the moral transformation of the citizens of the new republic. Despite the role he played in local affairs, the early years of the Revolution proved frustrating for Saint-Just. Not content to be a local politician, he sought election to the Legislative Assembly in September of 1791. He was 24 at the time, and the Constitution of 1791 clearly established the age limit for deputies as 25. Not deterred by the obvious legal barrier, Saint-Just attempted to subvert the rules of the constitution, disguising his age before the local assembly. When the assembly asked him to show proof of his age, Saint-Just’s deception was made clear and he was ejected from the meeting. Having failed in his attempt, Saint-Just was unable to directly participate in the great national crises that the Legislative Assembly faced in 1792: the declaration of war, the invasion from foreign armies, and the overthrow of King Louis XVI in the revolution of August 10. Saint-Just remained detached from these events, having given up on direct action, and he spent his time continuing his activities in the National Guard, although by now relegated to second in command, and his defense of peasants’ cases. There can be little doubt that he welcomed the proclamation of the National Convention as an opportunity to finally settle in Paris and enter the national political arena. He was now eligible for election, having turned 25 and having bought sequestered church lands. Saint-Just was elected to the Convention, entering it as the youngest member, and representing the department of Aisne. In the Convention, Saint-Just aligned himself with the Mountain, frequented the Jacobin Club, and became recognized as one of the leaders of the radical faction that would come to dominate the Convention. Saint-Just first came to national prominence in the National Convention during the debates over the trial of Louis XVI. Adopting a radical stance far removed from

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the majority opinion of the Convention, Saint-Just argued against the trial. With the laconic rhetoric that dominated his oratorical style, his speech rejected all the proposals for a trial and argued that the only logical and proper act was to simply condemn the king. Arguing that the relationship between the king and the people, and hence the Convention, was a state of war, Saint-Just proposed that the only solution was political, not legal, and the Convention had the moral duty, as founders of a republic, to destroy the king and the monarchy as the first act of establishing the Republic. Had the Convention followed his advice, there would have been no trial for the king, a policy favored by the Jacobins, and Saint-Just’s speech became the leading argument for the Jacobin response to the question of the trial. For the first time, the Convention witnessed the severity and incessant moralizing that Saint-Just applied to political questions, and his extreme radicalism won him the favor of the Jacobins and firmly established his place among the radicals in the Convention. On May 30, 1793, Saint-Just was elected to the Committee of Public Safety, and from that point on he became one of the leading architects of the Terror and the Jacobin Republic. He spoke often in the Convention, discussing a range of issues, including subsistence, the army, factions, and policing, and his speeches highlight the radical program of the Jacobins. After the purge of the Girondins, Saint-Just became a member of a new constitutional committee and helped draft a new constitution to replace the first constitution drafted by a Girondin-controlled committee. Saint-Just’s energies were devoted to two principal tasks. As a spokesman for the Committee of Public Safety, it often fell to Saint-Just to report to the Convention, before whom his speeches exemplified his radicalism and leadership. Secondly, Saint-Just took particular interest in military affairs, and his missions to the armies constitute one of his most important contributions to the Republic. Saint-Just’s oratorical skills were one of his most important contributions to the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety. On October 10, 1793, Saint-Just spoke before the Convention, demanding a vigorous reorganization of the government, including full civil and military authority for the committee and suspension of the constitution the Convention had recently enacted. This speech led to the decree on revolutionary government that firmly secured the dictatorship of the Jacobins and the Committee of Public Safety. On February 26, 1794, Saint-Just was charged with the task of presenting the report that justified the Terror and demanded the confiscation of suspects’ property. Following this report, on March 3, Saint-Just proposed a plan that would involve a census of the poor, an examination of all suspects held in custody, and a scheme to distribute confiscated property to the poor. SaintJust’s proposal, the Ventôse Decrees, was never put into place, but it exemplified his radicalism and the degree to which the Jacobins were prepared to enact policies to placate the sans-culottes and retain their support for the Jacobin control of the Convention. Saint-Just played a key role in the factional struggles of the Convention. In July 1793 he presented the report on the Girondin faction, which had been purged from the Convention on June 3. In March 1794, he was again entrusted with the task of denouncing factions, and following this report, the Convention decreed the arrest and trial of Jacques René Hébert and the Hébertistes. On March 31, Saint-Just turned his attack to Georges-Jacques Danton and his followers. Saint-Just played a prominent role in the decision to attack the Hébert and Danton factions, and he was charged with explaining and justifying the actions of the committee to the Convention.

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As a member of the Committee of Public Safety, Saint-Just was twice sent as a deputy on mission to various armies of the Republic: first, in mid-October 1793 he was sent, along with Philippe Le Bas, to the Army of the Rhine in Alsace; second, in late April 1794, he was sent to the armies on the northern frontier. These missions to the armies were very important, and they represent the most successful initiatives that Saint-Just carried out as a member of the Committee of Public Safety. In both instances, he proved himself an effective organizer and an effective mediator between the common soldiers and the Convention. Saint-Just also exemplified his moral vision concerning the relationship between the army and the development of moral character, emphasizing a strict view of discipline and moralization of the soldier’s duty and sacrifice for the Republic. At the same time, he applied these moral principles to the examination of officers and local officials, relieving them of their positions upon an examination of their conduct in directing the war effort. In Strasbourg, Saint-Just showed his willingness to improvise, his conviction that the needs of the army stood above any local or individual needs and rights, and his ability to organize the resources available. He imposed demands on wealthy inhabitants, aggressively reorganized the provisioning of food and supplies, removed incompetent officers, and restored the morale of the soldiers. His efforts on both missions increased the strength of the army and its effectiveness, and his talents were recognized by the Convention after the armies secured important victories following his missions. Saint-Just exemplified the Jacobin practice of combining a ruthless devotion to the Revolution with a stoic moralization of politics. While there is some evidence that he could be kind and gentle to his friends and was, at times, a voice of moderation and compromise within the Committee of Public Safety, his public persona was dominated by the young, handsome, energetic, and severe revolutionary whose laconic and moral austerity made him someone to fear. It is this persona that dominates the historical representation of him, earning him the nickname “the Angel of Terror.” Saint-Just entered national politics in the fall of 1792, and his career as a deputy was characterized by a period of radicalization and intensification of revolutionary politics. He endorsed the Terror as a means to found the ideal Republic, and his vision of a virtuous citizenry led him not only to support but also enact some of the most severe measures of the Terror. In the Thermidorian Reaction, Saint-Just was attacked as a leading member of the Robespierrist faction and was guillotined the day after his arrest. His devotion to republican morality was evident in his stoic acceptance of his arrest and death. He died as he had lived his revolutionary career, inflexibly and austerely, devoted to an ideal of virtue that was terrifying to those who would not submit to the Jacobin vision of the Republic. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Republicanism. FURTHER READING: Bruun, Geoffrey. Saint-Just: Apostle of the Terror. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1966; Curtis, Eugene Newton. Saint-Just: Colleague of Robespierre. New York: Octagon Books, 1973; Hampson, Norman. Saint-Just. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991. BRODIE RICHARDS

Saint-Simonism Saint-Simonism refers to the beliefs and practices of a group of French philosophers in the early nineteenth century whose ideas were influenced by Claude Henri

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de Saint-Simon (1760–1825), one of the originators of French socialism and of a science of society called positivism. Saint-Simonism began after the death of its namesake, and though it adhered to the original ideas in some ways, it tended to take on a life of its own. The group’s radical ideas of a social and political reformulation of society had a great influence on eighteenth-century Europe. Saint-Simon had several followers, including Auguste Comte, who would later become known as the founder of the discipline of sociology; Barthélemy-Prosper Enfantin; and Saint-Amand Bazard. Enfantin and Bazard became the leaders of the new movement, though they developed a fierce rivalry. The Saint-Simonians were especially interested in Saint-Simon’s ideas on religion that were formulated at the end of his life, although many of their ideas on spirituality were their own. Under the leadership of Enfantin, the group became something of a cult, wearing monastic clothing, practicing celibacy, and awaiting the appearance of a female messianic figure whose arrival would herald a world filled with harmony. Enfantin was sentenced to a year in prison for his beliefs but, upon his release, returned to the order. The group also adopted a socialist vision of the world. Especially in the early years under the guidance of Bazard, the Saint-Simonians opposed laissez-faire economics and even advocated the elimination of material inheritance. They developed a doctrine that merged the conservative ideology of order and social hierarchy with the socialist emphasis on utilitarian ideals and communalism. The group maintained authoritarian ideas as a means to exhibit control over all aspects of social life; they were, however, opposed to any form of violence to accomplish this endeavor. The group recruited several members of the intelligentsia in Europe and became a major influence on many key social thinkers, including Comte. Their ideas have even been described as a moral impetus behind the Industrial Revolution in France. The Saint-Simonians would later abandon their religious and social ideology, and many became leaders in industry. They were also instrumental in the completion of the Suez Canal, a long-held desire of Saint-Simon. FURTHER READING: Fried, Albert, and Ronald Saunders. Socialist Thought: A Documentary History. New York: Doubleday, 1964; Iggers, Georg G. The Doctrine of Saint-Simon: An Exposition, First Year, 1828 –1829. Translated with notes and an introduction by Georg G. Iggers. New York: Schocken, 1972. LEONARD A. STEVERSON

Salons European salons started in the seventeenth century as informal social gatherings for poetry readings, music, and convivial discussions. Although throughout the eighteenth century the term “salon” was used to refer only to a reception room, by the middle of the century, salons had emerged as important social spaces. They became not only the centers of urban social and intellectual life but also the centers of the Enlightenment. It was the seriousness and regularity of eighteenth-century salons that distinguished them from seventeenth-century salons and other gatherings of the time. Eighteenth-century salons were central to sociability and intellectual, social, and

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cultural practices. They performed social functions, operating as private associations, communicative centers, and meeting places. In contrast with universities or academies often associated with the state, salons were private institutions used by groups of intellectuals for intellectual production and collaboration. Salon-goers were provided with an opportunity for discussion and learning in a place that valued ideas and fostered their development. Although salons emerged as mainly literary and philosophic clubs, they cultivated and spread political and social ideas. The principles of intellectual exchange, production, and equality were discussed in Enlightenment salons and contributed to the formation of a new ideological construct of public opinion. Salons became an institution of Enlightenment not only by developing a new set of values, but also by applying those values to reality, especially in eroding class barriers. Unlike the leisurely salons of the seventeenth century that granted entry only to the old aristocracy, eighteenth-century salons were open to men of all religions, nations, and social strata. Ignoring traditional social taboos, salons, nevertheless, were exclusive in the sense that they required a formal invitation. Evidence of weakening social restrictions can also be seen in the leading role played by women in salons. The hostess, a Paris salonnière, a London bluestocking, or a Prussian or Jewish hostess in Berlin, a woman of some independent wealth, was the center of her salon and had influence over the invitations and the direction her salon took. A facilitator for socializing, she opened her house to selected members of polite society. Among the most famous salonnières of the Enlightenment were the Paris hostesses Madame Geoffrin (Marie Thérèse Rodet, 1699 –1777), Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, and Madame Necker (Suzanne Churchod, 1739 –94). Voltaire, Montesquieu, Denis Diderot, A.R.J. Turgot, David Hume, and Edward Gibbon frequented the salon of Madame Geoffrin, who financially supported Diderot’s project of the publication of the Encyclopédie. Because French salons were often associated with the development and spread of revolutionary ideas, after the French Revolution they were suppressed so that the upper classes could not express their political opinions and concerns. During the Terror, many Parisian salons moved to other European capitals, along with emigrating aristocracy. Napoleon’s rule witnessed the return of the salons as makers and expressers of public opinion. FURTHER READING: Goodman, Dena. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994; Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeoisie. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989; Kale, Steven. French Salons: High Society and Political Sociability from the Old Regime to the Revolution of 1848. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. NATALIE BAYER

San Martín, José de (1778 –1850) An Argentine soldier and statesman who fought the Spanish and helped achieve the independence of Argentina (1816), Chile (1818), and Peru (1821), José de San Martín was born on February 25, 1778, at Yapeyú, in the far north of modern-day Argentina. His father, Juan de San Martín, was a professional soldier who became the Spanish colonial administrator of Yapeyú, a former Jesuit mission in the lands of the Guaraní Indians. His mother, Gregoria Matorras, was also Spanish. When San

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Martín was six, the family returned to Spain and the boy attended the Seminary of Nobles in Madrid from 1785 until 1789. San Martín started in the military as a cadet in the Murcia infantry regiment and spent 20 years in the Spanish army. In 1791, he saw action at Oran in modern-day Algeria and seven years later fought the British, who held him as a prisoner of war for some months. He was released and fought against the Portuguese in 1801 in the War of the Oranges and was promoted to captain three years later. In 1808 the French invaded and occupied Spain, and San Martín took part in the uprisings against Napoleon’s forces. San Martín himself was in the Seville junta, which fought in the name of the Spanish king, Ferdinand VII, who had been imprisoned by the French. After the battle of Bailén in 1808, San Martín was raised to the rank of lieutenant colonel and, after the Battle of Albuera in 1811, was given the command of the Sagunto Dragoons. Rather than taking up this post, San Martín received permission to go to Lima, the capital of the viceroyalty of Peru, and the center of Spanish power in Latin America. He went to London and then to Buenos Aires, where he arrived on March 9, 1812. The latter was a city seething with revolutionary ideas. It had been captured by the British in 1806 and held briefly by them. The locals had then ejected the British but, realizing their newfound power, started a campaign of resistance against the Spanish. San Martín quickly sympathized with the revolt and in 1812 was put in charge of raising a corps of grenadiers to defend Buenos Aires from Spanish royalists based in Lima. Historians have long debated this change of allegiance on the part of San Martín. There have been suggestions that it began to change when he was a prisoner of the British. Argentine nationalist writers see him responding to the yearning for independence in the land of his birth. British historians emphasize his time in London and the influence of revolutionary Spaniards there, including associates of Francisco de Miranda, as well as several Britons, notably James Duff, the fourth earl of Fife. It is also probable that during San Martín’s time in the army prejudice against people born in the Americas would have annoyed him, causing him to identify with the people in Buenos Aires. Whatever the reason, San Martín proved himself a capable commander. He defeated the royalists at San Lorenzo on February 3, 1813, and was then sent to Tucumán to reinforce the army of General Manuel Belgrano. San Martín quickly recognized that he had to attack Lima. However, the traditional route through Upper Peru (modernday Bolivia) was blocked by Spanish troops. Thus he trained his men at Tucumán and, pretending to be ill, had himself appointed governor of the province of Cuyo on August 10, 1814. He then went to Mendoza, from where he would lead his men across the Andes. San Martín’s plan had been to join up with revolutionary forces in Chile. However, the Spanish had just managed to retake Chile, causing the Chilean rebel leader, Bernardo O’Higgins, to flee to Mendoza. This delayed the attack. On July 9, 1816, the United Provinces of La Plata (Argentina) declared its independence and on August 1 appointed San Martín commander-in-chief of the Army of the Andes. On January 9, 1817, San Martín and O’Higgins led their men over the Andes. Using subterfuge, the two commanders managed to get the Spanish to move their forces elsewhere. Sweeping down from the Andes, they defeated the Spanish at Casas de Chacabuco on February 12, 1817, and entered Santiago, Chile’s capital, in triumph. O’Higgins took over ruling Chile, while San Martín

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prepared his men for their march on Lima. The Spanish victory at Cancha-Rayada on March 19, 1818, delayed the attack. However, he defeated the last of the Spanish royalists at the Battle of Maipú on April 5, 1818, and then left for Peru. By this time San Martín had managed to put together a Chilean navy under Arturo Prat and gather together some troop ships. In August 1820 these were placed under the command of Admiral Thomas Cochrane, later the tenth earl of Dundonald, and they left the port of Valparaíso to attack Callao in Peru. They were unable to take the city but did blockade it while San Martín prepared for his assault on Lima. By this time the Spanish royalists realized that no reinforcements were coming from Spain, and they withdrew, allowing San Martín to enter Lima and proclaim the independence of Peru on July 28, 1821. He was declared the protector of Peru. While San Martín was liberating the south of South America, Simón Bolívar had defeated the Spanish in the north. On July 26, 1822, at Guayaquil, in modern-day Ecuador, the two generals met. There has been much historical and nationalist speculation about what was discussed. The exact nature of what was said is unknown, but San Martín returned to Lima disheartened. Some of his troops had been worried that he might have elevated himself to the status of dictator, but San Martín certainly harbored no ambitions to assume such a position. He resigned his post as protector on September 20 and then left for Brussels, where he stayed with his daughter, before moving to Paris and then Boulogne-sur-Mer, in the south of France, where he died on August 17, 1850. His body was later brought back to Argentina and is now interred at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Buenos Aires. FURTHER READING: Lynch, John. San Martín: Argentine Patriot. London: University of London, 2001; Metford, J.C.J. San Martín: the Liberator. Oxford: Blackwell, 1950; Rojas, Ricardo. San Martín: Knight of the Andes. New York: Cooper Square, 1967. JUSTIN CORFIELD

Sans-Culottes The sans-culottes were the predominantly poor and working-class people who organized politically during the French Revolution. Their name was derived from their refusal to wear the fashionable knee breeches, or culottes, preferred by the elite classes. Rejecting the social divisions represented by elite fashion, the sans-culottes opted for the more functional trousers worn by working people. The sans-culotte commitment to social equality was also reflected in their preference for addressing each other as citoyen (citizen) rather than monsieur or madame. These choices gave expression to a radical egalitarianism that characterized sans-culotte political desires throughout the Revolution. Rather than a formal political movement, the sans-culottes were street revolutionaries motivated as much by concerns over the price of bread as by political ideology. They were at the same time, as many have remarked, the engine of the Revolution. Their popular insurrections, from the storming of the Bastille to the uprisings of 1795, provided much of the force behind the Revolution’s most radical demands and its material successes against the former ruling classes and against the reactionaries. Central aspects of the sans-culottes’ social and political outlook included a firm commitment to social equality and the importance of direct and participatory democracy open to all people, including the poor and formerly excluded classes. Their expression of radical republican principles, sometimes called sans-culottism, combined

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collectivist views on property with a defense of individual freedoms. Despite the popular conception of sans-culottes as a movement of the working class and the destitute, in some important ways, both in terms of ideology and in terms of movement composition, the sans-culottes were a petit bourgeois or artisanal movement. They were not opposed to private property on principle, for example, but were most concerned with concentrations of wealth, in the hands of the aristocracy and the emergent bourgeoisie, and with great disparities between rich and poor. They sought to break up large estates and industrial enterprises and argued that each citizen should be entitled to one piece of productive property. Theirs was a vision of the nation as properly consisting of small farmers and small shopkeepers. While the category of sans-culottes included people of various backgrounds, most notably the extremely poor and casual workers but also more privileged members such as petty officials and teachers, the core of the movement consisted of poor artisans, trades people, and journeymen. They were craftspeople rather than members of the professional societies, with skilled crafts such as cabinet making and wig making as well as arts such as painting, sculpture, and music well represented among their labors. Though many were wage earners, the sans-culottes were hardly equivalent to the proletariat of industrial capitalism, which reflects the general lack of labor concentration in French industry at the time, even in the northern industrial districts. Most were employed in small shops rather than as factory workers. Their numbers also included many immigrant workers, especially among porters; construction workers; and those who worked various jobs along the riverside, including shipping and loading. Most lived under conditions that are best described as wretched in close, crowded neighborhoods with unsatisfactory shelter. Extreme poverty was prevalent and persistent, as the poor and unemployed numbered nearly as many as those who worked for wages. It was from these neighborhoods that the most militant sans-culotte activity emerged. Most notable among the centers of sans-culotte radicalism were the poor eastern suburbs of Paris, especially the Faubourg Saint Antoine and the Faubourg Saint Michel. It was the people of Saint Antoine who led the assault against the Bastille during the revolt of July 14, 1789. The popular insurrections sparked by the sans-culottes, which provide some of the most iconic images of the Revolution, were in many ways based in the bread riots and uprisings that were a traditional means of airing grievances among the poor. Gwyn Williams offers an account of the occupational background of those sansculottes who served as commissaires in the comités révolutionnaires of the Paris sections during the Revolution’s Year II. Noting that these formed the vanguard of revolutionary activity, Williams reports that of the 450 of these militant sans-culottes who can be placed, more than 60 percent were craftspeople and shopkeepers. Only 10 percent were wage earners, approximately half of whom were domestic servants. Among craftspeople, the occupations with the most representation were tailors, timber workers, and furniture makers. The traders included several wine merchants. This picture is repeated if one looks at the existing records of those who were active in popular societies and assemblies. Williams suggests that of the 500 participants who can be traced, artisans and traders once again predominated. The 214 artisans counted among their numbers shoemakers, builders, furniture makers, hairdressers, and tailors. Among the 80 traders, the most represented were wine makers

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and grocers. There were almost twice as many wage earners as on the committees, although servants made up the largest number. Williams also reports that of the 132 councilors of the Commune whose occupations are known, 82 were small manufacturers, craftspeople, and traders, while 31 were members of the professions. While most sans-culottes, and certainly the revolutionaries of the streets, were members of the poor, the working class, and the lower middle classes, it became popular for some public officials, especially during the Reign of Terror, to identify themselves as citoyens sans-culottes. In the popular imagination the sans-culottes are most durably associated with the violent street insurrections, or journées, that dramatically marked successive stages of the Revolution. On August 10, 1792, sans-culottes launched an assault on the king’s palace, killing several hundred guards and forcing Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to take refuge in the Legislative Assembly. Only a month later, sans-culottes would play a leading role in the so-called September Massacres. The September uprisings culminated in the official abolition of the monarchy and establishment of the republic on September 21 and 22. The most radical elements among various revolutionary governments owed much to the support of the sans-culottes and their willingness to take to the streets to defend progressive government proposals against forces of reaction. On June 22, 1793, an armed crowd consisting of tens of thousands of sans-culottes marched on the National Convention to force the arrest of members of the Girondin faction and their replacement by the more radical Jacobin faction. For a time the ascendancy of the Jacobins to government control seemed to give a formal political expression to the social desires of the sans-culottes. The Jacobins, however, were a bourgeois party, unwilling to pursue the truly radical social aims of the sans-culottes. After August 10, 1792, military power was held by the insurrectionary Paris Commune, which was closely allied with the sans-culottes, who also led the Ministry of War. Opposition from the sans-culotte-controlled institutions to the Jacobin-controlled Committee of Public Safety was of particular concern to Maximilien Robespierre. The participatory democracy of the sans-culottes was fatally weakened by the Jacobin government by the end of 1793, under the cover of responding to the emergency of war. On September 9, the Convention established the revolutionary armies, in large part to confiscate grain from farmers, and sans-culottes made up the bulk of this force. While relying on the political activities and readiness for armed insurrection in defense of the Republic that the sans-culottes provided, the Jacobins also feared the sans-culottes as a spontaneous and unpredictable force, loyal to no political leadership but its own. The Jacobin-controlled Committee of Public Safety shut down the various political clubs in which the sans-culottes participated. Segments of the sans-culottes gave their support to the revolutionary extremism espoused by Jacques-René Hébert, publisher of the uproarious publication Père Duchesne, which was popular among sans-culottes. Less concerned with issues of property and ownership than groups such as the Enragés, the Hébertistes were mobilized largely around the execution of aristocrats and profiteers and the abolition of religion. Hébertistes called for the dechristianization of France and the destruction of Christian symbols. Robespierre sent Hébert to the guillotine on March 24, 1794. The most militant and radically democratic expression of sans-culotte desires was put forward by the Enragés, a street movement that viewed all the political parties, including the Jacobins, with deep suspicion. Influenced by the priest Jacques Roux, who

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ministered to the sans-culottes of Gravilliers, and the journalist Jean Leclerc, the Enragés undertook a program of direct action and violence in support of a social, not simply political, revolution. The Enragés, who viewed productive property as a national or social trust that must be brought under state control, suggest to many commentators a precursor to modern communist movements. In addition to their commitment to direct democracy, under sans-culotte control, the Enragés also supported the call for women’s suffrage raised by the Revolutionary Republican Women. The last vital stirrings of the sans-culottes as a movement with any capacity for a mass uprising were finally extinguished militarily in the spring of 1795 under the rule of the reactionary Thermidorians, who had taken power in the coup that overthrew Robespierre on 9 Thermidor ( July 27, 1794). On April 1 and May 20, 1795, the sans-culottes once again mobilized behind the dual banners of bread and the Constitution of 1793 in a desperate attempt to turn back the conservative tide and address the people’s need for essentials such as flour, meat and dairy products, and fuel. May 20, 1795, represented not only the last popular uprising of the French Revolution but the death throes of the sans-culotte movement. The insurrection of 1 Prairial saw a group of sans-culottes take over the Convention before being violently suppressed on the orders of the government. Nearly 150 people were tried by an extraordinary military commission, and 36 condemned to death. Close to 4,000 people in Paris were arrested and disarmed. Sans-culotte leaders were subjected to ongoing police harassment, which ended further organizing activities for most of them. The government’s response made clear that the sans-culotte moment of the Revolution was over. So too was the vision of an egalitarian and cooperative outcome for the country. By refusing to address even minimally the demands of the poor, the government was able to weaken the poor people’s movements to such an extent that they would not reemerge with anything resembling their former vigor for another generation. All the same, however, the influence of the sans-culottes left an important mark on the future, as numerous revolutionary movements and theorists, as well as organizations of poor people, have drawn inspiration from their example. In their spontaneous forms of organization, activist militancy, and commitment to participatory democracy and radical egalitarianism, the sans-culottes in many ways prefigured the emergence of anarchist movements less than a century later. See also Girondins; Women (French). FURTHER READING: Kropotkin, Peter. The Great French Revolution. New York: Schocken, 1971; Rose, R. B. The Making of the Sans-Culottes: Democratic Ideas and Institutions in Paris, 1789 –92. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1983; Soboul, Albert. The Sans-Culottes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980; Williams, Gwynn A. Artisans and Sans-Culottes. New York: W. W. Norton, 1969. JEFF SHANTZ

Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von (1759 –1805) Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, German poet, dramatist, and historian, was one of the greatest German literary figures. He has exercised an extraordinary influence from his own time through the twentieth century with his poetry, plays, and works on art and ethics, aesthetics, history, and education. Schiller was born in Marbach, Württemberg, to the family of a low-ranking military officer in 1759. He attended a military academy and studied law and medicine.

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In 1780, Schiller was appointed an army surgeon to a regiment based in Stuttgart. Unsatisfied with his medical career in Stuttgart, he turned to writing. Schiller’s first published play was the socially critical The Robbers (1781). An example of the Sturm und Drang movement, the play questioned the limits of personal liberty and the law and the nature of moral and political tradition and considered the psychology of power. The Robbers was successfully performed on stage in Mannheim in 1782. The Duke of Württemberg was outraged by the content of the play, and Schiller had to flee to Mannheim, where he lived in 1783 –1784. Later Schiller lived in Leipzig and Dresden, finally settling in Weimar in 1787. In 1789, he became professor of history and philosophy at the University of Jena. By this time, Schiller was already an established playwright; the author of a classical historical drama, Don Carlos (1785); and an influential researcher of the Dutch revolt against Spain (1788). At Jena, he mainly wrote works on history, such as History of the Thirty-Years’ War, and studies on aesthetics, turning from the emotions of the Sturm und Drang to the moral instruction of German classicism. It was Schiller’s friend Goethe who convinced him to return to literary work. During the period that followed, Schiller composed a whole corpus of historical dramas, including Wallenstein’s Camp (1798), The Piccolomini (1799), Wallenstein’s Death (1799), Mary Stuart (1800), The Maid of Orleans (1801), and William Tell (1804). Schiller settled in Weimar, where he collaborated intensely with Goethe. On May 9, 1805, Schiller died at the age of 46. Schiller is often called the poet of freedom, a philosophizing poet, and a politicizing philosopher, for many of his ethical, lyrical, and educational messages have politically and morally oriented foundations. Schiller’s crucial work, Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of Man, was written during and immediately after the French Revolution and reflects Schiller’s disenchantment with revolution. The bloodshed of 1793–1794 and the Reign of Terror that followed the revolutionary chaos brought Schiller to explore the polarity between the moral duty of human rationality and the compulsion of the bodily nature. In the Letters, Schiller establishes that a person’s self-conscious attention to beauty, its spiritual absorption, and its consequent realization in behavior can cultivate one’s moral awareness. Aesthetic education creates good citizens, as it makes people automatically act morally when they are given their freedom, as opposed to having violent inclinations, as in the case of the French Revolution. Virtue is understood as a favorable inclination to duty. A person who obtains virtue has a schöne Seele (beautiful soul) and is characterized by the harmony among his sensuousness, rationality, obligation, and inclination. Thus, according to Schiller, freedom is possible when there is no conflict between man’s sensuous nature and his capacity for reason. Their union is a “play drive” (Spieltrieb), which can also be called artistic beauty. In the Letters, Schiller presents an ideal state as a free union of everyone who is content, where everything is beautiful. This, Schiller’s utopia, was, in a twisted way, appropriated by German nationalists during the Wars of Liberation (1813 –1815) and later by Marxists and fascists. See also Kant, Immanuel; Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. FURTHER READING: Beiser, Frederick C. Schiller as Philosopher: A Re-Examination. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005; Sharpe, Lesley. Friedrich Schiller: Drama, Thought and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Sharpe, Lesley. Schiller’s Aesthetics Essays: Two Centuries of Criticism. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1995; Thomas, Calvin. Life and Works of

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Friedrich Schiller. New York: Holt, 1901; Ugrinsky, Alexej, ed. Friedrich von Schiller and the Drama of Human Existence. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988. NATALIE BAYER

Seabury, Samuel (1729–1796) Infamous for his pre–Revolutionary War pro-British pamphlets entitled the Farmer’s Letters, Samuel Seabury was elected the first Episcopal bishop of Connecticut and Rhode Island (1783). Seabury was born in Groton, Connecticut; graduated from Yale (1748); was tutored in theology by his father; and studied medicine for a year (1752) in Edinburgh before becoming an Anglican priest (1753) and serving parishes in New Jersey and New York. His three Farmer’s Letters arguing against American independence—“Free Thoughts on the Proceedings of the Continental Congress,” “The Congress Canvassed,” and “A View of the Controversy between Great Britain and her Colonies”—were authored under the pseudonym of A. W. Farmer (i.e., a Westchester farmer) soon after the Association of the Continental Congress (October 1774) was named. The 17-year-old Alexander Hamilton answered the second pamphlet with his own, entitled A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress, from the Calumnies of Their Enemies: In Answer to a Letter under the Signature of A. W. Farmer (1974). Seabury’s third pamphlet was a response to Hamilton, who answered back with The Farmer Refuted (1775). Seabury then produced a fourth pamphlet entitled An Alarm to the Legislature of the Province of New York (1775), again assailing the validity of the Congress and proposing a local colonial government under the full authority of Parliament, before proceeding to sign the White Plains protest (April 1775) against all unlawful congresses and committees. Seabury’s colonial ministry effectively ended after his Loyalist activities led to his arrest (November 1775) and imprisonment for six weeks in New Haven, Connecticut. He eventually made his way (1776) to New York City and the safety of the British lines, where he practiced medicine and was commissioned a chaplain (1778) in the King’s American Regiment after the University of Oxford awarded him a DD in 1777. See also American Revolution; Continental Congress, Second; Loyalists. FURTHER READING: Rowthorn, Anne W. Samuel Seabury: A Bicentennial Biography. Greenwich, CT: Seabury Press, 1983. RICHARD M. EDWARDS

Second Continental Congress See Continental Congress, Second

Second Estate The nobility, by tradition those who fought, comprised the Second Estate in eighteenth-century France. Nobles constituted a privileged order par excellence, founded on descent, though their fiscal exemption, which was justified by state service, most notably in the armed forces (the so-called blood tax), was by no means complete. Moreover, the noble estate was rather more open than historians used to

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believe, though it is unclear exactly how many nobles there were in 1789: estimates range between 100,000 and 400,000, but 25,000 noble families is the best guess. They were rather less reactionary and, above all, much more differentiated than was once thought. Sword and robe, the military and administrative arms of the nobility, were far from integrated, but a greater problem concerned the poor nobility, who had only their titles to distinguish them from ordinary mortals. Tales of nobles from the more remote regions of France who had to remain in bed while their breeches were repaired, or who ploughed fields with a sword at their side, may be apocryphal. They are nonetheless indicative of a society where money and merit were becoming more important than birth as a criterion of status, and where letters of nobility were purchased or awarded in increasing numbers. In this fluid context, it is no longer easy to distinguish nobles from the wealthy bourgeois, especially since the latter sought to invest money in office or land in order to become aristocrats over the course of time, keen to sport the noble particule as they did so. If there was an aristocratic reaction, then it was directed at this aspiring noblesse, especially on the part of poorer nobles who had only their lineage to commend them. Great nobles continued to dominate the command of army and navy, ministerial office and the bishops’ bench, with the occasional non-noble only proving the rule. Yet this preponderance was not necessarily deployed in a reactionary fashion but was often expressed in terms of business innovation (despite rules on derogation), social behavior, and, above all, cultural practice. The nobility participated strongly in the French Enlightenment. Many of the writers were of noble origin and much of the audience for their ideas was drawn from the same social group. The system of elections to the Estates-General in 1789 revealed profound fissures within an order that was somewhat artificially divided from prosperous commoners, and the cahiers de doléances they drafted reveal plenty of reformist sentiment. However, among those elected to represent the nobility at Versailles, alongside a liberal minority inspired by members of the elite like the Marquis de Lafayette or Liancourt (not to mention Mirabeau, who sat for the Third Estate), there was a majority of more cautious nobles who hailed from the backwoods and were rather more reluctant to embrace change. By 1789, they were willing to abandon tax exemption, but social privilege remained a stumbling block. Their obstinacy led not just to the end of the estate, but also to the abolition of noble titles in 1790. See also First Estate. FURTHER READING: Chaussinand-Nogaret, Guy. The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: From Feudalism to Enlightenment. Trans. William Doyle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985; Ford, Franklin L. Robe and Sword: The Regrouping of the French Aristocracy after Louis XIV. New York: Harper & Row, 1965; Smith, Jay M. Nobility Reimagined: The Patriotic Nation in Eighteenth-Century France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005; Swann, Julian. “The French Nobility, 1715 –1789.” In The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. H. M. Scott. Vol. 1. London: Longman, 1995. MALCOLM CROOK

Senate The term “senate” derives from Latin and is employed in reference to the upper house, or chamber, of a legislative body. With a history dating back to the Roman era, senates have become fundamental components in the national political

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decision-making process of many industrialized countries such as the United States of America, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, and Spain. Members of a senate, who may be appointed or elected in the system of government, are known as senators and may be smaller in terms of numbers than members of a lower house (e.g., National Assembly, House of Assembly, and House of Representatives) of a legislative body. In some nations, most notably the United States, members of the senate are fixed in number per state regardless of that state’s geographical size, economic stature, or demographic size. As a consequence, senates are often criticized within the context of democracies for granting too much importance within the national political process to regions that are less developed, which often specifically relates to rural places. In Europe one of the most notable senates is that of France. Established following the French Revolution (1789), the senate of France (Le Sénat, in French) presently resides in the Luxembourg Palace, in Paris, and consists of about 300 or so elected members who are voted into positions of authority by tens of thousands of local administrative councils scattered across all parts of France. Thus the French senate is elected by both the urban and rural regions of the country. Criticisms of this system still abound in France due to the bias of the senate’s composition regarding rural areas. FURTHER READING: Smith, Paul. A History of the French Senate: The Third Republic 1870 –1940. Ceredigion, UK: Edwin Mellen Press, 2005; Valeur, Robert. French Government and Politics. New York: T. Nelson and Sons, 1938. IAN MORLEY

September Massacres (1792) Between September 2 and 7, 1792, about 1,400 prisoners were murdered in Parisian jails, ostensibly to forestall a prison plot. At least 244 prisoners in provincial jails were murdered as well after news of the Paris massacres spread. The most important consequence of this “first terror” was the fragmentation of the radical movement, which became polarized into Montagnard and Girondin factions in the months that followed. The September Massacres were originally conceived by radical journalists, most notably Jean-Paul Marat, who called in the month of August for a purge of conspirators in Paris’s swollen prisons. More immediately, the massacres were triggered by the perilous military situation in the summer of 1792. On September 1, the last fortress on the way to Paris fell to the forces of the Prussian general, the Duke of Brunswick, who had threatened to lay waste to the city of Paris in a July 25 manifesto. Many feared that the advancing Prussians would be assisted by plotters scheming to break out of Parisian prisons. To prevent this, several hundred radicals from the sections and volunteer soldiers invaded nine Parisian prisons over the course of six days and put to death hundreds of refractory priests, counterrevolutionaries, and common criminals, often without even the pretence of a judicial hearing. The massacres were regulated and moderated, but not halted, by delegates from the Paris Commune after September 2. Although significant in themselves, the massacres were given additional meaning by their interplay with an ongoing power struggle between the Legislative Assembly and the Commune. Fearful of the Commune’s power, the Legislative Assembly ordered the dissolution of the Paris Commune on August 28. In response, Maximilian

Sherman, Roger

Robespierre charged Jean-Pierre Brissot’s faction with treason on September 1, and the Commune’s Surveillance Committee, under Marat’s influence, issued arrest warrants for Brissot, Jean Marie Roland, and eight other deputies in the Legislative Assembly. If justice minister Georges-Jacques Danton had not quashed the arrest orders, Brissot and his allies might have fallen victim to the September Massacres. At first, Brissot and his allies supported the massacres, but when news of the arrest warrants became known, they changed their view. Claiming that they were “under the knife of Robespierre and Marat,” Brissot and his allies launched a political campaign in both the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention against the September murderers and their complicit Montagnard allies. Indeed, both their repeated Girondin calls for a departmental guard and their appeals to the people during the trial of Louis XVI owe their origin to a desire to contain Parisian militant radicalism. The Montagnards, in turn, sought to shore up their Parisian power base by portraying the massacres as a patriotic act. In this way, the Paris massacres exacerbated the formation of the Girondin and Montagnard factions within the formerly united radical movement in the French Revolution. See also French Revolutionary Wars; Girondins; The Mountain. FURTHER READING: Bluche, Frédéric. Septembre 1792: Logiques d’un massacre. Paris: Editions Robert Laffont, 1986; Caron, P. Les massacres de Septembre. Paris, 1935. BENJAMIN REILLY

Sherman, Roger (1721–1793) Roger Sherman was the only person to sign the Continental Association of 1774, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution. Born in Massachusetts, he moved to Connecticut at an early age. He had no formal education and eventually became a lawyer. He served several terms in the Connecticut Assembly until 1785. From 1777 to 1779 he served in the Connecticut Council of Safety. Sherman was a member of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1781. He helped draft both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. At the Constitutional Convention, he was one of the most frequent speakers and was a member of the Committee for Postponed Matters, a subset of the Convention that resolved issues on which the larger Convention could not agree. Sherman was committed to independence and later endorsed the notion of a central national government. He balanced this view, however, with a well-defined concern for the rights of states in this new government and a balance of power between large states such as New York and Pennsylvania and smaller states such as Connecticut. He opposed an assembly based strictly on population and favored a senate with equal representation for all states. Sherman also successfully fought against the demise of the Articles of Confederation before the Constitution had become a reality. His concern was that the precedent of nullifying the Articles without a formal substitute in place would make any subsequent governments vulnerable. Strongly opposing an independent executive, Sherman wanted the executive’s powers to be limited. The legislature should choose the executive and should exercise strong control over that branch. See also American Revolution;

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Constitutions, American State; Continental Congress, Second; Signers of the Declaration of Independence. FURTHER READING: Collier, Christopher. Roger Sherman’s Connecticut: Yankee Politics and the American Revolution. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1971; Rommel, John G. Connecticut’s Yankee Patriot: Roger Sherman. Hartford: American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of Connecticut, 1980. ROBERT N. STACY

Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph, Abbé (1748–1833) The abbé Sieyès helped both to shape the character of the French Revolution at its outset and to bring about its conclusion. His highly influential Qu’est-ce que c’est le Tiers état? publicized the notion that the desired political reforms could not occur if the old social structure based upon privilege remained intact. Sieyès subsequently lost much of his influence, especially during the Reign of Terror, but he regained it after the demise of Maximilien Robespierre and the creation of the Directory. As one of the directors, he facilitated the coup d’état that facilitated Napoleon’s rise to power; thus, he effectively terminated the Revolution. Along with other leaders of the Revolution, the abbé Sieyès emerged from political obscurity as a result of his response to the crown’s financial crisis and to the summoning of the Estates-General. His family lacked the noble status that would have made it easier for him to satisfy his ambitions and to attain a position suitable for a man of his intellect. As the son of a minor royal official who lived in the small Provençal town of Fréjus, on the Mediterranean coast, Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès was born in 1748 into a society that was at once accommodating and resistant to social climbing. Given the large size of his family, its modest means, and his own physical frailty, a church career seemed the only suitable option. Even though the young man felt little religious vocation, he entered the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris in 1765 and also began to take courses in theology at the Sorbonne. Sieyès’s lack of enthusiasm for the subject matter might account for his unimpressive academic record. Mediocre grades did not, however, diminish his self-confidence and determination to improve his social status. He received his ordination as a priest in 1772 (at age 24) and then his licence in theology in 1774. In the ancien régime church, sons of the nobility controlled the bishoprics, as well as the wealth and power conferred upon the occupant of a see. The acquisition of a position with an income that would support a comfortable lifestyle required connections and patronage. Fortunately for Sieyès, his father worked determinedly on his son’s behalf and won for him the attention of the abbé of Césarge, the younger son of a marquis. At first the vicar general of Fréjus and then almoner of the king’s oratory in Versailles, Césarge secured for Sieyès the job of secretary to the bishop of Tréguier, de Lubersac. Through the joint efforts of his patrons, Sieyès became chaplain to the king’s aunt in 1779, the year immediately before her death. Sieyès then followed de Lubersac to Chartres, where the latter had become bishop. As vicar general of Chartres, Sieyès became involved in diocesan affairs. He assumed the role of canon in 1783 and that of chancellor for the cathedral chapter in 1788. He was delegate for the Chartres diocese at the Sovereign Chamber of the Clergy

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in Paris from 1786 and was chosen representative of the clergy at the provincial assembly of Orléans in 1788. Sieyès thus enjoyed a considerable improvement in his situation during the decade or so that followed the completion of his religious studies. In fact, his success was probably as great as any non-noble without significant political or social connections could have achieved in the era. Sieyès never forgot that he had attained these positions through patronage alone. He resented that his society almost compelled him to adopt obsequious manners and to become dependent upon his social superiors in order to rise to a position that, in a meritocracy, he would have achieved due to his abilities. Meanwhile, nobles less able than he became bishops and lived in luxury. His discontent with the pre-revolutionary French social system resulted largely from his personal experiences and his personality, though his reading and intellectual pursuits also contributed to it. While in seminary, he delved into the philosophical and economic texts of the Enlightenment writers; his notebooks from the time indicate his familiarity with authors such as Condillac, Helvétius, Locke, Quesnay, Mirabeau, and Turgot. He confidently tackled the ideas presented by the philosophes and intended to publish his Letters to the Economists on Their Political and Moral System (written in 1774) until Turgot lost his position as minister in 1776 and reformist hopes declined. Sieyès remained silent as an author until 1788, even though he continued to read and comment upon the latest works in private. Almost all his published writings appeared in response to particular crises or debates. He evidently craved fame as a political thinker and actor, not as a writer. In treatises such as the famous What Is the Third Estate? he displayed a gift for assimilating complex ideas and for thinking independently. He also had a talent for recognizing and seizing opportunities. In the context of intense debates about the form and appropriate voting methods to be adopted by the upcoming meeting of the Estates-General, Sieyès wrote a political pamphlet entitled Vues sur les moyens d’exécution dont les représentants de la France pourront disposer en 1789. His ideas had already grown more radical by the time of its completion, so he wrote another, An Essay on Privileges (published in late 1788). What Is the Third Estate? appeared in early 1789. By the start of spring 1789, Sieyès was receiving invitations to Paris salons. He joined the Committee of Thirty, which assisted Patriots with their election campaigns, and became deputy for the Third Estate from Paris. He arrived at Versailles in late May. As events unfolded, the suggestions that Sieyès had offered in his What Is the Third Estate? proved immensely insightful. He had advised the delegates from the Third Estate to separate from the other two groups and to proclaim themselves the sole representatives of the nation. Since, argued Sieyès, the nobility and the church did not perform any productive labor and thus detracted from the prosperity of France, they were essentially parasitical upon and alien to the body politic of the nation. If they could not rightfully claim to share the nation’s interests, then they should have no part in writing a new constitution or deciding upon fundamental reforms. The Third Estate, which comprised all those who did work that redounded to the public good, should acknowledge that it was everything in France, whereas the other two estates were nothing.

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In practice, Sieyès amended his recommendations slightly. He urged the delegates to “summon” the other orders; all who failed to appear had ceded their power. The remaining delegates would form a representative assembly. Although the actual motion simply invited the other delegates, Sieyès’s proposal carried the day. As he expected, a number of parish priests recognized the commonality of their interests with those of the Third Estate and joined the assembly. On June 17, the new body became the National Assembly, the name that Sieyès had proposed in his What Is the Third Estate? Sieyès enjoyed enormous respect and exercised his greatest influence in June 1789, as the National Assembly formed and undertook the basic measures for creating a new political, juridical, and social system. He won a place on the Committee on the Constitution and then was chosen by the committee to write the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Although shorn of his philosophical preamble and several clauses, the essentials of Sieyès’s draft were accepted in September by the Assembly. His prestige then began to decline. His lack of interest in oratory meant that the Assembly heard little from him in the course of its debates. More significantly, Sieyès opposed the Assembly’s decision in August 1789 to end the clerical tithe. He could not conceive of the tithe as a privilege akin to those that he had rejected in his writings. Certainly, his August 10 speech caused his colleagues to wonder at his apparent hypocrisy. During the subsequent years of the Revolution, Sieyès worked on the first new constitution and planned the overhaul of France’s administration that substituted newly created uniform departments for the old heterogeneous provinces. He contributed to the reform of the clergy and of the legal system. He remained outside the intense factional conflicts of the National Convention, to which he was elected in 1792. He supported the execution of Louis XVI, though he was not otherwise associated with the Montagnards. Sieyès made himself rather scarce during the Terror, which enabled him not only to survive but also to acquire renewed importance after Robespierre’s fall from power. The Terror caused Sieyès to advocate a less democratic model of government. He no longer believed that the French should concentrate power in the legislature. Instead, they should spread governmental activities across four bodies; the government (executive) and a constitutional jury would have the greatest power. Despite his proposals, the Convention chose to create a new republic, known as the Directory, in 1795. Sieyès was elected to the new legislature and was in turn selected by his colleagues to serve as a director. He refused this honor, however, since he disliked the new constitution. He returned to power after the September 1797 republican coup, when he became president of the Council of Five Hundred (the lower legislative house). After a year as ambassador to Prussia, he joined the Directory in 1799. Then, he abetted the coup that enabled Napoleon to attain power. Sieyès had no influence over the new leader, but he was appointed to the senate and then named a count of the Empire. He spent the years of the Bourbon restoration in Belgium; he returned from exile in 1830 and died three years later. In addition to his political activities and contributions to the Revolution, Sieyès extended the tradition of political philosophizing associated with the Enlightenment. Although an admirer of John Locke and of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Sieyès

Signers of the Declaration of Independence

distinguished himself from those philosophers in his conceptualization of modern democracy. Whereas Rousseau rejected representation as entailing a surrender of citizenship, Sieyès defined citizenship as associated with labor rather than abstract rights and thought representative democracy entirely suited to the demands of his time. His grasp of eighteenth-century political economy permitted him to conceive of the social contract as operating to protect individual liberties and property (in agreement with Locke). In addition to that rather restrictive purpose, Sieyès held that the social contract facilitated the production of wealth by society. He thought that all who labor contribute to the “general labor”; their cooperation within civil society allows each to maximize his productivity. The Sieyèsian general labor, analogous to Rousseau’s general will, represents more than the sum of individual components. Sieyès pointed out that subsequent increases in productivity and wealth require divisions of labor within society. It also necessitates the creation of an efficient government responsive to the citizenry, ready to organize public works, and able to supervise production. Sieyès thus joined together social contract theory and political economy. Representative democracy became legitimate as the best system by whose means people could govern themselves and increase their prosperity through a division of labor. Political labor would require the same degree of specialization as any other task. Thus, Sieyès offered a way to think about the functions of government and its composition in the forthcoming era of industrial capitalism. See also Brumaire, Coup d’Etat de; Constitutions, French Revolutionary; The Mountain; Prussia and Germany, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on. FURTHER READING: Bredin, Jean-Denis. Sieyès: La clé de la Révolution française. Paris: Editions de Fallois, 1988; Forsythe, Murray. Reason and Revolution: The Political Thought of the Abbé Sieyès. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1987; Sewell, William H., Jr. A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution: The Abbé Sieyès and What Is the Third Estate? Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994; Thompson, J. M. Leaders of the French Revolution. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. MELANIE A. BAILEY

Signers of the Declaration of Independence The American Declaration of Independence, which was submitted to the Second Continental Congress on July 2, 1776, and approved two days later, was the handiwork of a group of men with vast experience in the public service. The roster of signatories of the Declaration represents the best and brightest minds living in the North American colonies in the eighteenth century. They were well educated and wealthy and enjoyed international reputations. In fact, their prominence gave many British parliamentarians cause to argue against further alienation of the colonies. The status of individuals like Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Robert Morris promoted intense debates in Britain over the efficacy of waging war in North America. When the Second Continental Congress was convened on May 10, 1775, it faced several serious issues, including the logistical challenges of training and equipping an entirely new army to face the veteran forces of Britain and serious internal dissension over the future of the united colonies. In several colonies, including Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York, delegates abstained from voting

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on pivotal matters, awaited direct consent for their colonial legislatures, and lobbied in their states to win support for American independence. Nonetheless, the Congress appointed a Committee of Five on June 11, 1776, to work on a draft of a document declaring independence. These members of the committee—Thomas Jefferson of Virginia (appointed chair by virtue of the number of votes he received), John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, and Robert Livingston of New York—were the architects of the document and, with the exception of Robert Livingston, who refused to sign, are the most prominent signatories. Thomas Jefferson was responsible for drafting and writing the document and deserves the designation as father of the Declaration of Independence. He received sound advice from John Adams, who assisted with ideas and revisions, and Benjamin Franklin, who provided much-needed inspiration throughout the process. All five men became prominent leaders at state, federal, and international levels. More importantly, they produced a document that still serves as a guide for American idealism and continues to inspire independence movements around the world. A total of 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence—a large number affixed their signatures on August 2, 1776, in the Assembly Room of the State House in Philadelphia; the final signer affirmed the document on January 18, 1777. Demographically the signers were relatively young—the youngest, Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, was 26, and 70-year-old Benjamin Franklin was the eldest—the vast majority being lawyers, with a significant representation of merchants, plantation owners, and scientists. All were to varying degrees influenced by the political ideas of the Enlightenment, especially the works of John Locke. A significant minority were opposed to rapid independence from Britain and endorsed patience and accommodation. For instance, Robert Livingston of New York and John Dickinson of Pennsylvania made significant contributions to forming the ideas contained in the document and drafting the instrument yet refused to sign because of serious reservations about the implications of the action. Those men who signed the declaration included future presidents and vice presidents—Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Elbridge Gerry. Six of them—Roger Sherman, Robert Morris, Benjamin Franklin, George Clymer, James Wilson, and George Reed—were at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and once again affixed their names to a seminal document in United States history. In terms of the documents that created the United States, Roger Sherman is the only man to have signed the Continental Association (1774), the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Articles of Confederation (1777), and the United States Constitution (1787), where he brokered the Connecticut Compromise. Other signers gained notoriety as members of Congress, justices of the Supreme Court, national financiers, prominent merchants, and founders of institutions of higher learning. On a less stellar note, the majority of the signatories were slave masters, and nearly one-quarter owned large plantations. A total of 17 served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and 9 made the ultimate sacrifice. Three—George Clymer of Pennsylvania, William Hooper of North Carolina, and Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire—either were not members of the Continental Congress when the declaration was drafted or were absent when it was approved, yet they were allowed to sign. The heroism and commitment of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was captured by John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress, who

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admonished the members to stand united behind the cause and stated bluntly, “There must be no pulling different ways. We must all hang together.” Benjamin Franklin responded, “Yes, we must, indeed, hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Legally, the signers of the document were staging an act of treason against a legitimate government, which would have certainly prompted a harsh response by Britain had she been victorious. Nonetheless, 56 Patriots signed the instrument of independence and thereby guaranteed their place in history. FURTHER READING: Maier, Maier. American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence. New York: Knopf, 1997. JAMES T. CARROLL

Slavery and the Slave Trade Slavery, a social institution governed by either law or by social customs, is the most absolute involuntary form of human servitude. The practice of slavery has existed at every level of social development and among all races and peoples, though its forms and features differ vastly. There is a disagreement among scholars regarding the definition of slavery, but the term has often been used for a wide range of institutions, including plantation slavery, forced labor, sweatshop labor, child labor, semi-voluntary prostitution, paid child adoption, and bride-price marriage. These diverse forms of slavery are primarily derived from the most recent direct Western experience with slavery, which has been arbitrarily constructed out of the representations of that experience in nineteenth-century abolitionist literature. Slavery in an Historical Context The practice of slavery dates back to prehistoric times, although its institutionalization probably first occurred in early historical times, when agricultural advances provided impetus for the formation of organized societies. Slaves were needed for various specialized functions in these societies and were obtained either through raids or conquests of other peoples or within the society itself, when some people sold themselves or their family members to pay debts or were enslaved as punishment for crimes. The Ancient Period Slavery was an accepted feature, often essential to the economy and society, of all ancient civilizations. The ancient Mesopotamian, Indian, and Chinese civilizations employed slaves, either domestically in homes and shops or in groups for large-scale construction or agriculture. In order to build royal palaces and monuments, ancient Egyptians used slaves on a mass scale. The ancient Hebrews also used slaves, but they were required by religious law to free slaves of their own nationality at certain fixed times. In the more advanced civilizations of pre-Columbian America—for example, those of the Aztec, Inca, and Maya—slave labor was also used on a large scale in both agriculture and warfare. In the Homeric epics, slavery is the ordinary destiny of prisoners of war. In later years even Greek philosophers did not consider the condition of slavery morally objectionable, although Aristotle went so far as to suggest that faithful slaves might be freed as a reward for loyalty. Roman slavery differed in several important aspects

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from that of ancient Greece. With the power to legally exercise control over life and death, Roman masters commanded more power over their slaves. Slavery was also far more necessary to the economy and social system of Rome, especially during the empire, than it had been in Greece. Roman aristocracy needed considerable numbers of slaves to maintain large city and country homes. Imperial conquests and long-drawn programs of territorial expansion eventually strained the native Roman workforce. Thus, great numbers of foreign slaves had to be imported to fulfill the needs of agricultural labor. The primary way of acquiring slaves was through war; tens of thousands of captured prisoners of war were brought to Rome as slaves. Other sources of slaves were debtors, who sold themselves or members of their families into slavery, and persons convicted of serious crimes. Ultimately, greater dependence on the institution of slavery contributed significantly to the downfall of the Roman Empire. The Medieval Period The medieval period witnessed a slight improvement in the conditions of slaves but did not see the elimination of the practice of slavery. After the fall of Rome, during the barbarian invasions that occurred at various times between the fifth and tenth centuries, the ancient institution of slavery was transformed into the generally less binding system known as serfdom. Islam recognized the institution of slavery from the beginning, in the seventh century. The Prophet Muhammad urged his followers to treat slaves kindly, and on the whole, slaves owned by Muslims were comparatively well treated. Most were employed as domestic servants. The Modern Period Conquest, colonization, and imperial domination by European powers in Africa, North and South America, and parts of Asia provided the impetus for modern slavery and the slave trade. Portugal, which suffered from a shortage of agricultural workers, was the first modern European nation to meet its labor needs by importing slaves. The Portuguese began the practice in 1444, and by 1460, they were annually importing 700 to 800 slaves to Portugal from trading posts and forts established on the African coast, to which the captives were brought by other Africans. Spain soon followed, but for more than a century Portugal virtually monopolized the African slave traffic. In addition, Arab traders in North Africa shipped slaves taken from central Africa to markets in Arabia, Persia, and India. During the sixteenth century, in tropical Latin America, Spanish colonists were the first to force the native population to work the land. The indigenous people, however, could not survive the harsh conditions of slavery and were nearly wiped out, in part by exposure to European diseases and the unbearable conditions of forced labor. To resolve this problem, Africans were then transported to the Spanish colonies, primarily because it was believed that they could endure forced labor in the generally more enervating Caribbean and mainland Latin American climates. England entered the slave trade in the latter half of the sixteenth century, contesting the hitherto monopolized right of the Portuguese to supply slaves to the Spanish colonies. Subsequently, France, Holland, Denmark, and the American colonies entered the trade as competitors. In 1713 the exclusive right to supply the Spanish colonies with slaves was granted to the British South Sea Company.

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The first African slaves in North America landed at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. Brought by Dutch ships, they were subjected to limited servitude—a legalized status carried by Native American, white, and black servants that preceded the formal establishment of slavery in most of, if not all, the English colonies in the New World. The number of slaves imported was initially small, and it did not seem necessary to define their legal status. Statutory recognition of slavery, however, occurred in Massachusetts in 1641, in Connecticut in 1650, and in Virginia in 1661; these statutes mainly concerned fugitive slaves. In the latter half of the seventeenth century, however, with the development of the plantation system in the southern colonies, the number of Africans imported as agricultural slave laborers increased greatly, and several northern coastal cities became centers of the lucrative slave trade. In the northern colonies, slaves were generally used as domestics and in trade; in the Middle Atlantic colonies they were used more in agriculture; and in the southern colonies, where plantation agriculture was the primary occupation, almost all slaves worked on the plantations. Contrary to popular belief, slaves did have some legal rights, such as support in old age or sickness, a right to limited religious instruction, and the right to bring suit and give evidence in special cases. Customs conferred numerous rights, too, such as private property, marriage, free time, and contractual ability. Brutal treatment such as mutilation, branding, chaining, and murder were regulated or prohibited by law, but instances of cruelty were common before the nineteenth century. Characteristics of Slavery The institution of slavery exhibited certain common social and cultural attributes across the New World. Slaves were often cut off from any birthrights they may have had as members of a community. New slaves were always given new names, and often ordered to wear special clothes and haircuts. In cultural terms this natal alienation is usually expressed as a form of social death. In legal terms, masters in most slave-holding societies had the right to kill their slaves with impunity. Even when laws restricted the master’s power to kill a slave, the punishment for doing so was rarely more than the imposition of a fine. In any case, because all known societies extended to a master the right to physically punish the slave, it was usually difficult to disprove a murderous master’s claim that a slave had died while undergoing some legally acceptable punishment. In no slave society did slaves have legal custody over their spouses or children. Lack of custodial powers, however, did not mean the absence of stable sexual unions or families. In most slave-holding societies it was unusual for slaves born in the household to be sold, although the master generally had the right to do so. Slave women in all slave societies were powerless against the sexual demands of their masters. Nonetheless, societies varied considerably in the degree to which legal restraints were placed on third parties who attempted to rape female slaves. In no cases were slaves permitted full rights or power to own property; however, they were allowed to accumulate some material goods, which one could acquire by working beyond what was demanded by the master. Sometimes masters permitted slaves to engage in commerce in order to acquire enough money to enable them to purchase their long-cherished freedom. For this reason, many slave-holding societies had high rates of manumission.

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It is unwise to define slaves as persons who are part of the property of others. This is because, in sociological and legal terms, all persons, not only slaves, can be the objects of proprietorial relations. Slaves were distinguished, rather, by their loss of power, rights of natality or birth, and honor. Such a definition allows us to identify more rigorous distinctions between slaves and other categories of dependent or bonded persons. Serfs differ from slaves, as they are never natally alienated, cut off from the rights of birth. They belong to communities, usually more clearly than do their lords, who are often conquering outsiders. They are acknowledged to be full persons and are in no way regarded as socially dead. They usually have some proprietorial powers, especially over moveable personal property, and they can claim custodial power over their spouses and children. The Institution of Slavery in the New World Slavery emerged in the New World within the context of three major types of socioeconomic systems: the pure plantation system, the mixed plantation system, and the colonial settlement system. In the first type, a small elite group of masters controlled the vast majority of the slave population. The entire economy, in this system, was based on the slave plantation, where crops were planted for the export market, rather than for local consumption. Such a system became prominent in northeastern Brazil; in the Dutch and British colonies of Surinam and Guyana, respectively; and in its most extreme form, in the British and French islands of the Caribbean. On the other hand, slavery was simply a supplementary form of labor in a colonial context, where European settlers and mestizos dominated both politically and demographically. In this system, the institution of slavery played a minor role, existing in pockets, though in mining, large-scale slavery existed. Thus, by the middle of the eighteenth century, slavery outside the household had largely disappeared. Except for Columbia and nineteenth-century Cuba, most of Hispanic America practiced this type of slavery. In Mexico, slaves were numerous in the silver mines in the early sixteenth century, but by the middle of the seventeenth century, slavery was on the wane and was limited mainly to household work and crafts. The same was true in Peru and in most of the other Spanish New World colonies. A primitive agro-pastoral household slavery existed in Jamaica, in Cuba until the last third of the eighteenth century, and in Puerto Rico and the Spanish part of Hispaniola until the early nineteenth century. Several British colonies, notably colonial New England and British Canada, also practiced this type of slavery. The mixed plantation system lies somewhere between these two socioeconomic systems. A single-crop plantation shaped the general economy without totally determining its character. Although most people and farms were not directly connected with slavery or the plantation system, the interests of the dominant political class were based on the wealth of the large slave plantations. Classic examples of this type of slavery can be found in the American South, though Cuba during the nineteenth century, Columbia, southwestern Brazil during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the Dutch Antilles also adhered to this system. Seen from an historical and cross-cultural perspective, New World slavery consisted of a unique conjunction of features. Its use of the slave population was strikingly specialized, with its heavy emphasis on the production of sugar and cotton for the world market. Both masters and slaves came from abroad, from distinctly different cultures and races, and they constituted from the start two visibly distinct

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layers of the population. The slave population occupied a separate stratum at the bottom of the social scale. This disparity created the popular association of New World slavery with race. Slaves were completely removed from relations based on kinship because marriage between masters and slaves was not recognized. In most other societies, particularly in the simpler ones, slavery operated in a quite different context. Most societies were indigenous and had deeper roots in the local sociopolitical milieu. Slaves usually came from nearby areas, sometimes from within society, and the cultural and biological distances between master and slave were often small and sometimes nonexistent. These factors reduced the obstacles to the slaves’ integration into the host population. Masters sometimes married their female slaves, and the prevalence of polygamy gave their practice ample scope; hence, relations based on slavery could overlap with those of kinship. Moreover, the economic and political systems in which slavery was enmeshed were simpler than those in the New World, and the use of slaves was less narrowly focused on economic production. Thus, it can be said that most of the variants of slavery did not exhibit the three elements that were dominant in the New World: slaves as property and commodities, their use exclusively as labor; and their lack of freedom. The Organized Slave Trade The global reach of the institution of slavery provided ample incentives to traders to organize trade based not only on commodities but also in human beings. Trading slaves made much more economic sense than trading goods. Historically, there have been five major international slave-trading systems, which operated as nodal agencies balancing the demand and supply of slaves. For more than 1,000 years, as part of the trans-Saharan caravan trade, the northern belt of Africa satisfied most of the demand for slaves. However, Islamic states, where slaves formed a vital part of the military and administrative elite, relied heavily on the peoples of the European-Asiatic steppe. Among the Ottomans, the main source of elite slaves was the Christian population of their European possessions, including Greeks, Armenians, and Albanians. The other important trading route was focused on the Indian Ocean, across which slaves were transported from east Africa to India, China, and other societies of the Far East. However, without any doubt, the most extensive of all trading systems, both in terms of the number of persons traded and the distances and goods involved, was the Atlantic slave trade. Beginning with the Dutch and Portuguese, followed by the British, French—and to a lesser extent the Danes and the Swedes—the trade formed a triangular route. Ships left Europe with goods that were traded for slaves in Africa. From there slaves were taken to the New World, where they were sold for cash or exchanged for goods, mainly sugar and cotton. The final leg of the triangle involved the sale of these commodities in Europe. Overcrowding is often blamed for the high death rate of slaves in transit, but it now seems that the main determinant was the length of the voyage. The longer the time spent aboard ship, the greater was the incidence of disease from contaminated water and spoiled food. The Abolitionist Movement and the End of the Slave Trade Abolition movements were rare in the history of slavery. Although the Stoics and Sophists preached against slavery in ancient Greece, they were more concerned with the spiritual enslavement of persons to material wants than to physical enslavement

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itself. There was no movement to abolish slavery in the Middle Ages. Outside the Americas, all systems of slavery not eliminated by the European colonial powers simply petered out during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the supply of slaves dried up or economic changes eliminated demand. A combination of intellectual, political, and economic factors accounts for the final abolition of slavery. In 1802 the slaves of the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) became the first slave population to gain freedom, after the only successful slave revolt in world history. France abolished slavery in its remaining colonies in 1848; the British had abolished slavery in the Empire in 1807, and the slave trade in 1833. In continental Spanish America, Chile led the way with emancipation in 1823; Mexico followed in 1829. Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Brazil were among the last New World countries to abolish slavery: Puerto Rico in 1873, Cuba between 1880 and 1886, and Brazil in 1888. As discussed earlier, the pressure mounted by the abolitionist movement compelled the British to abolish the trade in 1807, the Danes having already done so in 1804. The United Sates followed Britain in 1808, Sweden in 1813, the Netherlands in 1814, and France in 1818. In continental Spanish America, the abolition of the trade was partly the result of low demand, partly a result of local independence movements, and partly a response to British pressure. Venezuela and Mexico abolished the trade in 1810, Chile in 1811, and Argentina in 1812. During the nineteenth century, the trade to Spain’s last remaining colonies in the Caribbean, especially Cuba, continued, indeed increased. Even a papal ban and the abolition by Spain in 1871 did not put an end to the traffic. In Brazil, as in Cuba, the expansion of slave-grown crops after 1830—in this case coffee—increased the demand for slaves. In spite of various treaties with the British, the trade continued until 1880, although it was declared a form of piracy in 1850. Slavery in the Twentieth Century An important achievement in the history of slavery was the adoption of the International Slavery Convention in 1926 by the League of Nations. This convention called for the suppression and prohibition of the slave trade and the complete abolition of slavery in all forms. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, reaffirmed the principles embodied in the convention. In 1951 a United Nations committee on slavery reported that the practice of slavery was declining rapidly, and that only a vestige of slavery remained in a few areas of the world. Nevertheless, the committee found that forms of servitude similar to slavery affected a large number of people. These types of servitude included forms of serfdom and peonage, various abuses arising from the adoption of children, and the transfer in marriage of women without their consent. At the recommendation of the committee, a conference representing 51 nations was held in Geneva in 1956. The conference adopted the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery to supplement the convention of 1926. The new convention condemned all forms of servitude similar to slavery and provided for penal sanctions against countries engaged in the slave trade. Any disputes relating to the convention were to be referred to the International Court of Justice. FURTHER READING: Anstey, Roger. The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition, 1760 –1810. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1975; Beachey, R. W. The Slave Trade of Eastern Africa. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1976; Blackburn, Robin. The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery,

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1776 –1848. London: Verso, 1988; Burnside, Madeleine. Spirits of the Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Seventeenth Century. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997; Cooper, William J. The South and the Politics of Slavery, 1828 –1856. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978; Davidson, Basil. Black Mother: The Years of the African Slave Trade. Boston: Little, Brown, 1961; Davis, David Brian. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770 –1823. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; Dubois, Laurent. A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787 –1804. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004; Eltis, David. Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987; Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery. London: Pan, 2006; Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999; Lambert, David. White Creole Culture, Politics and Identity during the Age of Abolition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Morgan, Kenneth. Slavery, Atlantic Trade and the British Economy, 1660 –1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001; Olexer, Barbara. The Enslavement of the American Indian. Monroe, NY: Library Research Associates, 1982; Shaw, Robert B. A Legal History of Slavery in the United States. Potsdam, NY: Northern Press, 1991; Walvin, James. Black Ivory: Slavery in the British Empire. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. JITENDRA UTTAM

Smith, Adam (1723 –1790) Although best known for his classic work in political economy, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith was also a moral philosopher and social historian. He was born near Edinburgh, Scotland, and taught at the University of Glasgow, later becoming a tutor for a wealthy family. His friends included the greatest philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume, as well as many other leading members of that movement. He was also a friend of the Anglo-Irish conservative Edmund Burke. Smith’s first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), remains important in the history of ethics. It began with the premise that humans are ruled by their “passions,” the natural inclinations with which they were born. Smith sought to answer a problem in moral philosophy created by this theory of human nature: How can benevolence and altruism arise from the selfish motives of private feelings? Smith followed Hume in arguing that one’s inner feelings can be communicated to others because we all share the same nature, like musical strings tuned to each other. Hence we have an inborn capacity for sympathy. Smith went further to develop the idea of the “impartial spectator.” Each of us, he argued, has a rational capacity to observe others and ourselves impartially, and this gives us the power of moral judgment to augment our natural feelings of sympathy. Smith also followed Hume in arguing that in addition to inborn passions or inclinations, humans are capable of acquiring second-order passions through socialization. Much of The Theory of Moral Sentiments is about the historical development of such passions as society has evolved over time. This historical method of tracing social developments also characterized his most famous work, The Wealth of Nations. It described the stages of economic and social growth, culminating in modern commercial society. Smith argued that governments ought not to interfere with this process by imposing economic policies such as tariffs on trade. He also believed wages and prices should be determined by the laws of market competition. Both of Smith’s best-known books discussed the idea of the “invisible hand” that regulates individual behaviors. Smith contended that although humans are driven

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by their passions, they are also ruled more subtly by institutional rules and procedures. These include the economic laws of market competition, which provide a regulating mechanism so that private selfishness results in the economic betterment of all. Smith justified the economic inequalities of such a system because he thought that the poor would also benefit from it. Ideologically, Smith provides an important link between the economic conservatism of laissez-faire capitalism and the social conservatism of traditionalists like Hume and Burke. Smith believed capitalism is not just based on the incentives of self-interest but also requires regulating mechanisms. These arise historically as social institutions and include morality, mores, and laws. Although Smith believed in incremental social progress, he favored evolution over revolution. Hence, his ideas are likely to be resisted by those who seek more rapid or radical social change. FURTHER READING: Heilbroner, Robert L., ed. The Essential Adam Smith. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986; Raphael, D. D. Adam Smith. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. BORIS DEWEIL

Smith, William (1727–1803) William Smith was an Aberdeen-born teacher and leading American educator, Anglican/Episcopal clergyman, and author who was suspected of being a Loyalist sympathizer during the American Revolutionary War because of his views on the use of the state military and his marriage to Rebecca Moore, the daughter of William Moore. Smith was the first provost (1755–79; 1789–91) of one of the University of Pennsylvania’s precursor institutions (Academy and College of Philadelphia), served on the college’s board of trustees (secretary, 1764 –1790; president, 1790–1791), and founded Washington College in Maryland, serving as its president from 1782 to 1789. Smith graduated from the University of Aberdeen (1747); immigrated to the American colonies in 1751; and, after being ordained by the Church of England (1754), accepted an appointment to teach natural philosophy, logic, and ethics (1754 –1791) at the Academy and College of Philadelphia, founded by Benjamin Franklin (1749). In 1755 the Academy became the College of Philadelphia, and Smith was named provost. Smith and Franklin publicly disagreed (1756) over the content of the college’s curriculum and control of Pennsylvania’s provincial military force. The disagreement over the latter issue was heightened when Smith published his objections to the military policies of the Pennsylvania provincial assembly. This led to charges that Smith was a Loyalist sympathizer, and his imprisonment in 1758. William Moore (1735 –1793), later governor of Pennsylvania (1781–82), but then a judge and provincial assemblyman, was imprisoned at the same time for the same reasons. Both Smith and Moore supported measured responses to the Stamp Act (1765) and favored increased colonial liberties and autonomy, though Smith discouraged any violent response. Though Smith publicly supported the colonial position in a sermon delivered in June 1775 to the third battalion of the Pennsylvania Line under the command of Colonel Lambert Cadwallader, his support of the American Revolution was deemed too cautious. This cautious support, his earlier political positions, and his being an Anglican clergyman led the revolutionary legislature of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to revoke the college’s charter (1779). A new college, the University

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of the State of Pennsylvania, with a new provost and a new board of trustees, was created, and the college was diminished in importance. Smith was not appointed to the board or made provost of the new dominant institution. Smith moved to Maryland (1779), becoming the rector of the Anglican parish of Chester and there founded Washington College (chartered by Maryland in June 1782) with the financial support of George Washington, who later served on the Washington College Board of Visitors and Governors (1784–1789). Smith participated in the Church of England’s Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts from its beginning in Pennsylvania (1776) until the onset of the Revolutionary War. The society, originally organized in London in 1701, saw Britain’s North American colonies as its primary mission field. Smith presided over the May 1783 clergy convention that organized the American Protestant Episcopal Church and created the diocese of Maryland. He was elected bishop of the diocese in June 1783, but the general convention held in 1786 did not recommend him for consecration to the episcopate. In 1785–1786 he helped create a proposed liturgy for the new denomination known as the Proposed Book (the American Book of Prayer), but it was never adopted. Smith returned as the college’s provost when the charter was restored in 1789. The legislature merged the college and the University of the State of Pennsylvania into the University of Pennsylvania on September 13, 1791, with a board of trustees composed of 24 men, 12 from each institution. Smith received DD degrees from Oxford and Aberdeen in 1759, and from Trinity College Dublin in 1763, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1768. Most of Smith’s sermons, orations, addresses, poems, and other writings have been published. See also Loyalists. FURTHER READING: Gegenheimer, Albert Frank. William Smith, Educator and Churchman, 1727 –1803. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1943; Jones, Thomas Firth. A Pair of Lawn Sleeves: A Biography of William Smith (1727 –1803). Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1972; Smith, Horace Wemyss. Life and Correspondence of Reverend William Smith, D.D. Philadelphia: Ferguson Bros, 1880. RICHARD M. EDWARDS

Smith, William (1728–1793) William Smith was a jurist, historian, and important American Loyalist. Born in New York City, he graduated from Yale in 1745 and was called to the New York bar in 1750. With his brother-in-law, William Livingston, he coauthored Laws of New York from the Year 1691 to 1751, published in 1752. His family alliance with the Livingstons, as well as his own Presbyterian faith, led him to oppose the establishment of King’s College (now Columbia University) as an Anglican institution. Although he failed in this endeavor, his publication, together with William Livingston and John Morin Scott, of the Independent Reflector from 1753 to 1754 made him a leading Whig advocate in the province. In 1757, he also published The History of the Province of New York, a highly partisan attack on what Smith perceived to be an increasingly materialistic society, one that placed consumption above civil virtue. In the 1760s, his continued defense of colonial liberties against British regulation earned him the name of “Patriotic Billy.” Smith’s own success as a wealthy lawyer, his concerns over the increasing violence of the Sons of Liberty, and his own appointment to the governor’s council

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in 1767, however, increasingly tempered his views, and before the final imperial crisis in 1774, Smith attempted to find a solution to the impasse over taxation and representation by suggesting a federated empire, one that contained an American parliament. Consulted by the New York provincial convention of 1776 regarding the new state constitution, he, nonetheless, repeatedly refused to take the oath to the new state government. Forced to seek refuge behind British lines in August 1778, Smith worked hard to reconcile his fellow Americans to the cause of empire while remaining himself a critic of actual British policy. He worked to further the aims of the 1778 Carlisle Peace Commission, composed the public address for Benedict Arnold that explained his own defection, and was a member of the delegation sent to General George Washington in 1780 in an attempt to save the life of Major John André, a British spy. Appointed chief justice of New York in 1780, he chose to join the Loyalists who went into exile aboard the departing British fleet in 1783. In London Smith was given a second chance for a public career when he was appointed chief justice of Quebec in 1785. For the remainder of his life he attempted to demonstrate the superiority of British political institutions over republican government, and he played a major role in reforming the land and legal systems of Canada. Smith died in Quebec in December 1793. See also American Revolution; Constitutions, American State; Livingston, Philip. FURTHER READING: Calhoun, Robert M., ed. “William Smith Jnr.’s Alternative to the American Revolution.” William and Mary Quarterly 22 (1965): 105 –18; Upton, L.S.F. The Loyal Whig: William Smith of New York and Quebec. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969. RORY T. CORNISH

Société des Amis de la Constitution See Amis de la Constitution, Société des

Society of United Irishmen Active in Ireland in the late eighteenth century, the Society of United Irishmen was a republic organization that sought Irish independence from Britain. Various factors gave rise to the Society of United Irishmen in the early 1790s. Advanced Protestant reformers, especially in Ulster, were dissatisfied with the failure to achieve parliamentary reform in the 1780s. They were inspired to renew their efforts to achieve political reforms by the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, which showed that an oppressed people, and a Catholic people at that, could embrace the cause of liberty. The Catholics in Ireland were already campaigning for further relief from the penal laws, and the Protestant reformer Theobald Wolfe Tone urged a union of Protestants and Catholics in support of greater political rights in An Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland in September 1791. He and other Protestant reformers such as William Drennan, Thomas Russell, and Samuel Neilson were also influenced by the publication of Thomas Paine’s natural rights arguments in his Rights of Man in 1791. On October 18, 1791, this small group of reformers set up the first Society of United Irishmen in Belfast, and this was soon followed by a society along the same lines in Dublin on November 9. Branches of the United Irishmen soon spread to

Society of United Irishmen

other smaller towns, especially in Ulster. The Dublin society was the largest, with about 400 members, although the average attendance was fewer than 100 members. It was dominated by men in the middling ranks of society (professional men such as lawyers and physicians, and businessmen such as booksellers and printers, merchants, and manufacturers, especially in the textile trades), but it did include a few gentlemen. The Belfast United Irishmen were generally of a lower social rank, with more shopkeepers, small farmers, tradesmen, and artisans. The aims of these societies were initially vague: to reduce English influence over Irish affairs, to reform the system of representation, and to include in this reform Irishmen of all religious persuasions. It was not until February 1794 that the United Irishmen in Dublin clarified their reform program: universal manhood suffrage, equal electoral districts, annual parliaments, and the payment of MPs. In clarifying their aims, they lost support from some of their more prosperous and less radical members. To achieve their aims the United Irishmen initially employed constitutional tactics: holding debates, publishing addresses and resolutions, corresponding with other reformers, and printing their own propaganda (especially in the Northern Star in Belfast). The growing violence in France and the outbreak of war between Britain and France produced a powerful conservative reaction against reform. Although it gave some relief to buy off moderate Catholics, the Irish government sought to suppress the radical activities of the United Irishmen. The Convention Act of 1793 aimed to suppress all societies seeking to alter the establishment in church and state. The discovery of William Jackson, a French agent who was contacting United Irishmen in Dublin in early 1794, led leaders like Wolfe Tone to go into exile and William Drennan to abandon active politics. On May 24, 1794, the government ordered the Dublin society to disband. After some months in disarray, the United Irishmen were reconstituted in 1795 as a secret oath-based and mass-based conspiracy dedicated to achieving its ends by force if necessary. Wolfe Tone arrived in France in 1796 in order to enlist French military support, which led to failed invasion attempts in 1796 and 1798. Meanwhile, within Ireland, the United Irishmen set up a federation of small societies (in a vain attempt to avoid detection) that were organized in a pyramid structure. Elected delegates attended committees at baronial, county, provincial, and national levels. Alongside this civilian structure was a parallel military structure with elected officers that claimed to have recruited several hundred thousand armed men by early 1798. These vast numbers were probably exaggerated, but not by that much, given the large number of men who eventually took up arms in 1798. The United Irishmen recruited these men by means of propaganda, emissaries, and the infiltration of Masonic lodges and the irregular armed forces. Large numbers of supporters of the United Irishmen’s conspiracy were Catholics recruited through an alliance with the Defenders, a sectarian protest movement that had long been seeking to defend Catholics from oppression and to improve their social and economic conditions. To establish an alliance with the Defenders, the United Irishmen needed to broaden their appeal through a campaign for democratic political reforms. They had to show some interest in socioeconomic reforms and the vexed land question and to become even more of a separatist and republican movement. Only by such means could they appeal to the Catholic majority in Ireland and broaden the social base of their support to include the urban and rural poor. While the middle-class leaders of the United Irishmen tried to give a political lead, many of their Defender allies were poorer men much more interested in socioeconomic

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reforms and desirous of recovering land previously confiscated from the Catholic majority. Thus, the United Irishmen changed their composition, their objectives, and their methods in the mid-1790s. In seeking to enlist the Defenders in order to become numerically powerful, however, they became prone to divisions along social, economic, and sectarian lines. In planning insurrection and in seeking French military support, the United Irishmen lost the support of moderate reformers and deeply alienated the governing elite and the militant Protestants in the Orange Order (created in 1795). By seeking mass recruits, the United Irishmen made it impossible to remain a secret underground conspiracy. The government soon had an army of spies and informers watching their every move. The authority of Irish magistrates was increased by the Insurrection Act of 1796, and the army was used to disarm many of the United Irishmen and Defenders in 1796 –1798. This drive against the armed United Irishmen led to hundreds of arrests, and many of the leaders planning insurrection were arrested in March and May 1798. When the Irish rebellion broke out, the insurrection was not as well planned or as coordinated as the United Irishmen had hoped it would be. A series of quite large and bloody uprisings took place beginning May 23, 1798, but these were crushed. The United Irishmen strove to give a lead to a political uprising, but many Catholic rebels were motivated by resentment at the harsh repression of the authorities and sought socioeconomic and sectarian objectives. The French arrived in small expeditions, too late and in the wrong locations. Some of the leading United Irishmen died in the uprising, were executed afterward, or were exiled. Some leaders tried to argue that they were political moderates who had been unable to prevent the Catholic Defenders from reacting violently to the harsh repression of the government, the army, and the Orangemen. They were imprisoned in Scotland until 1803. The United Irishmen movement totally collapsed, and it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that they started to become the heroes and martyrs of Irish republicanism and nationalism. FURTHER READING: Curtin, Nancy J. The United Irishmen: Popular Politics in Ulster and Dublin, 1791–1798. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994; Dickson, David, Daire Keogh, and Kevin Whelan, eds. The United Irishmen: Republicanism, Radicalism, and Rebellion. Dublin, UK: Lilliput Press, 1993; Elliott, Marianne. Partners in Revolution: The United Irishmen and France. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982; Jacob, Rosamond. The Rise of the United Irishmen, 1791–94. London: G. G. Harrap, 1937; McDowell, R. B., ed. Proceedings of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen. Dublin, UK: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1998; Stewart, A.T.Q. A Deeper Silence: The Hidden Origins of the United Irishmen. Belfast, UK: Blackstaff Press, 1998; Whelan, Kevin. Fellowship of Freedom: The United Irishmen and 1798. Cork, UK: Cork University Press, 1998; Wilson, David A. United Irishmen, United States: Immigrant Radicals in the Early Republic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998. H. T. DICKINSON

Solemn League and Covenant (1774) The Solemn League and Covenant of 1774 was a pledge by Bostonians not to import British goods following the imposition of the Intolerable Acts, known as the Coercive Acts to the British, by Parliament in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party, which took place on December 13, 1773. The covenant was proposed by Samuel Adams and later signed by the Boston Committee of Correspondence on June 5, 1774. The Intolerable

Sons of Liberty

Acts imposed in 1774 revoked the colony’s charter and forbade town meetings (Massachusetts Government Act; May 20, 1774); closed the port of Boston until reparations for the Tea Party’s damage were paid (Boston Port Act; March 31, 1774); forbade the trial of British officials in colonial courts (Administration of Justice Act; May 20, 1774); and amended the 1765 Mutiny Act with the Quartering Act ( June 2, 1774), which allowed British soldiers to be quartered not only in commercial and empty buildings but in private occupied dwellings as well. The unrest anticipated by Parliament when they dispatched British general Thomas Gage and four regiments to Boston began to develop as word of the Intolerable Acts reached Massachusetts in the spring and summer of 1774. Gage arrived in Boston on May 13, 1774, and imposed each of the Intolerable Acts as soon as he had official notification. Samuel Adams, after receiving the news of the Boston Port Act on May 10, called for a May 13 town meeting to consider the appropriate response. The covenant proposed that all signatories boycott British goods effective on October 1 and stop dealing with any nonsignatory local merchants by the same time. Some merchants rejected the covenant, and others proposed a more comprehensive non-importation agreement involving all 13 colonies. The covenant failed to receive immediate acceptance following its adoption on June 6. Adams and the Committee of Correspondence tried to enlist the support of other communities by circulating the covenant through other committees of correspondence in the neighboring towns. Though many of the towns did not support the covenant, some, such as Westford and Concord, did, but only with modifications. The covenant was passed at a Boston town meeting in late June. Gage publicly renounced the covenant on June 30, 1774, as traitorous and threatened its backers with arrest. The First Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia (September 5–October 26, 1774) effectively overrode the covenant when on October 20, 1774, it enacted the Articles of Association, which united the colonies in boycotting both the importation of British goods and the exportation of American goods to Britain unless the Intolerable Acts were not repealed. They were not, and the boycott began in 1775. FURTHER READING: Alden, John Richard. A History of the American Revolution. New ed. Cambridge, MA: De Capo Press, 1989; Griffith, Samuel B. The War for American Independence: From 1760 to the Surrender at Yorktown in 1781. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976; Irvin, Benjamin H. Samuel Adams: Son of Liberty, Father of Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. RICHARD M. EDWARDS

Sons of Liberty The Sons of Liberty is the name taken by a wide variety of American patriot groups in the colonies during the years leading up to the American Revolution. Originating in New York City and Boston, groups calling themselves Sons of Liberty emerged throughout the colonies from New England to Georgia. They counted among their membership such prominent figures as John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere. The Sons of Liberty, while gaining the support of many laborers, remained a primarily middle-class, often artisanal, movement. The Sons of Liberty took their name from a 1765 debate in Parliament over the Stamp Act, a controversial piece of legislation devised to cover some of the costs

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of maintaining a regular British military presence in the colonies, ostensibly to guard against incursions by French forces. Isaac Barré, a member of Parliament who supported the American colonists, rose to rebuke proponents of the Stamp Act, referring to the Americans as “these sons of liberty” who would surely oppose the act. The Stamp Act, in calling for the issuance of tax stamps on a variety of public documents, including newspapers, customs forms, and other legal documents and licenses, was viewed by the printers, lawyers, and shopkeepers who provided the primary membership in the early Sons of Liberty as a direct attack on their livelihood. In response to the passing of the Stamp Act, the first Sons of Liberty groups issued declarations claiming that they would give their lives to prevent the act from being enforced. They also promised violence if it was needed to defeat the act. In this they were true to their word, as violence did indeed mark the actions of the Sons of Liberty throughout their existence and across the different groups. Actions included the confiscation and burning of official documents and property, vandalism, and the burning in effigy of local tax officials. Symbols of British authority such as the East India Company and the homes of wealthy supporters of the Crown were targeted, forcing some royal governors into hiding. Actual assaults on individuals were also carried out with some frequency. Customs officers, tax collectors, and others who publicly expressed loyalty to Britain were subjected to tarring and feathering, while items of class distinction were often stripped from people in the streets as acts of public humiliation. Perhaps ironically, the Sons of Liberty openly proclaimed their loyalty to George III. In their view the real enemy of the colonists was Parliament. The Sons of Liberty, taking a position that finds echoes in the defense of the United States Constitution among some contemporary American conservatives, expressed their allegiance to the English constitution against the intrusions of politicians and government bureaucrats. With the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, the Sons of Liberty declined as an active movement. However, the social networks that had been established allowed the group to reinvigorate itself quickly to oppose the new regime of duties, covering a variety of goods, introduced under the Townshend Acts in 1767. The reestablished Sons of Liberty remained active throughout the period of the American Revolution, only disbanding in 1783. There has been much debate over the character of the Sons of Liberty; historical assessments range from those that view them as patriots to those that identify them as terrorists, and others that suggest they were both. The success of the movement is less controversial given the quick repeal of the Stamp Act, the popularity of the movement, and the adoption of its tactics by a variety of opponents of Britain. The Sons of Liberty stand as a potent mythic symbol, especially among conservative groups, in contemporary America. Organizations ranging from libertarian associations, which seek to uphold the original U.S. Constitution against the supposed intrusions of politicians and lawmakers, to motorcycle clubs have taken the Sons of Liberty as their namesake. FURTHER READING: Brown, Richard D. Revolutionary Politics in Massachusetts: The Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Towns, 1772 –1774. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970; Countryman, Edward. A People in Revolution: The American Revolution and Political Society in New York, 1760 –1790. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981; Nash, Gary B. The

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Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness and the Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979. JEFF SHANTZ

South Carolina South Carolina, like many states, was divided between Patriots and Loyalists and between rival political and geographical groupings. The split was so deep that both political and military events in South Carolina took the shape of a civil war. There were some similarities with North Carolina, particularly the neglect that South Carolina’s western population felt toward the government in the east. However, there were significant differences as well. Eastern South Carolina was dominated by Charleston, which was not just a city but one of the premier ports on the eastern coast. It was a true urban center that created a more significant divide between east and west than existed to the north. Those who lived in the west were subsistence farmers, while those in the east were owners of large farms or wealthy merchants. In 1761, the wars with the Cherokees were settled and the area was open for settlement. However, whereas there had been problems with Native Americans, there were now problems with bandits, in whose existence the eastern-dominated colonial government took no interest. At the same time, all courts were kept in the east, and none established in the western part of the colony. As a result, South Carolinians in the west formed bands of Regulators. Unlike those in North Carolina, their role was to keep order, not to provide an alternative form of government. Finally, as sentiment against Parliament and favoring independence developed, that sentiment was borne mostly by easterners, who were predominantly Whigs. Those who lived in the backcountry did not support the movement toward revolution as enthusiastically. South Carolina sent a representative to the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765. Ten years later, as the debate over perceived wrongs inflicted by the British government sharpened, a provisional body was established in June 1774 to run the colony. Later that year delegates were sent to the First Continental Congress and voted to establish the Continental Association. By January 1775 a full Provincial Congress had come into being; it was succeeded by a second Provincial Congress called in November 1775. This Congress drafted a state constitution that was adopted in March 1776. After 1778, most military action in the American Revolutionary War shifted south, and several campaigns were fought in South Carolina. In 1781, Cornwallis’s march north to Virginia made the area quieter, but there was continued partisan warfare, especially in the west, until 1783. South Carolina sent delegates to the Constitutional Convention. When the United States Constitution was brought to the state for ratification, most Anti-Federalist sentiment came from the west. As had been the case before the war, westerners were defeated. South Carolina ratified the Constitution in May 1788 by a vote of two to one, the eighth state to do so. See also American Revolution; Articles of Confederation; Constitutions, American State; Continental Congress, Second; Declaration of Independence; Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth; Pinckney, Thomas; Rutledge, Edward; Rutledge, John.

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FURTHER READING: Bargar, B. D. Royal South Carolina, 1719 –1763. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1970; Brown, Richard Maxwell. The South Carolina Regulators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963; Greene, Jack P., ed. Money, Trade, and Power: The Evolution of Colonial South Carolina ’s Plantation Society. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001; Weir, Robert M. Colonial South Carolina: A History. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997. ROBERT N. STACY

Spain At the outset of the age of revolution in the Atlantic world during the latter half of the eighteenth century, Spain had already been a declining power for over a century and a half. From the heights of its imperial glory under the Habsburgs in the sixteenth century, Spain had been overtaken by the rising powers Britain and France and even its former colony the Netherlands and fallen to the status of a second-rate power. Nevertheless, even though Spain had been relegated to a secondary role in Great Power politics on the European continent itself, the Spanish throne—which had passed to the Bourbon line in 1700—still controlled an immense empire in the Americas and was thus still a force to be reckoned with on a global level. During the height of its imperial majesty, Spain had followed a mostly extractive policy in its American colonies, using them largely as a source of precious metals to enlarge the coffers of the Spanish throne, rather than for raw materials to fuel industrial expansion. Thus, while the Spanish throne grew rich over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it did little to invest this surplus in economic development either at home or in the colonies. Spain’s accumulation of metallic wealth—while useful for funding wars and the imperial ambitions of the crown— led to inflation and eventually caused the bankruptcy of the Spanish crown. In 1759, King Charles III acceded to the Spanish throne, having previously ruled Spanish associated regions in Italy. Charles was a reform-minded monarch who was influenced to a great extent by the ideas of the Enlightenment popular in France and elsewhere. Charles attempted to promote rationalist ideas and to rule in what he saw as the best interests of his people. Nevertheless, the Catholic Church continued to hold much power and land in Spain at this time, and this led to serious tension between Charles and the clergy. At the beginning of the age of revolution, Spain remained a largely rural and peasant society. While Britain and France had begun to witness a transformation in economic and social life fuelled by industrialization, Spain remained a largely backward society nostalgic about its prior glory. However, Charles—cognizant of Spain’s lagging economy—attempted to improve the nation’s agriculture by making the land more productive. Many clergy objected to this, as they thought it would interfere with their extensive land holdings. In 1766, Spain—following the lead of other European countries—expelled the Jesuit order. Despite the clashes between their king and clergy, most Spaniards continued to revere the church, and the Inquisition remained popular. This religiosity penetrated through most layers of Spanish society—marking a striking difference with other European countries, where the Enlightenment was creating a public sphere in which rationalist and deist philosophies were gaining strength. Still, a small group of enlightened intellectuals did develop in Spain during this period, and

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the country did experience some level of economic and cultural revival in the late eighteenth century. Under Charles’s reign, Spain continued to play a part in Europe’s Great Power conflicts, even as it took a backseat to the dominant powers of France and Spain. The tenuous situation in Italy—which was divided into several small kingdoms and territories—created constant tensions as Spain sought to defend Bourboncontrolled possessions from Austrian, French, and British encroachment and to expand the influence of their Italian allies. In the 1760s, Spain participated on the side of its fellow Bourbon kingdom, France, in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763) with Britain. However, the result of the war was not favorable for either crown. France lost almost all its American possessions, while Spain lost Florida and was forced to make concessions to Britain elsewhere. It did, however, receive France’s former Louisiana territory, bringing the Spanish Empire to its farthest geographic limit. Still, inflation resulting from the war sparked rioting and growing social discontent, forcing Charles to replace several key ministers. In the 1780s, Charles again sent Spain to war with Britain, this time in support of the American Revolution. While Spain’s actual military contribution was minimal, it did receive Florida and Minorca at the Peace of Paris in 1783, and its control of the Louisiana territory was reaffirmed. Still, tensions with the newly founded United States over the precise boundaries of Florida and navigation of the Mississippi would continue for several more years. Charles III died in 1788 and was replaced by his son Charles IV. Charles IV would attempt to rule in continuity with his father’s policies of enlightened despotism. However, the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 would eventually lead to a pan-European war and involve Spain in the horrors of a brutal foreign occupation. In 1793, Spain joined a coalition of powers opposed to the revolutionary government in France. Charles had particular interest in rescuing his French cousin, Louis XVI, whom the French revolutionary government had arrested and put on trial for treason. The execution of Louis particularly angered Charles, who sent a Spanish army to invade southern France. Nevertheless, the French revolutionary armies were able to repel the Spanish invasion and begin their own invasion of Catalonia, Navarre, and the Basque country. While the French armies were able to inflict defeats on the Spanish army, their propaganda calling for an insurrection against Charles IV largely fell on deaf ears. Reeling from the cost of war, Spain sought peace with the moderate Directory government in France in 1795. However, in 1796, the Spanish Bourbon government—fearful of the growing influence of Britain—approached the French about forming an alliance. The two declared war on Britain that same year. The British navy responded by enacting a commercial blockade, obstructing Spanish trade with its American empire, and seizing Trinidad and Minorca. In 1802, a peace was signed, but Napoleon’s rise to power in France ensured that it would not last long. In 1803, France and Britain resumed their conflict. While Charles tried to keep Spain neutral, the British grew suspicious of Spain and captured its treasure fleet. Spain responded by declaring war. In 1805, the British navy destroyed a combined Spanish and French fleet in the celebrated Battle of Trafalgar—effectively ending Spain’s naval capacity. This defeat provoked panic among Charles’s ministers, some of whom wanted to switch sides to avoid the wrath of the British. This led to much intrigue, with

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Charles’s son Ferdinand leading a faction in favor of maintaining the alliance with Napoleonic France. In 1807, Napoleon—angered by Portugal’s refusal to honor his Continental System by trading with Britain—devised a plan with Spain to invade Portugal. In 1808, a large French army entered Spain—supposedly on its way to invade Portugal—and began to take up positions in fortresses across the country. While many Spanish hoped that Napoleon would help Ferdinand unseat his less-than-popular rival, Godoy—who served as Charles’s chief minister—they resented the French army’s actions. Napoleon also changed the terms of the alliance and demanded Spain grant France territorial concessions in exchange for Portugal. Godoy responded by putting the country on a war footing and mobilizing the royal guards. Rumors that the royal family intended to flee for America gripped Spain, but Ferdinand—who was more positively inclined toward Napoleon—refused to accompany them. Hostile crowds began to form around the royal palace. Focusing their anger on Godoy, they stormed his quarters, and he was arrested by royal guards. On March 19, Charles abdicated the crown and was replaced by his son Ferdinand, who was the Spanish crowd’s favorite. However, the French commander in Spain—Marshal Murat—refused to recognize Ferdinand as king until Napoleon approved of the change. Napoleon responded to the disorder in his supposed ally by dismissing the Bourbon monarchy altogether and appointing his brother Joseph Bonaparte king of Spain. While a small circle of Spanish intellectuals and enlightened nobles believed Joseph might help push Spain along the path of reform, Napoleon’s actions were largely condemned by the Spanish people. Joseph’s rule rested on the presence of large numbers of French troops in the country, and Ferdinand—despite spending most of the period in French custody—became a symbol of Spanish national resistance to the occupation. Across Spain, local notables organized committees of resistance—known as juntas—to fight the French occupiers. Together with the remaining units of the Spanish army, the juntas inflicted several defeats on the French, forcing Napoleon himself to intervene in Spain with an army of over 300,000 men. Napoleon’s forces quickly defeated the Spanish regular army in a series of battles and seized control of most major cities in the country. Nevertheless, the Spanish populace remained hostile to the French invaders, conducting a guerrilla war against them that began to constrain Napoleon’s broader European war strategy. The French responded with much brutality toward the civilian population, turning the conflict into a virtual state of total warfare, a condition captured in the famous frescoes of the celebrated Spanish painter Francisco Goya. To the extent that he could, King Joseph tried to enact the reforms of the revolutionary age in Spain. He abolished the Inquisition and attacked the privileges of the church. However, the Spanish populace rejected these reforms as attacking their faith and traditions. Throughout this period, the Spanish resistance movement took a conservative, even reactionary, tone, with the Spanish seeking to defend the old Catholic order from the godless French. While the Spanish resistance was strongly nationalist in tone, it was not the revolutionary nationalism that had been expressed in the French Revolution, but a backward-looking one based primarily on religion. Sensing an opportunity to weaken Napoleon on his southern flank, the British supported the Spanish resistance movement. In 1810, the British invaded Spain from Portugal, while the guerrillas kept up their harassment of the French army.

Spence, Thomas

The British were eventually able to push the French out of Madrid and back toward their own borders. Under these conditions of occupation and total warfare, the future of the Spanish nation was in doubt. With Ferdinand remaining in French captivity during most of the war, many Spanish called for the reassembly of the Cortes—the old feudal legislative bodies that had been stripped of most of their power by the Habsburg and Bourbon monarchs. In 1812, the Cortes convened in Cadiz. Dominated mostly by enlightened intellectuals, the Cadiz Cortes drafted a constitution, making Spain the second nation in the world—and the first in Europe—with a written constitution. The new constitution embodied many liberal principles such as universal manhood suffrage and formally ended the Inquisition. However, following Napoleon’s defeat in 1814, Ferdinand returned home to assume the throne. Many nobles, as well as much of the populace at large, rejected the reform constitution and convinced Ferdinand to scrap it. Leading liberals were placed under arrest, the Inquisition was revived, and nobles regained many of their feudal privileges. Nevertheless, the long and brutal war with France had left Spain reeling. Largely bankrupt, Ferdinand could do little to resist the movement toward independence in Spain’s American empire. By 1825, most of this empire would be effectively independent from the old mother country. Moreover, at the Congress of Vienna in 1814 that reconfigured European borders after the Napoleonic Wars, the Great Powers were largely content to ignore Spanish concerns—despite the key role Spanish resistance played in defeating Napoleon. At the outset of the age of revolution, Spain was already a power on the decline. Nevertheless, geography and empire dictated that the Spanish nation would play an important part in the conflicts that emerged as a result of revolutionary events occurring elsewhere during this period. However, Spain did not emerge from these conflicts in a position of greater strength. In contrast, the revolutionary upheaval of this period—in which Spain reluctantly played a part—only confirmed its status as an historical “also-ran” and precipitated the inevitable loss of its massive overseas empire under the weight of new democratic and representative ideologies. Spain herself would slip back into familiar social, economic, and political patterns—a state from which it would not fully emerge for more than a century. See also Latin American Revolutions. FURTHER READING: Costeloe, Michael P. Response to Revolution: Imperial Spain and the Spanish American Revolutions, 1810 –1840. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986; Hargreaves-Mawdsley, W. N. Spain under the Bourbons, 1700 –1833. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1973; Lovett, Gabriel H. Napoleon and the Birth of Modern Spain. 2 vols. New York: New York University Press, 1965; Lynch, John. Bourbon Spain, 1700 –1808. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989; Sperber, Jonathan. Revolutionary Europe, 1780 –1850. New York: Longman, 2000. MICHAEL F. GRETZ

Spence, Thomas (1750–1814) Spence was born into a very poor family in Newcastle upon Tyne and received little education. He had two unsuccessful marriages and an unsuccessful career as a teacher. An extreme Presbyterian, he was much influenced by Rev. James Murray,

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who wrote radical tracts in support of John Wilkes and a defense of the rebellious American colonies. Spence supported Murray in local political disputes and first published the outlines of his famous Land Plan after giving a lecture on the subject to the Philosophical Society in Newcastle on November 8, 1775. This caused great offense, and he was expelled from the society. Increasingly isolated in Newcastle, Spence moved permanently to London sometime in the late 1780s or early 1790s. By 1792 he was known as a radical bookseller in the capital and a member of the London Corresponding Society and of more militant radical groups. He wrote a whole series of pamphlets detailing in different ways his famous Land Plan. His pamphlets included The Real Rights of Man (1793), Description of Spensonia (1795), The Constitution of a Perfect Commonwealth (1798), and The Restorer of Society to Its Natural State (1801). He also published a periodical, One Penny Worth of Pig’s Meat: Lessons for the Swinish Multitude, between 1793 and 1795. Despite his clear and vigorous prose, Spence’s Land Plan has often been misunderstood. He did not advocate the nationalization of land by the state. Always opposed to strong central government, Spence wished to place the land and natural resources of each parish under the control of a parish corporation elected by universal suffrage (men and women). Each corporation would rent out its land and resources on an annual basis to the highest bidder. The rent received by the parish corporation would be used for public needs and amenities: a parish hall, school, library, hospital, local militia force, and the like. When all these expenses had been met, the remaining money would be divided equally, every three months, among every man, woman, and child in the parish. There would therefore be no private owners of property and no wealthy men, and no one in dire poverty. At the national level, Spence favored a democratic republic with a legislature elected by universal suffrage and the complete separation of executive, legislative, and judicial powers. The national government would be expected to avoid war and would have no standing army. Spence hoped his Land Plan could be implemented by reasoned argument and public opinion, but he was not against using force if the clear majority of the people wished to see the Land Plan implemented and their desires were resisted. Spence was arrested at least six times and was twice imprisoned (for seven months without trial in 1794 and for a year in 1801). He was not easily intimidated, however, and he continued to promote his Land Plan. In his last years he gathered together a group of disciples, the Spensonian Philanthropists, who met in local taverns. Spence’s last years were spent in obscurity. He died in 1814, but his followers were involved in the Spa Fields riots of December 2, 1816, and the Cato Street conspiracy in February 1820. His Land Plan influenced some of the Chartists in the 1830s. FURTHER READING: Ashraf, P. M. The Life and Times of Thomas Spence. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Frank Graham, 1983; Chase, Malcolm. “The People’s Farm”: English Radical Agrarianism, 1775 –1840. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988; Dickinson, H. T., ed. The Political Works of Thomas Spence. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Avero, 1982; Rudkin, Olive D. Thomas Spence and His Connections. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1966. H. T. DICKINSON

Staël, Anne-Louise Germaine Necker, Madame de (1766 –1817) A prominent French-speaking Swiss literary figure, Anne-Louise Germaine Necker was the daughter of Jacques Necker, the Swiss banker and the future royal

Staël, Anne-Louise Germaine Necker, Madame de

director general of finance under Louis XVI, and Suzanne Curchod. As a child, she demonstrated unusual intellectual prowess and began very early to write. In her twenties, she published various literary works, notably an anonymously printed novel, Sophie (1786). She married Baron Erik Magnus Staël von Holstein, an older gentleman of substantial wealth, in 1786, but the marriage proved to be unhappy for both of them, although it produced three children. In 1788, she published Lettres sur le caractère et les écrits de Jean-Jacques Rousseau under her own name and demonstrated her enthusiasm for Rousseauism. She closely followed events in Paris, where her father struggled to balance French finances and stave off unrest. During the French Revolution, Staël initially lived at Coppet on the north shore of the Lake of Geneva, but in 1793, she traveled to Britain, where she mingled with the French émigré community. She supported a liberal constitutional monarchy, publishing a pamphlet entitled Refléxions sur le procès de la reine in support of Queen Marie Antoinette, and condemning the excesses of the Reign of Terror in De l ’ influence des passions sur le bonheur des individus et des nations. After the fall of Maximilien Robespierre, she returned to Paris and hosted a prominent salon. She published several works, including Sur la litérature considéré dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales (1800), which connected liberty with human perfectibility. In 1797, she separated from her husband, who died five years later. During this period, she was introduced to Napoleon, who initially captivated her, but their relations quickly became strained. Staël opposed Napoleon’s increasingly authoritarian regime and became a renowned hostess of a liberal opposition salon; her lover, Benjamin Constant, was also critical of Napoleon. In 1802, she published the first of her famous novels, Delphine, which introduced the femme incomprise to French literature but also contained liberal views. On Napoleon’s orders, Staël was forced into exile from Paris and was later prevented from entering France altogether. At her estate at Coppet she hosted a salon that became known for its political and intellectual discussions. Her writings continued to reflect her opposition to Napoleon. In 1807, she published Corinne ou l ’ Italie, which dealt with the life of an independent female poet. It was followed in 1810 by De l ’Allemagne, which described her experiences in various German cities and praised German culture. Napoleon resented this book for its attempt to compare German and French culture and had his police destroy the first edition of De l ’Allemagne printed in Paris; the book was later reprinted in London. In 1811–1812, Staël traveled through Russia, Finland, and Sweden, showing herself to be a staunch opponent of Napoleon and welcoming the news of his defeat in Russia and subsequent French losses in Germany. In 1814, she supported General Karl Bernadotte for the French throne but later rallied to the Bourbons. She was in Paris when Napoleon escaped from Elba, and she fled to her estate at Coppet. Nevertheless, she supported Benjamin Constant’s Additional Act, which liberalized Napoleon’s government during the Hundred Days. After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, Staël returned to France, where she died after suffering a stroke on July 14, 1817. Her memoirs, Dix années d ’exil, were published posthumously in 1821. A political propagandist at times, Madame de Staël was a woman of letters and one of the first feminist writers. Above all, she remains one of the most colorful personalities of her age. See also Emigrés; Jacobins; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques; Salons.

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FURTHER READING: Fairweather, Maria. Madame de Staël. London: Constable and Robinson, 2006; Herold, J. Christopher. Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël. New York: Time, 1964. ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE

Stamp Act (1765) The Stamp Act placed a tax on the American colonies that inspired widespread political resistance and violent protest. The conclusion of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) left the British Empire with the considerable expense of maintaining an army in North America. To help defray the costs, prime minister George Grenville implemented a program of colonial taxation. It was widely assumed in Britain that Parliament held total legislative power over the American colonies, an outlook that produced the Sugar Act and Currency Act in 1764, and the controversial Stamp Act in 1765. The colonists, however, claimed that the law’s form of direct taxation exceeded Parliament’s authority. The crisis that followed the passage of the Stamp Act called into question the nature of British sovereignty over the colonies and is generally considered the initial conflict in a series of events leading to the American Revolution. In February 1765, Grenville asked Parliament to extend a stamp duty, already in place in Britain, to the colonies. The law would require the use of stamped paper for over 50 types of public and legal documents, including newspapers, ships’ papers, customs forms, and pamphlets. Each was assigned a specific duty, ranging from one half penny to six pounds. To make the law more palatable to the colonists, the fees would cover fewer goods and be less expensive than those of their British counterparts. The wide range of taxable documents and variable fee structure was designed so that the burden would be shared broadly but would fall most heavily on lawyers, merchants, and printers. One resident from each colony would be appointed stamp distributor to administer the law. The money they collected would help pay for colonial defense. Grenville first proposed the tax in 1764, but debate over the measure led him instead to notify the colonies of the proposal and request suggestions for changes. Until the passage of the Sugar Act, Britain had collected revenues from the colonies by requesting funds from the colonial legislatures, which in turn taxed the colonists. News of the Sugar Act and the proposed stamp duties resulted in petitions protesting the measures on economic and political grounds. No colony complied with Grenville’s request for input, avoiding a de facto concession of Parliament’s right to impose a direct tax. When he came before Parliament in February 1765, Grenville argued that the costs of defending America and the doctrine of virtual representation warranted passage of the law. Other advocates claimed a need to assert Britain’s imperial authority. Parliament passed the Stamp Act on March 22, 1765, and expected it to be reluctantly accepted by the colonists. This was the case until May, when the first significant opposition emerged in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Patrick Henry, who had recently become a member, submitted seven resolutions denouncing the law. Five were passed, including one repudiating virtual representation. Although not as bold as they appeared to be in the colonial press’s descriptions, the Virginia Resolves initiated a powerful movement against the Stamp Act. By the end of the year, eight other colonies had passed similar resolutions. In the intervening period, the law met with both formal petition and violent dissent. In June, James Otis, a member of the Massachusetts colonial assembly, proposed that delegates from all the colonies meet to draft a petition protesting the Stamp

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Act. The Stamp Act Congress met in New York in October, with 27 delegates from nine colonies in attendance. Although they acknowledged their subordination to the Crown, they passed 14 resolutions objecting to the Stamp Act on constitutional grounds. They claimed that since the colonies had no representation in Parliament, that body could not legitimately levy taxes upon them. Instead, they argued, that right should be reserved for the colonial legislatures. Their final resolution demanded the act’s repeal. Violence erupted in Boston in August 1765. A group of tradesmen and shopkeepers called the Loyal Nine, later renamed the Sons of Liberty, led a mob bent on intimidating Andrew Oliver, the stamp distributor for Massachusetts. The mob hanged Oliver in effigy, burned his property, and damaged his house. Oliver pledged to resign the following day. As the news spread, the Sons of Liberty expanded and like-minded mobs forced similar resignations across the colonies. By the time of the official introduction of stamp duties on November 1, there were no longer any distributors in place. Nor could stamped paper be made available for fear of its destruction by the mob. From a practical perspective, the law was neutralized. After November 1, there was widespread, if not unified, defiance of the law. Many courts, printers, and ports closed for a time, but most returned to normal operations before the Stamp Act’s repeal without complying with its requirements. Colonists frequently criticized the stamp duties in economic terms, claiming that the postwar depression and the limited amount of hard currency in America made the Stamp Act unfair. A boycott of British goods proved most effective in motivating the law’s repeal. Starting in New York, merchants from various colonies organized non-importation agreements at their homeports. Publicity amplified the threat and began to turn British merchants against the act. During the summer of 1765, the Charles Watson-Wentworth, Marquess of Rockingham, succeeded Grenville as prime minister. As news of violent resistance and boycott threats filtered back to Britain, it became clear that either the law would have to be upheld by force or some form of appeasement would have to be made. The difficulty of a military solution and opposition to the law in Parliament, led by William Pitt, made repeal more pragmatic. But it was feared that simply annulling the act might be viewed as acquiescing to the mob. Ultimately, Rockingham’s ministry favored a solution that nullified the law on economic grounds but also reaffirmed, through a Declaratory Act, Parliament’s complete legislative prerogative. The Stamp Act was officially repealed on March 18, 1766. See also Newspapers (American). FURTHER READING: Morgan, Edmund S., and Helen M. Morgan. The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995; Thomas, P.D.G. British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis: The First Phase of the American Revolution 1763 –1767. New York: Clarendon Press, 1975. ROBERT LEE

Stamp Act Congress (1765) The Stamp Act Congress, organized to petition for the repeal of the Stamp Act (1765), constituted the first joint effort to oppose a British imperial policy in the American colonies. The Stamp Act required the use of stamped paper for a range

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of public documents, levying a direct tax on the American colonies. This departed from Parliament’s customary method of requisition, in which the colonial legislatures were asked to collect and remit funds to Britain. The law inspired a powerful backlash among the colonists. One of the most important means of protest was the formation of the Stamp Act Congress, which issued resolutions laying out the colonial view of the appropriate relationship between the American colonies and the British Empire. In June 1765, the Massachusetts colonial legislature was in the process of petitioning the Crown for relief from the Stamp Act. One of its members, James Otis, suggested that they instead organize an intercolonial meeting to formulate a unified petition of protest. Circular letters went out, and the Stamp Act Congress was scheduled to meet in New York. Not every colony responded favorably to the idea. The governors of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia refused to send delegates; New Hampshire did not send any either but later endorsed the resolutions. In all, 27 delegates from nine colonies came together to discuss the Stamp Act for two weeks in October 1765. The most important issue facing the assembly was the constitutionality of a direct tax. The actual costs of stamp duties were small, but it was feared that they would set a precedent for internal taxation of the colonies, an authority traditionally afforded to the colonial legislatures. A central debate among the delegates was over the question of whether to reject internal taxation of the colonies while acknowledging Parliament’s right to regulate external trade. Although few denied the latter, the Congress opted not to explicitly admit that right in their petition—leaving open the possibility of protesting Parliament’s indirect methods of raising revenues, like the Sugar Act, if they became too onerous. On October 19, the Congress agreed upon the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, an assessment of colonists’ rights and their relationship to the Crown. Penned chiefly by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, the 14-point petition adhered to the doctrine of no taxation without representation made prominent the previous May by the Virginia Resolves. The Declaration of Rights also argued against the stamp duties on economic grounds, claiming that limited specie in the colonies made the tax impractical, and an existing tax burden inherent in the purchase of British manufactures rendered it unfair. The final point both called for the repeal of the Stamp Act and reiterated colonial fealty for the Crown. The Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, the result of a combination of several forms of violent and nonviolent protest, in which the Stamp Act Congress played a central role. The Congress also provided the American colonists with organizational experience, serving as an exercise in coordinating colonial opposition to Parliament’s policies. FURTHER READING: Morgan, Edmund S., and Helen M. Morgan. The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995; Weslager, C. A. The Stamp Act Congress: With an Exact Copy of the Complete Journal. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1976. ROBERT LEE

Stockton, Richard (1730 –1781) Richard Stockton was a New Jersey lawyer and political leader who signed the Declaration of Independence and, while a member of the Continental Congress,

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was captured and mistreated by the British. He was born on October 1, 1730, near Princeton, New Jersey. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1748 and studied law in Newark under David Ogden before being admitted to the bar in 1754. He shunned politics and practiced law until traveling to England, Scotland, and Ireland in 1766 –1776. While in Scotland, Stockton, a trustee at the College of New Jersey, and Benjamin Rush, an American student studying at Edinburgh, convinced the Reverend John Witherspoon to assume the presidency of the college. Rush later married Stockton’s daughter Julia and joined Stockton in signing the Declaration of Independence. Stockton became a member of the executive council of the province of New Jersey after returning to America in 1768 and sought to reconcile the growing conflict between Britain and her American colonies. He was appointed to the Supreme Court of New Jersey in 1774 and in December 1774 proposed colonial self-government to Lord Dartmouth, then the British secretary of state for the colonies. Stockton became more active in his opposition to British rule and on June 21, 1776, was appointed a member of the Second Continental Congress by the New Jersey Provincial Congress. He was defeated in his bid to become the governor of the new state of New Jersey in August 1776. He then declined an appointment as the state’s chief justice, desiring to remain in the Continental Congress, to which he was elected in September 1776. The British began advancing on his home in September 1776 while he was inspecting troops of the Continental Army. He fled with his family to Monmouth, New Jersey, but was captured by the British on November 30, 1776. His home was ransacked; his estate, Morven, was laid to waste; his library was burned; and his treatment during his imprisonment in New York was so severe that the Congress directed George Washington to negotiate an exchange. Stockton’s imprisonment left him an invalid and he never recovered physically or financially. He died on February 28, 1781. Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, named in his honor, was founded in 1971 as part of the New Jersey State College System. FURTHER READING: Bartelmas, Della Gray. The Signers of the Declaration of Independence: A Biographical and Genealogical Reference. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003; Ferris, Robert G., and Richard E. Morris. Signers of the Declaration of Independence. Arlington, VA: Interpretive Publications, 1982. RICHARD M. EDWARDS

Suffolk Resolves (1774) The Suffolk Resolves were written by Dr. Joseph Warren of Boston (a leader of the Whigs in Massachusetts’s General Court) and adopted by the Suffolk County Convention on September 9, 1774. After Parliament imposed the Coercive Acts and the governor-general, Thomas Gage, rescinded his writs that would have called the General Court into session that September, each of Massachusetts’s counties held a convention. Warren, writing for a committee of the Suffolk County Convention, drafted 19 resolutions that articulated the county’s grievances regarding these events. Like virtually all other provincial resolutions until George III rejected the Olive Branch Petition, the Suffolk Resolves reiterated the county’s continued allegiance to the

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Crown. This affirmation was particularly important in Massachusetts because its residents believed their 1691 charter formed a compact directly between them and the Crown, to which Parliament was not a party. The Suffolk Resolves declared that the Coercive Acts violated Massachusetts provincials’ natural rights, as well as those protected by the British constitution and Massachusetts’s 1691 charter. The Suffolk Resolves also declared unconstitutional those provisions of the Coercive Acts that usurped powers accorded to Massachusetts’s provincial government by the 1691 charter, called for a boycott of all British imports, and urged all Massachusetts towns to immediately elect new militia officers who supported the revolutionary movement and to begin weekly militia drills so that they could be prepared should British troops (then in Boston) initiate a conflict. The Suffolk County Convention engaged Paul Revere as a messenger to deliver a copy of the Suffolk Resolves to the Continental Congress, which was then meeting in Philadelphia. The Suffolk Resolves engendered debate and division within the Congress. Ultimately, members of the Continental Congress concurred with the concerns expressed in the Suffolk Resolves, endorsed them as an official statement of the Congress, and urged all the colonies to form non-consumption committees as part of the Continental Association. See also Continental Congress, Second. FURTHER READING: Raphael, Ray. The First American Revolution: Before Lexington and Concord. New York: New Press, 2002. CHRISTINE LAHUE

Suffrage (American) Patterns of suffrage in the American colonies reflected contemporary restrictions inherent in English law, and following independence, the United States continued to limit voting through a variety of measures. Only in the twentieth century was the franchise extended to minority groups and women. Restrictions and Voting Rights In 1430, an English law restricted the right to vote for members of Parliament to property owners who had land worth 40 shillings per year in rental value, or the equivalent land value. Each of the American colonies adopted property restrictions as they formed legislatures and other elected bodies. Most colonies required possession of land valued at least £50 in order for one to be eligible to vote. In addition, voting was restricted to free white males over the age of 21. Indentured servants were not allowed to vote. Some colonies also required religious tests as a prerequisite for voting. These requirements were initially retained after the American Revolutionary War. However, over time, the franchise was gradually extended. Article 1, Section 4, of the United States Constitution (1789) allowed the states to determine voter eligibility and to establish rules for conducting elections (Congress was given the authority to enact legislation that would supersede state regulations). The majority of states adopted restrictive electoral codes. Ten continued to hold property requirements: Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York, Massachusetts, and South Carolina. Although it maintained

Suffrage (American)

its property requirements, New Jersey broadened its franchise beyond white males. In 1790, the state granted the right to vote to all citizens (including women) with property or wealth equivalent to £50 (in 1807, New Jersey rescinded its relatively liberal electoral policies and excluded everyone but white males from voting). In 1791, Vermont enacted legislation that extended suffrage to all white males, regardless of property or wealth. Furthermore, all states discarded religious tests as a qualification for voting. Voting was conducted in the open without the secret ballot. Voters were publicly sworn in and announced their vote before the registrars. This practice continued after the founding of the United States (the secret ballot was not adopted until the late nineteenth century). Property requirements were opposed by the newly founded DemocraticRepublican Party led by Thomas Jefferson. As the party gained posts in local and state governments, it worked to overturn voting constraints. As the nineteenth century progressed, successive states repealed their property statutes. By 1830, all the states had removed their property restrictions, and all white male citizens could vote. In addition, most states allowed noncitizens to vote if they were property owners. The influx of immigrants, especially Irish immigrants, in the nineteenth century resulted in xenophobia and restrictions on voting by noncitizens. Nonetheless, between 1850 and 1890, Congress allowed white male noncitizens in territories such as the Dakotas, Kansas, Washington, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Wyoming to vote (in 1875, 22 states and territories granted suffrage to noncitizens). The Electoral College Many of the Framers of the Constitution feared the rise of demagogues and were apprehensive of the ability of ordinary Americans to make educated choices about candidates. The campaigns of the period, in which alcohol and other inducements were frequently used to secure votes, undermined confidence. In addition, there were continued concerns about voter fraud. To ensure some degree of control over the outcome of elections, the Constitution established the Electoral College under Article 2, Section 1. The Electoral College was comprised of electors who met every four years to cast votes for the president and vice president. Each state was allowed to choose the manner of selection of electors. Each state chose a number of electors equal to the number of its congressional representation. The Framers of the Constitution believed that the electors would serve as a stop-gap measure to prevent ill-suited candidates from becoming president. The electors were chosen or approved by the legislature. The electors originally voted for two candidates. After the votes were tallied, the candidate with the highest vote total became president and the second-place finisher became vice president. The Twelfth Amendment (1804) altered the system so that electors chose a slate of both a presidential and vice presidential candidate. The Constitution also gave the legislatures the authority to elect U.S. senators (in 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment allowed for the direct election of senators). Minority Groups and Women Throughout the early period of American history, most minority groups either were not allowed to vote or had restrictions placed on their franchise. Following independence, the southern states continued restrictions against African Americans and Native Americans voting. Many northern states also limited the suffrage for

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minorities. For instance, in 1821, New York ratified a new state constitution that dropped property requirements for white males. However, African Americans still had to have property or wealth of at least $250 for a minimum of one year prior to the election in order to be able to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) forbade discrimination in voting based on race, although states continued to limit voting by minority groups until the 1960s. Although women were briefly granted suffrage in New Jersey, by the early nineteenth century, all states forbade women from voting. There were petitions and other efforts to grant women the franchise, but the modern women’s suffrage movement was not launched until 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention. Women did not gain the right to vote in the United States until the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. See also Women (American). FURTHER READING: Bensel, Richard Franklin. The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004; Diamond, Martin. The Electoral College and the American Idea of Democracy. Washington, DC: AEI, 1977; Keyssar, Alexander. The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. New York: Basic Books, 2000; Pole, Jack Richon. Political Representation in England and the Origins of the American Republic. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1966; Rogers, Donald W., and Christine Scriabine, eds. Voting and the Spirit of American Democracy: Essays on the History of Voting and Voting Rights in America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992. TOM LANSFORD

Suffrage (French) Like many aspects of the French Revolution, the suffrage was both complex and variable, but from first to last, election to office was a key feature of the new regime. It is reckoned that almost a million posts were up for grabs in the administrative, judicial, and even ecclesiastical domains, in addition to the election of parliamentary deputies. There were frequent renewals of personnel, not least in the municipalities, for every town and village was endowed with a mayor and council. It is true that various electoral systems had operated at the local level under the ancien régime, and this diverse practice eventually culminated in kingdom-wide elections to the Estates-General of 1789. Indeed, the tradition of voting in assemblies rather than on an individual basis would be retained in the 1790s and beyond. What the Revolution instituted was a uniform system that applied across the country on a regular basis. The franchise was, however, a matter for intense debate and development. At the outset, in 1789, it was decided that the vote would be limited to so-called active citizens, a category devised by the abbé Sieyès. These were males at least 25 years old who paid the equivalent of three days’ local wages in direct taxation. Some four million Frenchmen, or roughly 60 percent of adult males, were given the vote, an extremely generous provision by contemporary standards. In order to accede to the second-tier departmental assemblies, where the more important posts would be filled, it was necessary to pay 10 days’ wages in direct tax. Yet over three million citizens were still able to cross this higher threshold, though the cost of attending such assemblies at the departmental level would prove prohibitive for many of them. When these issues were decided in the newly formed National Assembly, relatively few objections were raised, though Maximilien Robespierre, one of the few dissenters, pointed out that such restrictions infringed upon the recently enacted Declaration of the Rights

Suffrage (French)

of Man and of the Citizen, which stated that all men were equal in rights. Only as radicalism gathered momentum in 1791 would more pressure be exerted for an extension of the suffrage to “passive citizens” (a term little employed in practice), females as well as poorer adult males. In 1789, dispute focused instead on the silver mark qualification that was to be demanded of national deputies, a sum of 50 livres a year in tax, together with ownership of property. This qualification was likely to affect members of the parliamentary class, and, as one critic put it, such a provision would have excluded the immortal Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the event this stipulation was never applied and the limited suffrage enshrined in the Constitution of 1791 would soon be swept away, along with the monarchy it prescribed. The female franchise articulated by activists like Olympe de Gouges found few advocates among established politicians; radicals were especially resistant to the presence of women in the public sphere. Less well-off males, however, fared rather better, as the suffrage was extended to all those over 21 years old who enjoyed an “independent existence.” Contrary to received wisdom, the removal of fiscal requirements from the suffrage in the summer of 1792 did not usher in male democracy, for servants and those dependent on welfare were still not allowed to vote. The notion of a degree of independence necessary to exercise the franchise, which had justified the earlier fiscal threshold, like the exclusion of women and children, still survived to a residual degree. There were also registration formalities to be fulfilled, and in theory at least, only those who had fulfilled other requirements of citizenship, such as serving in the National Guard, were entitled to vote. Only in the Constitution of 1793 was the franchise extended to all adult males regardless of circumstances (along with a provision for direct elections to parlement), but this document was never put into effect, despite overwhelming approval in a referendum. The intervention of emergency government during the Reign of Terror brought a temporary halt to elections for much of 1793 and 1794. When the electoral process resumed, it did so according to the Constitution of 1795, in which the suffrage was once more restricted. The hurdle was low at the primary level of voting, where all male citizens who paid some sort of direct taxation were able to participate (perhaps five million adult males, a larger number than in 1790). However, the reintroduction of a two-tier procedure for elections above the local level was accompanied by a much more swinging set of property qualifications for second-degree electors, which meant that little more than a million male citizens could be elected for more than municipal office. Ironically, the constitution itself was approved in a referendum in which the enlarged electorate of 1792 had participated, though turnout was rather modest, and it would remain so at elections held during the latter part of the decade. One novelty in 1795 was a literacy requirement for voters, but its inception was delayed for 10 years, by which time the constitution had been superseded. Bonaparte subsequently maintained a broad franchise in an electoral system of sorts that borrowed heavily from the Revolution, after he came to power in 1799 and established the Consulate. The early 1790s, by contrast, had seen a somewhat limited franchise but a great deal of electoral activity for those eligible to vote. It can be argued that many of the poor initially excluded from the franchise were not in a position to take part, even had they been given the chance to do so. The assembly mechanism involved several rounds of voting, often spread over a few days, and required a substantial commitment of time and endeavor. Few of those newly enfranchised in 1792, for example, appeared at the polls. What was significant was not only the fact that a

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relatively elevated proportion of adult males were able to participate from the start of the Revolution, at least at the primary level, but that they had so many opportunities to do so (at Toulon between 1790 and 1792 there were no less than nine elections of various sorts), and in such an intensive fashion. Even though it was short lived and Frenchmen had to wait until 1848 to be presented with another comparable opportunity, the broad suffrage adopted after 1789 did permit a significant education in citizenship. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Women (French). FURTHER READING: Aberdam, Serge, et al., Voter, élire pendant la Révolution française, 1789 –1799. Guide pour la recherche. 2nd ed. Paris: Editions du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques, 2006; Crook, Malcolm. Elections in the French Revolution, 1789 –1799: An Apprenticeship in Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; Gueniffey, Patrice. Le nombre et la raison. La Révolution française et les élections Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales 1993. MALCOLM CROOK

Sugar Act (1764) The British parliament’s American Duties Act of 1764, usually referred to as the Sugar Act, replaced the Molasses Act of 1733. The Molasses Act had taxed American colonial imports of sugar, molasses, and rum from outside the British Empire to protect British Caribbean sugar from competition with cheap French colonial sugar. The act had been easily circumvented, however, by widespread smuggling in every American port with a distillery for making rum out of molasses. The new act, passed overwhelmingly in Parliament, lowered the duty on French Caribbean molasses but heavily taxed coffee, wine, and other luxury goods in order to support the British Army in America. It also contained several measures to improve the honesty and efficiency of the customs service. Customs officers were now protected from suits brought by merchants or shippers protesting illegal seizures. The act also established a new vice-admiralty court with jurisdiction over the British colonies in America as a whole and placed it in the garrison town of Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the judges would be safe from mob intimidation. The act aroused great resentment among the colonists, particularly in the urban centers of trade. It was denounced in James Otis’s pamphlet, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, which enunciated the principle of no taxation without representation. The New York Assembly also asserted that the colonies had the right to consent to their own taxation in its petition to Parliament against the act, although Massachusetts, the only other colony to petition, was more moderate, complaining against its alleged bad effects on trade rather than its violation of colonial rights. See also American Revolution. FURTHER READING: Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War: The Seven Years ’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754 –1766. New York: Knopf, 2000. WILLIAM E. BURNS

Supreme Court (United States) The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial branch of the U.S. federal government. Article 2, Section 1, of the United States Constitution vests the

Supreme Court (United States)

judicial power of the United States “in one supreme Court.” The court consists of the chief justice and eight associate justices, who are all nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. They are appointed to serve “during a term of good behavior,” which until recently meant for life, and leave office only upon retirement, resignation, impeachment, or death. The U.S. Constitution provided for the creation of a Supreme Court and a federal judiciary system but contained no specific details, which were instead set in the Judiciary Act of 1789. The act created 13 district courts in major cities, with one judge in each of them, and three circuit courts to cover the other areas of the eastern, middle, and southern United States. The Supreme Court, with a chief justice and five associate justices, was established as the only court of appeal. President George Washington picked John Jay, a New York–born statesman and diplomat, as the first chief justice. Among the first associate justices were John Blair of Virginia, William Cushing of Massachusetts, James Iredell of North Carolina, John Rutledge of South Carolina, and James Wilson of Pennsylvania, who played an active role in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. The first few years proved disappointing, as appeals from lower courts came slowly. The Judiciary Act required justices to journey twice a year to distant regions of the country and preside over circuit courts, a duty many of the first justices detested and complained about. The first major case, Chisholm v. Georgia, came about in 1793, and the Court’s decision sent shockwaves through the country. In 1792 Alexander Chisholm, the executor of the estate of Robert Farquhar in South Carolina, attempted to sue the state of Georgia in the Supreme Court over payments due for goods that Farquhar had supplied Georgia during the American Revolutionary War. The state of Georgia refused to appear before the court, claiming that it did not have to appear in court to hear a suit against it to which it did not consent. The Court considered the case anyway and gave its 4 –1 decision in favor of the South Carolinians. The decision naturally caused much controversy, and other states supported the state of Georgia on the issue of states’ rights and concerns over potential financial losses if they were ever forced to cover wartime obligations. In 1795, the Eleventh Amendment, which forbade any federal court to try a lawsuit against another state by citizens of another state, was ratified. In another important precedent, the Supreme Court declined President Washington’s request to clarify some questions of international law and treaties, arguing that under the Constitution they could not share executive powers and duties or issue advisory opinions. In Glass v. Sloop Betsey (1794), the Supreme Court defended neutral rights and the national dignity of the United States. In 1795, Chief Justice Jay was sent on a mission to London to negotiate between the young United States and Britain. In the resulting Jay Treaty, the British agreed to vacate the posts they occupied in the Northwest Territory of the United States and to compensate American ship owners. In return, the Americans pledged to grant a most favored nation trading status to the British and acquiesced to Britain’s anti-French maritime policies. The United States also guaranteed the payment of private prewar debts owed by Americans to British merchants. A strong opponent of slavery, John Jay dropped the issue of compensation for slaves, which angered Southern slave owners. The treaty also failed to end the impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy.

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Upon returning home, Jay was elected governor of New York and resigned from the Supreme Court, where he was replaced by his fellow justice John Rutledge of South Carolina. However, before Congress confirmed him, Rutledge made a grave political error when on July 16, 1795, he criticized the treaty that President Washington and John Jay negotiated with Britain. Although Washington continued to support his candidacy, Rutledge failed to procure the Senate’s approval in December 1795. In 1796, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut was confirmed as chief justice. One of the first cases the Ellsworth Court considered dealt with the Jay Treaty, which galvanized American society. In Ware v. Hylton, the Court considered British claims against Americans based on contracts made before the Revolution and according to which the Jay Treaty required payments. A Virginia statute absolved its citizens of responsibility if they paid such debts into the state treasury. The Court nullified this statute and argued that a treaty of the United States must override the law of any state. In 1800–1801, the Supreme Court moved with the rest of the federal government to a new site on the Potomac River. Simultaneously, amid the bitter election campaign that pitted Federalists against Republicans, Chief Justice Ellsworth, already ailing, resigned. The newly elected President John Adams nominated his secretary of state, John Marshall, to the Supreme Court, opening a great era in the history of the American judiciary. The longest-serving chief justice in Supreme Court history, Marshall led the Court for over three decades and played a crucial role in the development of the American legal system. Marshall served through six presidential administrations ( John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson) and remained a stalwart advocate of Federalism, opposing the Jeffersonian philosophy of government. He greatly contributed to turning the judiciary into an independent and influential branch of government. Under his guidance, the Supreme Court developed a new procedure of announcing its decisions. Previously, each justice would author a separate opinion, which Marshall supplemented with a single opinion of the Court. Marshall wrote this opinion in almost all cases, which made him the Court’s sole and most important mouthpiece. In the first major case, Marbury v. Madison (1803), the Marshall Court established the Court’s right to exercise judicial review, the power to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. The Court made several important decisions relating to Federalism, shaping the balance of power between the federal government and the states during the early years of the republic. It repeatedly confirmed the supremacy of federal law over state law and supported an expansive reading of the enumerated powers. In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the Court ruled that states could not tax federal institutions and upheld congressional authority to create the Second Bank of the United States, even though the authority to do this was not expressly stated in the Constitution. In Cohens v. Virginia (1821), the Court declared that the federal judiciary could hear appeals from decisions of state courts in criminal and civil cases. FURTHER READING: Brown, William Garrott. The Life of Oliver Ellsworth. New York: Macmillan, 1905; Castro, William R. The Supreme Court in the Early Republic: The Chief Justiceships of John Jay and Oliver Ellsworth. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995; Hall, Kermit L., ed. The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; Irons, Peter. A People’s History of the Supreme Court. New York: Penguin, 2000;

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Johnson, Herbert A. The Chief Justiceship of John Marshall, 1801–1835. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998; Schwartz, Bernard. A History of the Supreme Court. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE

Suspects, Law of See Law of Suspects

Symbols (American Revolutionary) Eighteenth-century mass media was primitive but still managed to propagate symbols to convey the ideas that formed the substance of revolutionary thought. Paul Revere’s 1770 engraving of the Boston Massacre with British troops firing on innocent civilians portrayed the dangers of British tyranny. It was not, however, the first use of symbols to convey a political idea in America. In 1754 the benefits of the Albany Plan of Union were portrayed by the use of a rattlesnake showing New England as the head, followed by New York and so on until all the colonies were accounted for. Complemented by the slogan “Join or Die,” it was revived 20 years later in this form and as a rattlesnake coiled to strike. This snake also appeared on flags by itself or accompanied by other symbols (in at least one case Rhode Island’s anchor). Similarly, liberty trees or, in some cases, liberty poles came to be gathering places where the Sons of Liberty would gather to meet or take oaths. Individuals also became symbols. Charles Wilson Peale’s painting of George Washington was painted several times, and a copy was presented to Louis XVI. Thus, Washington’s image conveyed a determined and skillful America with which the French should ally themselves. Images of Benjamin Franklin reflecting his carefully cultivated image as the “natural man” were common during Franklin’s stay in Paris. Franklin was represented with plain clothing, fur hat, or unpowdered hair by statues, in engravings, and even on the bottom of chamber pots. FURTHER READING: Huff, Randall. The Revolutionary War Era. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004; Vickers, Anita. The New Nation. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002. ROBERT N. STACY

Symbols (French Revolutionary) In attempting to create society anew, legislators and artists in the French Revolution drew on a diverse range of visual sources to express and spread the oftenabstract concepts of liberty, equality, and fraternity. Increasingly, allegory was the preferred form of expression, as it was particularly suited to the distillation of complex ideas and could be used in a variety of immediately recognizable forms, such as on letterheads and money. In addition, allegory avoided reference to contemporary events, which often had contentious associations. Antique sources were very popular, as they were thought to be universal. The fasces used by Roman lectors represented unity and discipline and were often augmented by an ax symbolizing

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military force, and topped with a bonnet rouge, the ritual headwear of the Parisian sans-culottes, which was derived from the Phrygian bonnet worn by freed Roman slaves. Triangles, floating eyes of surveillance, snakes biting their own tails, clasped hands, and carpenters’ levels were drawn directly from Masonic symbolism, whilst oak leaves signified fidelity, and Gallic cockerels meant vigilance. Some symbols, such as the tricolor flag, were wholly new inventions, while some, such as the female figure of Liberty, were partly adapted from Christian iconography, and others, such as the cornucopia or anchor, were well-known symbols of plenty and hope, respectively. These symbols were supplemented by a range of symbolic figures, from William Tell to Brutus, Cornelia to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and symbolic places such as the Bastille, the images of which could be incorporated into this new symbolic language. Attempting to replace the powerful symbolic order of absolute monarchy inherited by the counterrevolution, with its white flag and fleur-de-lis, French revolutionary symbols allowed the ideas of the Revolution to be spread to a wide audience, although it is difficult to determine how clearly their message was interpreted. FURTHER READING: Germani, Ian, and Robin Swales, eds. Symbols, Myths and Images of the French Revolution: Essays in Honour of James A. Leith. Regina, Saskatchewan: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1998. RICHARD TAWS

T Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles Maurice de (1745–1838) A French statesman whose career in diplomacy is the most storied of modern history , Talleyrand was born into the nobility but entered the clergy because a childhood injury made him unfit for military service. He was made bishop of Autun in 1788 but almost immediately became active in politics. He was elected by the clergy of Autun to the First Estate and was thereafter active as a liberal deputy in the National Assembly. Talleyrand rallied early to the French Revolution and even supported its anti-clerical policy of confiscating church property , a decision for which he was ultimately excommunicated by Rome. Talleyrand nonetheless said the mass for the Fête de la Fédération in July 1790. In 1792, he was dispatched to the Court of St. James, where he was unsuccessful in the attempt to avoid war with Britain. Absence from France was possibly critical to Talleyrand’s longevity , because he managed to spend most of the Reign of Terror in exile either in England or the United States. He objected to the latter’s Jay Treaty of 1794 with Britain and was so contemptuous of early American peace initiatives toward France that he seriously compromised his country’s relations with the Adams administration in the XYZ Affair. He reemerged at the center of political life as foreign minister for the Directory in 1797, a position he retained until 1807. Talleyrand is well known for his advice to diplomats —“Do not allow yourself to become excited about your work”—but his personal guiding principle was to avoid the attachment of loyalties. With the comte de Sieyès, he helped to plot the coup that toppled the Directory and brought Napoleon to power as First Consul. In Napoleon’s service he then helped to arrange the 1801 Concordat with Rome, negotiated the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, and played an important part in creating the Confederation of the Rhine. Even after dismissing him in 1807, Napoleon sought Talleyrand’s advice regularly. Although he participated in the Erfurt Conference of 1808, Talleyrand concluded that Napoleonic ambition was taking France toward disaster and waited for an opportunity to assist the Allies. This came in 1814 when Paris fell and Talleyrand negotiated with Tsar Alexander I; secured the Treaty of Ghent, which brought peace with

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Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Prince de Bénévent. Courtesy of Alexander Mikaberidze.

the United States; and made the formal announcement of Napoleon’s deposition. At the Congress of Vienna, Talleyrand played a weak diplomatic hand brilliantly in securing Allied recognition of defeated France as a Great Power restored to its borders of 1792. After 1815, Talleyrand went into semiretirement but in 1830 took a prominent role in bringing Louis Philippe to the throne of the July Monarchy. In 1830 –1834, he again served as French ambassador to Britain. Talleyrand managed to reconcile with the church and insisted on his deathbed on receiving his last rites as a bishop. FURTHER READING: Cooper , Duff. Talleyrand. New York: Grove Press, 2001; Dwyer, Philip G. Talleyrand. New York: Longman, 2002; Rose, J. Holland. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era, 1789–1815. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1935. CARL CAVANAGH HODGE

Tallien, Jean Lambert (1767–1820) Jean Lambert Tallien was nicknamed “Man of the Nine” in reference to his role on 9 Thermidor ( July 27) in ending Maximilien Robespierre’s influence and the Reign of Terror.

Tea Act

In 1791, he created a journal-affiche, L’Ami des Citoyens, journal fraternel , sponsored by the Jacobins. After Louis XVI’s flight to Varennes, Tallien no longer believed in the future of the monarchy. In August 1792, he was named secretary of the Paris Commune. In September , he became the youngest deputy of the National Convention and voted for the king’s execution. He then put down a royalist insurrection in the west. Back in Paris, he contributed to the Girondins’ downfall, which resulted in a rebellion against the Montagnard government in the southwest provinces. Sent to Bordeaux as proconsul to end this revolt, he resolved it without resorting to armed conflict. There he met his future wife, the Spaniard Thérésia Cabarrus Fontenay , one of the most fashionable women of her time. Suspected of “moderatism,” Tallien returned to Paris in March 1794 and because of his revolutionary zeal was elected president of the Convention, where he strongly opposed Robespierre. After the Law of 22 Prairial, Tallien rallied more support against the triumvirate of Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon, and on 9 Thermidor , backed by the majority of deputies, he had Robespierre and his close supporters arrested and guillotined the following day. Elected to the Committee of Public Safety , Tallien reorganized the revolutionary tribunals. In July 1795, he was instrumental in defeating an army of émigrés at Quiberon. In spite of his election to the Council of Five Hundred, Tallien’s political role was over. In July 1798, he embarked for Egypt with Napoleon. Disillusioned, Napoleon returned to France in 1801 and divorced his wife, Josephine de Beauharnais, because of her extramarital affairs. In 1804, Tallien was named consul at Alicante but, stricken by yellow fever , returned to France in 1805. He died in poverty in November 1820. See also The Mountain; Thermidorian Reaction. FURTHER READING: Charles-Vallin, Thérèse. Tallien. Le mal-aimé de la Révolution. Paris: Jean Picollec, 1997. GUY-DAVID TOUBIANA

Tea Act (1773) Parliament enacted the Tea Act in May 1773 as a means to aid the British East India Company to avoid bankruptcy. Between 1770 and 1773 provincial Americans’ purchase of the company’s tea had declined 70 percent. This was a consequence of the coordinated efforts of non-consumption committees, which had encouraged provincials not to buy English tea as a protest against the Townshend tax that remained on tea (all other Townshend duties were repealed in 1770). The 1773 Tea Act waived the Townshend duty that remained on tea and permitted the East India Company to avoid paying another duty by selling its tea directly to the American colonies without first being transported to Britain. These provisions lowered the costs to the East India Company and enabled it to sell its tea for even less than the cost at which colonial merchants could purchase it from Dutch smugglers. Although Parliament believed the colonists would welcome the opportunity to buy tea less expensively , the colonists believed their purchases had greater implications. They regarded the agreement between Parliament and the East India Company as a monopoly that granted an unfair advantage to the company. The act also provided that the company would appoint a limited number of colonial merchants as its consignees. This excluded and put most provincial merchants at an economic

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disadvantage. Politically , provincials believed their purchase would signal their implicit acceptance of Parliament’s sovereignty to tax the colonies. While the colonies did acknowledge Parliament’s supremacy to regulate trade throughout the British Empire, they denied its right to directly tax them. When the Tea Act was implemented, the East India Company’s ships were turned away at Philadelphia and New York City before they reached Boston. There, royal governor Thomas Hutchinson welcomed the ships into Boston Harbor and, despite provincials’ protests, refused to permit the ships to depart until their tea was first unloaded. Hutchinson was one of the three owners of the mercantile house selected by the East India Company to be the sole distributor of tea in Boston. After Hutchinson refused to hear provincials’ protests on December 16, 1773, Samuel Adams immediately convened a meeting at the Old South Meeting House. From there, a group of about 150 men dressed as Mohawk Indians journeyed to Griffin’s Wharf , where several thousand onlookers silently observed them board the ships Dartmouth , the Beaver , and the Eleanor and for three hours dump the cargo of 342 chests of tea (valued at 18,000 pounds sterling) into Boston Harbor— an act that came to be known as the Boston Tea Party. Since there was an unusually low tide, mountains of tea rose above the surface of the water. Colonists had deemed it imperative to take action that night because the Dartmouth had arrived on November 28, and the Tea Act stipulated that the tax must be collected within 20 days—making December 17 the deadline. Parliament responded to the destruction of East India Company property with the Boston Port Act, which closed the harbor to all commerce. Provincial Americans had also objected to Parliament’s attempt to tax them via the 1765 Stamp Act and the 1768 Townshend Acts. During the latter , provincial Americans formed local non-consumption associations that pledged not to purchase imported British manufactures. The success of these associations, though, depended in large measure upon the willingness of women not to purchase British imports—including tea. The consumption of tea, as well as its accoutrements and ceremony , had grown enormously popular throughout the American colonies by the 1760s. Following the imposition of the Coercive Acts, the Continental Congress in September 1774 encouraged each colony to renew its non-consumption associations. Many provincial women supported these associations and signed nonconsumption agreements, which temporarily drew them from their domestic sphere into the traditionally male public sphere. See also Continental Congress, Second; Gage, Thomas. FURTHER READING: Breen, T. H. The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004; Drake, Francis S. Tea Leaves. Detroit: Singing Tree Press, 1970; Labaree, Benjamin Woods. The Boston Tea Party. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1964. CHRISTINE LAHUE

Tennis Court Oath (1789) A formal act of defiance of the Third Estate toward the monarchy , and one of the key moments in the early state of the French Revolution, the Tennis Court Oath is known in French as the serment du jeu de paume. After the Estates-General was

Tennis Court Oath

summoned in May 1789, the Third Estate found itself locked in a stalemate with the crown, supported by the First and Second Estates, over an important issue of voting. On June 17, the Third Estate made the bold move of declaring itself the National Assembly. Three days later , when the deputies of the Third Estate gathered for a regular meeting, they found the doors of their assigned meeting hall closed and guarded by royal troops, supposedly to prepare the room for a special royal session planned for June 22. The deputies, however , understood that the appearance of troops was a sign of King Louis XVI’s resolution to use force to dissolve the seditious estate. On the motion of Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the members of the Third Estate moved to a nearby empty hall, which was often used to play tennis and was known as a jeu de paume (tennis court). At the gathering there, some deputies initially called for moving the Third Estate to Paris, where the population would defend them from any actions on the part of the crown. However , Jean Joseph Mounier defeated this motion and instead proposed staying at Versailles and swearing an oath not to separate until the constitution of the kingdom was accepted. The first to take the

The Tennis Court Oath of June 20, 1789. Finding themselves locked out of their usual meeting hall, the deputies of the Third Estate adjourned to a nearby tennis court at Versailles where, claiming authority for France, they swore not to dissolve until they had adopted a national constitution. Courtesy of Alexander Mikaberidze.

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oath was Jean Sylvain Bailly , who then administered it to other deputies. Overall, 576 deputies swore and signed the oath; only one refused to sign the document because it had not been approved by the king. The Tennis Court Oath was a major episode in the early stages of the French Revolution. While the Estates-General had only been summoned to address the financial woes of France, the Third Estates’ declaration of the National Assembly and pledge of the Tennis Court Oath marked the transition of politics to a revolutionary phase. By their actions, the Third Estate asserted the power attributed to the people of France on the basis of popular sovereignty—a direct challenge to the royal authority. The oath also helped establish a union of the deputies of the Third Estate, who now had a common goal of reforming the kingdom not only financially , but also politically , for they committed themselves to adopting a written constitution for France. Had the king responded in a more forceful manner and used troops to dissolve the Third Estate following the Tennis Court Oath, the course of French, and indeed European, history would have been dramatically altered. In the event, Louis XVI chose a less confrontational course, and a week after the Tennis Court Oath, he ordered the three estates to meet together for the purpose of writing a constitution, so signaling an early victory for the Third Estate. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; First Estate; Second Estate. FURTHER READING: Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002; Lefebvre, Georges. The Coming of the French Revolution. Translated by R. R. Palmer. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976. ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE

The Terror See Reign of Terror

Thermidorian Reaction (1794) The Thermidorian Reaction, the conservative revolt against Maximilien Robespierre and the Reign of Terror , was launched on 9 Thermidor in the revolutionary calendar ( July 27, 1794); it ushered in a period of reaction that saw a return to power in France of many members of the old bourgeoisie along with the entrenchment of the new middle classes. The institution of economic policies that benefited the bourgeoisie, the restriction of democratic practices and centralization of government authority , and the violent suppression of the poor finally stifled the radical aims of the French Revolution. Fearing that the Terror was about to claim their own lives, a conspiracy of several Jacobins and their allies, including leading figures such as Jean Lambert Tallien, launched something of a preemptive strike, arresting Robespierre and his close associates, including members of the Committee of Public Safety , on the floor of the National Convention. The Thermidorians’ concerns about the Terror immediately proved to be entirely opportunistic—more about self-preservation than any principled opposition to political violence or a commitment to justice. Over the course of its first two days, the Reaction guillotined Robespierre and over 100 others, including most of the Paris

Thermidorian Reaction

Commune. This marked the beginning of the White Terror against the Revolution’s radicals. In the provinces, especially in the south, openly royalist groups carried out acts of reprisal against revolutionaries, ranging from individual acts of vigilantism to wholesale massacres. The Thermidorian Reaction was also marked by substantial economic crises instigated or worsened by the free-trade policies preferred by the Thermidorians. Economic regulation was lessened; price controls, implemented in Year II, were lifted; and inflation became rampant. Financial speculation became the order of the day. While many among the old bourgeoisie and the new professional classes became even wealthier through speculation and the effects of inflation, the social impact of economic policies such as the lifting of price controls was devastating for the poor and working classes and the peasantry. By 1795, the fear of famine became real for many poor people as the cities experienced shortages in essentials like grain, flour , and meat. Dairy products and fuel became too expensive for the poor to purchase. On April 1 and May 20, 1795, the sans-culottes mobilized behind the dual banners of bread and the Constitution of 1793 in an effort to stop the government’s conservative policies and address their ruinous impact on the lives of poor people. In early 1795 the last popular uprising of the Revolution saw a group of sans-culottes take over the Convention before being violently suppressed on the orders of the government. This marked a significant turning point in the history of the Revolution. By refusing to address even minimally the demands of the poor , and responding only by force, the government signaled as victorious the conservative return to power and, crucially , irreparably weakened the power of the poor to influence the course of politics. Despite the demands of the poor , the Constitution of 1793 was replaced by a conservative constitution in 1795. The Constitution of Year III included among its features the payment of taxes as the basis for franchise, thus limiting the right to vote to the wealthiest male citizens. It also established a five-man executive Directory to be chosen by the legislature, which would now be housed in two assemblies, the Council of Ancients, and the Council of Five Hundred. The Thermidorians consolidated their power in the central government by imposing limits on democracy and by reserving the power to restrict freedom of the press and freedom of association. The final four years of the Thermidorian Reaction were marked by a series of coups from both the Left and the Right. In May 1796, the revolutionary communists, led by Babeuf, were arrested before their insurrection was mounted. An attempted coup in September 1796 also ended in failure, with Babeuf condemned to death. In September 1797, an attempted royalist coup was also defeated. This left the Directory firmly entrenched in power until November 9, 1799 (18 Brumaire, Year VIII), when Napoleon launched his successful coup and established the Consulate. See also Brumaire, Coup d’Etat de; Calendar , French Revolutionary; Constitutions, French Revolutionary. FURTHER READING: Bienvenue, Richard. The Ninth of Thermidor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970; Lefebvre, Georges. The Thermidorians and the Directory: Two Phases of the French Revolution. New York: Random House, 1964; Mathiez, Albert. After Robespierre: The Thermidorian Reaction. New York: Knopf , 1931; Woronoff , Denis. The Thermidorean Regime and the Directory: 1794–1799. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972. JEFF SHANTZ

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Thermidorians Although the name “Thermidorians” is applied to two distinct groups, the groups had some members in common. In the most immediate sense, Thermidorians were those individuals who attacked Maximilien Robespierre and his allies on the ninth day of the month of Thermidor ( July 27, 1794, often called the Thermidorian Reaction) in the second year of the French Revolution. While they might be called moderates in the very loosest sense, almost all these individuals had taken part in the Reign of Terror. Many of their conditions and assumptions of what was appropriate had changed, as Robespierre’s policies now frightened and alienated many of them. The term is also used to identify the politicians of France who ruled the country up until the adoption of the Constitution of 1795. The first group of Thermidorians were, in essence, plotters who launched a coup with very concrete objectives centering on self-preservation. Robespierre had always advocated violence as a means of eliminating those he identified as enemies of the Revolution. His views hardened even more after two assassination attempts in the spring of 1794.The most recent laws, particularly the Law of 22 Prairial, created a situation in which any opinion that did not accord completely with Robespierre’s views could be labeled treasonous. Under this law, which Robespierre and another member of the Committee of Public Safety had drafted, anyone tried for this “crime” could expect one of only two results: acquittal or conviction and execution. Because the number of trials and executions was increasing dramatically , Robespierre’s removal and the destruction of his faction had now become a matter of survival. For the main figures in the Thermidor plot, all had been marked to a greater or lesser extent as Robespierre’s enemies—a list that seemed to be steadily growing. These men included two of Robespierre’s colleagues from the Committee of Public Safety , Jean Marie Collot d’Herbois and Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne. In addition, there were two highly powerful members of the rival Committee of General Security: Jean-Pierre Amar and Marc-Alexis Vadier. Finally , the two real leaders of this group were members of the National Convention who had been quite prominent both as representatives on mission and on the floor of the Convention, Jean Lambert Tallien and Joseph Fouché. In the summer of 1794 all were in danger and saw that if something were not done soon, they would become victims of the Terror. As members of the Committee of Public Safety. Collot d’Herbois and BillaudVarenne themselves had participated in the Terror , approving and carrying out the policies of the committee both in Paris and on mission to cities outside the capital. Ironically , although they were instrumental in bringing the Terror to an end, they were later tried, convicted, and deported to the Caribbean as punishment for terrorism. Two members of the Committee of General Security , which often contended with the Committee of Public Safety for power , were also involved in the plot, and neither had ever backed away from extreme punishment for perceived enemies of the state. These men, Amar and Vadier , both had supported policies of the Jacobins against the Girondins. One of the leaders of this group was Joseph Fouché, a former professor of physics who would skillfully survive many twists and turns in the political landscape. An outspoken egalitarian and opponent of religion, he would become a duke before he died. He was not averse to using executions to eliminate traitors but actually showed

Third Estate

a greater sense of restraint than was considered to be acceptable. After a member of the Committee of Public Safety , Georges Couthon, departed Lyon in 1793, Fouché and Collot d’Herbois were ordered there to continue the trials and executions. Their perceived lack of zeal angered Robespierre. Fouché added to Robespierre’s enmity by publicly ridiculing the Feast of Reason. His comments led to an argument between the two of them, and Robespierre’s response may have convinced Fouché that he had to act soon. The other leader was Jean Lambert Tallien, who was well known in the Convention and had even been elected president at one time. He was no friend of Robespierre and, like many of his colleagues, was able to foresee that his life could soon be forfeit. Tension had been building, and on the evening of 8 Thermidor , Collot d’Herbois and Billaud-Varenne entered the Jacobin Club. There they confronted Robespierre and his two closest collaborators, Couthon and Louis Saint-Just. The conflict continued the next day when Robespierre was attacked by members of the Convention. Robespierre was prevented from responding because Collot d’Herbois was serving as president of the Convention and would not recognize him, thus banning him speaking. Discredited and placed under arrest that day (9 Thermidor), Robespierre and his colleagues were executed the following day. Many changes occurred following the coup. These included the marginalization of the Committee of Public Safety , the Committee of General Security , and the revolutionary tribunals. The center of radical activity , the Jacobin Club, was closed, and the Girondins, who had been suppressed, now returned to power. Several government officials deeply involved in the Terror were tried and punished. At the same time that the Jacobins were being suppressed, the counterrevolutionaries who had hoped to bring back the Old Regime were effectively fought to a standstill. Tallien, the chief conspirator , was instrumental in defeating a combined British and émigré force at Quiberon Bay in 1795. That same year , this group, which in the larger sense one may label Thermidorians, drafted the Constitution of 1795, the document that brought the Directory into existence. FURTHER READING: Andress, David. The Terror: Civil War in the French Revolution. London: Little, Brown, 2005; Lefebvre, Georges. The Thermidorians and The Directory , Two Phases of the French Revolution. New York: Random House, 1964; Schama, Simon. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1989; Scurr , Ruth. Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006; Whaley, Leigh Ann. Radicals: Politics and Republicanism in the French Revolution. Stroud: Sutton, 2000; Woronoff, Denis. The Thermidorean Regime and the Directory , 1794–1799. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. ROBERT N. STACY

Third Estate In ancien régime France, all who were not classified as clergy or nobles were de facto members of the Third Estate, which represented roughly 96 percent of the population. As the abbé Sieyès memorably put it in responding to the rhetorical question posed by the title of his pamphlet of January 1789, What Is the Third Estate?, it was “everything” yet hitherto had been “nothing.” He went on to suggest that if the privileged orders were removed, the country would be better off, since the Tiers état contained all that was required to constitute a complete nation yet was restrained

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from rendering France more flourishing by the constraints imposed upon it. Sieyès went on to demonstrate how the Third Estate could become “something” by composing a script for the events that would take place at Versailles in June 1789 as the Estates-General was transformed into a National Assembly. The overwhelming majority of the Third Estate comprised peasants, who worked the land in a France that remained predominantly rural and preindustrial. That is not to say that all peasants were similar , since conditions varied immensely from one part of this vast country to another. One common factor was their subordination to some form of seigneurial system that affected most peasants in terms of dues, services, and deference owed to the local and usually noble lord. This constituted a source of friction that would erupt in 1789, though it was mainly a product of rising expectations rather than increasing misery for most rural dwellers. Indeed, a minority of peasants owned or rented sufficient land to produce a surplus, and they were prospering in a century during which agricultural prices were gradually inflated, largely as a result of growing population, which historians now think had reached some 28 million by 1789. The preponderance of France in Europe had a strong demographic basis and its backbone was the bulk of self-sufficient cultivators who produced enough in a good year to survive. However , they were susceptible to fluctuations in the harvest, which grew more pronounced from the 1770s onward and might tip them into dependence on relief or plunge them into debt. Especially tenuous was the situation of the rising number of landless peasants, who relied on working for others, seasonal migration, or domestic industry and were forced to leave their homes in search of employment in times of crisis like the late 1780s. Much of the manufacturing that did take place in pre-revolutionary France was based in the countryside, in the form of weaving and forging. The countryside was also the home of numerous rural artisans who serviced agriculture as farriers or carpenters. Factories were few and far between, so the mass of urban workers were for the most part artisans who learned their trade then plied their profession as tailors or bakers, often selling the wares they made. Beneath them was a growing number of unskilled laborers, who drifted in from the surrounding countryside in search of employment, creating a volatile mass in the growing cities, not least in Paris, where the population had passed the half-million mark by the outbreak of the Revolution. The towns, which housed perhaps a fifth of the French people by that time, were heavily dependent on external food supplies, and the price of bread was the barometer of public order , as well as the compass by which producers set their fortunes. High prices meant a sharp fall in the demand for manufactured items, and in such circumstances, the urban population could unite in demanding a steady supply at a reasonable cost. Many nobles lived in towns and resided there for at least part of the year; it is inaccurate to suppose they were all quartered at Versailles. Yet the urban leaders par excellence were the bourgeoisie, to borrow a troublesome term from the unfashionable Marxist lexicon. Perhaps middle classes is a more satisfactory label for the generally prosperous but diverse commercial and professional groups who profited from the century-long rise in trade, home and overseas, to increase their business activities or provide customers with their services as doctors and lawyers. The great seaport cities of Nantes, Bordeaux, and Marseille were certainly flourishing, though so were the inland administrative centers that expanded to meet the rising demand for goods and services from the countryside. Self-assurance was fostered by their

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role as city fathers, presiding over the enlightened cultural atmosphere and the architectural achievements that characterized the cities, above all Paris, in the years after 1750. Yet it would be wrong to regard the bourgeoisie as a discontent revolutionary group, since most of them continued to look to the nobility for a role model and they had good cause to fear the mass of the population who threatened disorder when times were hard. Even Sieyès was unwilling to countenance a political role for the lower classes, his rhetoric about the nation notwithstanding. What mobilized latent social tensions in the late 1780s was the collapse of the bankrupt monarchy in a context of economic crisis. The convocation of the Estates-General not only polarized nobles and bourgeois in an unexpected fashion but brought ordinary people into politics to an unprecedented degree via elections and the drafting of cahiers, which occurred in the spring of 1789. In the process, the diverse Tiers état acquired an identity that it had never possessed before, together with a common enemy in the shape of the privileged orders. This unity would prove short lived: once the opposition of nobles and clergy had been overcome, the Third Estate would fragment and radicals like Jean-Paul Marat would be left to lament the fact that an aristocracy of birth had merely given way to an aristocracy of wealth. See also First Estate; Second Estate. FURTHER READING: Doyle, William, ed. Old Regime France. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; Jones, Peter M. The Peasantry in the French Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988; Lewis, Gwynne. France, 1715–1804: Power and the People. London: Longman, 2004; Sewell, William H. Sewell. A Rhetoric of Bourgeois Revolution: Abbé Sieyès and What Is the Third Estate? Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994. MALCOLM CROOK

Tocqueville, Alexis de (1805–1859) Alexis de Tocqueville was a French social philosopher , political theorist, and historian. His early works, completed with a friend and colleague, made Tocqueville famous while still in his twenties. He is best known for describing America at a time when the country was still in its infancy and characterizing the American character as something to be seen as unique and intriguing. In addition to writing, he had a career as a French politician. Tocqueville was born and raised near Paris. Before he was born, his aristocratic parents were jailed during the Reign of Terror and were traumatized during their imprisonment. After their release, they had three sons, all of whom were provided with emotional and intellectual stimulation. The young Tocqueville was stricken with many physical maladies as a youth, including migraine headaches and digestive problems. He was a very bright child and an avid reader of the many books in his father’s library. A devout Catholic tutor educated him and his brothers. Tocqueville went on to attend school and later law school in Metz and worked for a short time as a lawyer and substitute judge. The year after the Revolution of 1830, he and friend Gustavo de Beaumont were commissioned by the Ministry of the Interior to travel to the United States for the purpose of studying the American penal system. The two young men’s desire to undertake this mission was probably also due in part to a wish to leave the precarious social climate of France and possibly a spirit of adventure.

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The two traveled in the United States for nine months and, in addition to observing the penitence-based prisons at Sing Sing and Auburn in New York and the Quaker-based Eastern State Penitentiary in Pennsylvania, interviewed a number of key American political and legal luminaries, including President Andrew Jackson, former president John Quincy Adams, and Supreme Court justice Joseph Story. Tocqueville unfortunately missed an opportunity for an interview with key political scholar James Madison, one of the authors of the Federalist Papers. He and Beaumont traversed the North, South, Midwest, and New England and also ventured into Canada, paying close attention to the cultural aspects of the various regions through which they traveled. They also noted the similarities and differences between France and North America. Tocqueville was intrigued by what he saw as an equalitarian society in America, and he questioned how far a society could go in achieving equality and still remain a free society. In his observation of the American way of life, he was impressed by the decorum and stability of the country. He believed that the American political system was formed by unique circumstances and that these factors created the distinct social structure of America; this distinct structure he called the national character. These traits, and their geographic and historical factors, formed the democratic and egalitarian social system that he and his colleague, Beaumont, found so fascinating. Tocqueville, however , observed that not all groups were treated equally , noting the ill-treatment of African Americans and American Indians by white society. The two travelers also recognized the characteristic of American individuality—a tendency for Americans to withdraw socially from others and develop relationships with family and close friends. Excessive individualism leads to other problems, according to Tocqueville, including materialism, spiritual problems, and a tendency to be easily swayed by public opinion. When he returned to France, Tocqueville resigned his post as magistrate and, relying on Beaumont for the majority of the work, completed a volume on the U.S. penal system entitled On the Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application in France, which was published in 1833. In this work, in addition to describing American prisons, the authors advocated a similar system in France and recommended more humane conditions in penal settings. Though Beaumont wrote most of the work on penology , Tocqueville devoted much of his time to writing about his observations of American society. These observations culminated in his two-volume magnum opus Democracy in America (published in 1835 and 1840, respectively). The book was extremely popular in both Europe and America and detailed the American political system as well as aspects of American culture. Also in 1835, the now-famous 30-year-old author married Mary Motley , a woman considered by his family to be beneath them in status. Tocqueville entered French politics and continued to publish thought-provoking works on political and social issues. It was, however , very difficult living up to the early success he had when Democracy in America was published. Tocqueville wanted to understand the reason behind the demise of the aristocracy , probably in part due to his own upbringing and that of his parents. He was also concerned with social reform, as evidenced by his work on prisons. He was elected to the French Chamber of Deputies and served in that capacity from 1839 to 1848. He also served as minister of foreign affairs for a few months in 1849. Tocqueville’s

Tone, Theobald Wolfe

resistance to the government of the Second Republic landed him in jail for a few days and ended his days as a politician. He would later comment that he was disappointed in his political career. In 1856, Tocqueville published his last work, The Old Regime and the Revolution, considered by some to be a continuation of the question of freedom and democracy developed in Democracy in America. This three-volume work carried a somewhat more pessimistic tone than its predecessor. Tocqueville was suffering from tuberculosis in 1858 when he and his wife moved to Cannes with the hope of his recuperation. However , the following year , he succumbed to the condition. His work and political thought have been evaluated and reevaluated by scores of historians, political scientists, philosophers, sociologists, and reformers ever since FURTHER READING: Mayer, J. P. Alexis de Tocqueville: A Biographical Study in Political Life. Gloucester, MA: Smith, 1966; Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Translated by Henry Reeve with an introduction by Joseph Epstein. New York: Bantam Books, 2000; Zunz, Oliver, and Alan S. Kahan. The Tocqueville Reader: A Life in Letters and Politics. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. LEONARD A. STEVERSON

Tone, Theobald Wolfe (1763–1798) Theobald Wolfe Tone, usually known simply as Wolfe Tone, was a leading figure in the Irish independence movement of the late eighteenth century. Born the eldest son of a coach builder in Dublin, Tone was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and at the Middle Temple in London. Rash and impetuous, but intelligent, lively , and sociable, he eloped with a 16-year-old, Matilda Witherington, before he had established himself in a career. It proved a happy marriage. Trained as a lawyer , he won fame as a political propagandist and activist. Initially a supporter of the moderate reform program of the Irish Whigs (or Patriots), he soon became committed to radical reform. He wanted parliamentary reform, the end of sectarian divisions within Ireland, and an end to British influence over Irish affairs. In 1791, he produced his most famous pamphlet, An Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland. Addressed to reform-minded Protestants, it urged Irishmen of all religious persuasions to unite in support of radical reform. With his close friend Thomas Russell, he drew up the resolutions of the Society of United Irishmen formed by the Ulster Presbyterian radicals in Belfast in October 1791. He and Russell set up a similar society in Dublin in November. Catholic radicals, who had reformed the formerly conservative Catholic Committee to press for Catholic relief, appointed the Protestant Tone as their agent and secretary. He helped to organize elections to a Catholic Convention to petition the king for relief, and he accompanied the delegation to London to meet the king. The subsequent Catholic Relief Act of 1793 granted the franchise that Protestants had to Irish Catholics but did not allow Catholics to sit in the Irish parliament. War with France in 1793 led the government to suppress the activities of the United Irishmen. Tone’s written radical views were given to a French agent, William Jackson, who was then arrested in April 1794. The Irish government preferred to get rid of Tone rather than prosecute him. He was persuaded to go into exile in the United States with his young family , though he did not leave until June 1795. By

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then the United Irishmen had been suppressed as a constitutional reform society but were reconstituting themselves as a secret, mass-based revolutionary movement. Unhappy in America and anxious to promote the radical cause in Ireland, Tone recrossed the Atlantic and arrived in Paris in February 1796. He urged the French Directory to send a military force to Ireland, became an officer in the French army , and won the support of General Hoche. Tone accompanied the French invasion force, led by Hoche, that reached Bantry Bay in December 1796. The French found no Irish support there, and battered by storms, the fleet limped home with heavy losses. The French soon had other military priorities, Hoche died in September 1797, and Tone’s influence was weakened by the petty intrigues in France of James Napper Tandy and other United Irishmen. In June 1798 Tone learned that the United Irishmen had rebelled in Ireland. The French hastily tried to send military support, but it was too little and too late. Tone felt duty bound to accompany the small force led by General Hardy. This force was intercepted at sea off the northern coast of Ireland and Tone was captured. He was tried by court martial for treason. Although an officer in the French army , he was sentenced to die by hanging rather than by firing squad. To avoid this fate, he cut his throat and died a few days later , on November 10, 1798. Tone had kept a journal for many years and had more recently begun his autobiography. These were published in the United States by his son in 1826. It would be many years, however , before Tone became the most important inspiration for modern Irish nationalism and republicanism. His grave at Bodenstown has long been a place of pilgrimage. FURTHER READING: Bartlett, Thomas, ed. Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone. Dublin, UK: Lilliput Press, 1998; Dunne, Tom. Theobald Wolfe Tone: Colonial Outsider. Cork, UK: Tower Books, 1982; Elliott, Marianne. Wolfe Tone: Prophet of Irish Independence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989; MacDermot, Frank. Theobald Wolfe Tone and His Times. New York: Macmillan, 1939. H. T. DICKINSON

Tories Derived from the Irish word to¯raidhe , meaning “brigand,” the term “Tory” was originally applied to footloose gentry who in the 1660s preyed on Irish peasants and petty traders. It then found its way into the English political vernacular as a pejorative term for the supporters of the Duke of York, subsequently James II, during the Exclusion Crisis of 1681. Opponents of the succession of a Catholic heir to Charles II referred to Tories as “Popish thieves” of the Crown. It was increasingly used to divide the English political world into Tories and Whigs in place of Cavaliers and Roundheads and gained broad acceptance as a term for those whose political loyalties belonged to the church and the king. During the American Revolution, the term was applied generally to any colonial royalist, otherwise known as Loyalists. On his accession to the throne, George III pronounced an end to the exclusion of Tories from high office, whereupon the Rockinghamite Whigs considered any enthusiast of either the monarch or his policies to be a Tory. British reaction to the French Revolution and its excesses helped to redeem Tory values, so that William Pitt the Younger , Wellington, and Peel were commonly deemed Tories in

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the sense of heroic resistance to violent radicalism. Under Peel’s leadership in the 1830s, Tories dropped their old designation in favor of the name “Conservative,” to denote a party advocating continuous reform through traditional institutions and the adaptation of the monarchy , aristocracy , and established authority to a changing society. Disraeli was the first Conservative leader to use the label “Tory” in a positive spirit and can be considered the inventor of Tory Democracy. This refers to a political style designed to convince working-class voters that their interests, soberly contemplated, lay in the reinforcement and piecemeal reform of the institutions of British government along with the preservation of the traditions of British society. To this Tory democracy added the notion that Conservatives governed not in the aristocratic interest but rather in the interest of the whole nation according to the aristocratic principle. In domestic affairs this meant that Tories could aspire to an alliance between the aristocracy and the urban working class against the “selfish” designs of middle-class capitalists. In foreign policy its patriotic component held that Tory democracy was essentially and uniquely English, upholding the liberties of a free-born people and their Empire against the alien political theories of continental ideologues and despots. See also Britain. FURTHER READING: Black, Jeremy. Robert Walpole and the Nature of Politics in Early Eighteenth Century Britain. London: Macmillan, 1990; Blake, Robert. Disraeli. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1967. CARL CAVANAGH HODGE

Toussaint l’Ouverture (1743–1803) Toussaint l’Ouverture was a former slave in the French colony of Saint-Domingue who became a key figure in the Haitian Revolution and a national hero. Known as Toussaint Bréda most of his life, Toussaint l’Ouverture was born on the Bréda plantation owned by the comte de Noé. He was the first of the Christian slave Gaou Guinou’s eight children. As a teenager , Toussaint was promoted to the position of coachman, one of the more prestigious jobs a slave could obtain, and was ultimately freed in 1777. He soon married and had two sons. Toussaint’s role in the Haitian Revolution came late. In 1790, he did not support Vincent Ogé when the latter tried to convince gens de couleur to join his uprising. Toussaint also did not immediately join the slave uprising of August 1791 led by Boukman. Yet his participation in the Haitian Revolution would ultimately be a decisive one. In 1793 Toussaint joined the Spanish forces in Santo Domingo (the eastern portion of the island of Hispaniola, Saint-Domingue being to the west) and soon proved to be a capable leader , attracting thousands of troops, including one Jean-Jacques Dessalines. With his followers, Toussaint won many battles against French royalists in the north and earned the respect of his Spanish allies. Toussaint unsuccessfully tried to convince the Spanish to grant freedom to all slaves, a move that he thought would facilitate their advance into Saint-Domingue. Upon hearing of the National Convention’s 1794 decree abolishing slavery in all French colonies, Toussaint and about 4,000 followers abandoned the Spanish cause and joined French republican troops. This move had the effect of driving the Spanish armies back across the border into their colony of Santo Domingo, and in 1795

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Spain signed a treaty with France ceding Santo Domingo. Britain, meanwhile, became preoccupied with its own slave rebellion in Jamaica and pulled out of SaintDomingue in 1798. With foreign enemies now expelled from the colony , Toussaint’s next task was to set about rebuilding the infrastructure of Saint-Domingue, which involved returning former slaves to their plantations despite their service to his cause. By 1800 Toussaint was the unofficial ruler of the colony , having either removed French officials or forced their cooperation. Now that he effectively ruled Saint-Domingue, Toussaint turned his attention to Santo Domingo despite the objections of the First Consul, Napoleon. Once this was achieved, Toussaint became the island’s self-appointed governor-general for life and drew up a constitution. Yet by this point, Napoleon had had enough of Toussaint’s pretensions and made plans to invade the island, remove Toussaint from power , and return Saint-Domingue to its former position as a profitable French colony. French forces invaded the island in 1802 under General Leclerc, captured Toussaint, and sent him back to France to be imprisoned at Fort-de-Joux. Rather than publicly execute the leader , Napoleon instead chose to let him die in prison of cold and starvation. Toussaint died on April 7, 1803. See also French Revolution; Slavery and the Slave Trade. FURTHER READING: Geggus, David. Haitian Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002; James, C.L.R. Black Jacobins: Toussaint l ’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. 2nd ed. New York: Vintage, 1963. MARGARET COOK ANDERSEN

Townshend, Charles (1725–1767) The British statesman Charles Townshend was born on August 29, 1725. After receiving an education in Leiden and Oxford, he entered the House of Commons as the member from Great Yarmouth in 1747. Although a man of ability and a brilliant orator , he lacked foresight in colonial affairs, which would have disastrous consequences. Beginning his career in government as a member of the Board of Trade, he held a succession of important posts, including first lord of the admiralty (1754), secretary at war during part of the Seven Years’ War (1761–1762), president of the Board of Trade, (1763–1765) and chancellor of the exchequer (1766–1767). Townshend’s policy of imposing heavy taxes to be applied for the defense of the American colonies and for the salaries of royal officials provoked a furious reaction from colonists. Resentment already existed due to Townshend’s efforts to suspend the New York legislature and to post resident commissioners of customs. The series of measures known as Townshend Acts (1767) imposed a whole series of import duties on tea, paper , glass, and paint. Townshend was of the view that the colonists would not object to such taxes, which would be levied at the ports. He was badly mistaken, and the merchants of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia all retaliated with a boycott of British goods. Townshend’s policies played an important part in the growing atmosphere of discontent among the American colonists in the decade prior to the American Revolution. Townshend, himself, however , would not live to witness the colonists’ full reaction to his policies, for he died suddenly on September 4, 1767. See also Coercive Acts.

Townshend Acts

FURTHER READING: Forster , Cornelius P. The Uncontrolled Chancellor: Charles Townshend and His American Policy. Providence: Rhode Island Bicentennial Foundation, 1978; Namier , Lewis, and John Brooke. Charles Townshend. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964. PATIT PABAN MISHRA

Townshend Acts (1767) The Townshend Acts were a series of measures that provoked widespread opposition in the American colonies and contributed to the campaign for autonomy that culminated in the American Revolution. The acts imposed taxes on everyday imported goods such as paper, glass, and tea and instituted changes in the colonial administration. The measures were named after the chancellor of the exchequer, Charles Townshend. Townshend developed the acts as a means to accomplish several objectives and overcome problems with the contemporary system of colonial administration. British officials in the Americas were paid by the colonial legislatures, and those assemblies had withheld salaries on occasion as a means of protesting unpopular measures. Under the Townshend Acts, colonial officials were to be paid directly by the revenues generated from the taxes. It was believed that this would make the governors and other officers independent of the colonial legislatures and therefore better able to enforce unpopular laws and taxes. The new revenues were also seen as a way to offset the cost of British garrisons stationed in the colonies. During debates on the acts, many in Parliament endorsed the concept that the colonies should pay for their own defense. Finally , the acts aimed to improve the collection of customs dues, tariffs, and other taxes throughout the colonies. To do so, a new board of customs was created in Boston to oversee customs collections and three admiralty courts were established to prosecute suspected smugglers. These courts operated without juries. In addition, blank search warrants, known as writs of assistance, were authorized. These allowed the search and seizure of colonial property and ships without a magistrate’s warrant. The acts created a public furor and helped unite the disparate interests within the colonies. Merchants, business owners, and farmers opposed the new taxes, while the political elite perceived the acts as an attack on the legitimate rights of the colonists. A range of means were used to protest. Colonial legislatures and other groups drafted petitions to Parliament and the king, and an economic boycott was undertaken throughout the colonies. Smuggling, already widely practiced, became a common and accepted method to evading the acts. There were also riots and attacks on individual tax collectors. A growing number of colonists rejected the authority of Parliament to tax the colonies, unless the 13 colonies were granted representation in the British legislature. The economic boycott significantly affected British commercial firms, who subsequently joined the colonists in opposition to the measures. Faced with opposition at home and in the colonies, Parliament repealed most of the taxes on March 5, 1770. The tax on tea was left in place since it provided the most revenue and served as a signal that Parliament maintained the right to tax the colonies. The continuing tea tax remained relatively uncontroversial until 1773, when the import duty on British tea was removed in an attempt to entice the colonists to purchase tea from

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the East India Company. This measure backfired and led to renew anti-British sentiment. See also Boston Port Act; Boston Tea Party; Committee of Secret Correspondence; Stamp Act; Stamp Act Congress. FURTHER READING: Butler , Jon. Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000; Huff, Randall. The Revolutionary War Era. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004; Simmons, Richard. The American Colonies: From Settlement to Independence. New York: McKay , 1976. TOM LANSFORD

Trumbull, Jonathan (1710–1785) Born in eastern Connecticut (which served as the base of his political support), Jonathan Trumbull went to Harvard to become a minister, though by his early twenties he had entered the family business. Entering colonial politics at the same time, he was elected to the Connecticut Assembly in 1733. For the next 50 years, Trumbull served the colony and later the state as legislator, militia officer, judge, and governor. Trumbull became the assistant governor (1766) and three years later succeeded as governor of Connecticut, a position he held throughout the American Revolutionary War and after (until 1784). Trumbull was thus the last colonial governor of Connecticut, and its first state governor. He was a member of the Connecticut Sons of Liberty in the years leading up to the Revolution. Constitutionally , Trumbull’s governorship was interesting. As was the case in many new states, the executive branch was kept deliberately weak by the terms of the new state constitution. In Trumbull’s case, however , this limitation was partly balanced by a special set of powers granted to manage the war effort. This power was significant not only to the state but to the American war effort as a whole. With the exception of defending itself against British raids in 1777, 1779, and 1781, Connecticut’s role was primarily that of supplier to the Continental Army. Connecticut probably provided more than half the supplies, especially of food, that reached George Washington’s army. Trumbull was not a political theorist. His major contribution was as an organizer and manager who provided logistical support for the war effort. He retired from office in 1784, having become increasingly unpopular as the war drew to a close. There were some accusations that he was personally profiting from the war effort and, despite his support of the Revolution, was more conservative politically than many in his constituency. He died the following year. See also American Revolution; Constitutions, American State. FURTHER READING: Roth, David Morris. Connecticut’s War Governor , Jonathan Trumbull. Chester , CT: Pequot Press, 1974; Weaver , Glenn. Jonathan Trumbull, Connecticut’s Merchant Magistrate, 1710–1785. Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society , 1956. ROBERT N. STACY

Tryon, William (1729–1788) A career soldier , William Tryon was appointed North Carolina’s lieutenant governor in 1764 and became governor the following year. Tryon governed a colony

Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, Baron de L’Aulne

divided not only by its reaction to Crown policy but also by geographical, social, and economic factors. North Carolina’s western population was isolated and lacked political power compared with that of the east. It also resented government corruption, specifically the collection by local sheriffs of taxes that never went to the government. This opposition crystallized in the late 1760s in the form of the Regulator movement, which Tryon smashed in 1771 at the Battle of Alamance Creek. Immediately after this battle, Tryon moved to New York, where he had been named royal governor. In New York, he stood not only for the Crown’s prerogatives but for New York’s claims to the Hampshire grants, a region later to become Vermont. On his return to New York City in 1776, Tryon discovered that his authority was undermined by Howe’s imposition of martial law upon his taking control of that city. As a major general, Tryon led raids into Connecticut in 1777 and 1779. Returning to Britain in 1780, he was later promoted to lieutenant general and died in 1788. Tryon was not a philosopher of government, but a practitioner , and was bound to maintaining the established order. Despite a reputation established during the Regulator uprising in western North Carolina and his Connecticut raids, he was fair minded with a sense of justice, as shown by his attempts to resolve some Regulator grievances even as he was putting down their rebellion. See also American Revolution; American Revolutionary War. FURTHER READING: Nelson, Paul David. William Tryon and the Course of Empire: A Life in British Imperial Service. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990; Tryon, William. The Correspondence of William Tryon and Other Selected Papers. Raleigh, NC: Division of Archives and History , Department of Cultural Resources, 1980–1981. ROBERT N. STACY

Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, Baron de L’Aulne (1727–1781) The mantra of the eighteenth century was the improvement of the political and social order through a new vision; the French economist Turgot was a notable figure in this movement, known as the Enlightenment. Turgot was born in Paris on May 10, 1727, to aristocratic parents, Michel-Etienne Turgot and Madeleine Françoise Martineauand. Having shown a flair for writing during his days at the Sorbonne, Turgot authored numerous treatises on political economy , and his contributions to the Encyclopédie were praised by various philosophes. Turgot became a government administrator in 1752. An advocate of the principle of laissez faire, laissez passer (live and let live), Turgot subscribed to the thought of the Physiocrats, led by François Quesnay (1694 –1774). This free-market school criticized the prevailing doctrine of mercantilism by which the state controlled the nation’s trade. As the finance minister (1774–1776), Turgot set an agenda of economic reform through his six edicts, which called for the abolition of monopolies, the free movement of grain, the slashing of governmental expenditure, improvements to the taxation system, and other reforms. He was, however , bitterly opposed by vested interests and resigned in disgust. Turgot devoted the rest of his life to scholarly pursuits. He died on March 20, 1781, his prophesy that France would experience radical revolution rather than gradual and peaceful reform proving entirely correct. See also Ancien Régime; Louis XVI.

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FURTHER READING: Dakin, Douglas. Turgot and the Ancien Régime in France. London: Methuen, 1939; Geoffrey , Treasure. The Making of Modern Europe, 1648–1780. New York: Routledge, 2003; Kaplan, Steven L. Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the Reign of Louis XV. 2 vols. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976. PATIT PABAN MISHRA

22 Prairial, Law of See Law of 22 Prairial

U Ultramontanism Ultramontanism was the name bestowed upon nineteenth-century supporters of a centralized monarchial papacy in the Roman Catholic Church. The name “ultramontane” (ultra montes) is somewhat xenophobic in origin, in that the French and the Germans both used it in a derogatory way to refer to the Roman pontiff as a foreign “ruler beyond the mountains.” Revolutionary- era ultramontanism originated in the writings of Robert de Lamennais (1782–1854), who sought to replace the discredited movements of Gallicanism (those French Catholics who sided with the anti-Christian revolutionary leadership) and their liberal counterparts, the Jansenists (who opposed the Jesuits and sought state sovereignty over the church). Repulsed by the anti - clericalism of eighteenth-century revolutionaries (embodied in the nationalism of France’s Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the confiscation of church property), Europe’s Catholic faithful initially believed that Napoleon’s rise to power in 1799 and his Concordat of 1801 signaled an end to the scourge of revolution. Their optimism was not long lived however, as his authoritarian regime retained state control of the church and its servants. Such subversion and defiance of papal authority made the clergy Gallican by law and ultramontane in spirit. The unifying impetus of the ultramontane movement came with Pius VII’s arrest by Napoleon in 1808. Pius’s open defiance of the emperor inspired conservative Catholics throughout Europe to rally around his anti-state cause. Their enthusiasm for the pope deepened upon his release from imprisonment in 1814, when he revived the long -banned defenders of the papacy, the Jesuits. Pius’s ordeal solidified ultramontanist convictions in the validity of separating the spheres of church and state. The ultramontanes believed that the state had authority in temporal matters alone, and the papacy infallible authority in ecclesiastic matters. Though in time Lamennais fell out with the church, his movement continued, spreading throughout Europe during the course of the nineteenth century. In Britain ultramontane Catholics became increasingly evangelical, while in Germany, Catholic faithful openly resisted the antireligious statism of Bismarck’s Kulturkampf. Ultramontanism’s greatest triumphs occurred in the second half of the nineteenth

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century with Pius IX’s 1864 encyclical, “The Syllabus of Errors,” and the 1870 declaration by the First Vatican Council of papal infallibility. Ultimately, ultramontanism did not restore Christianity to its pre-revolutionary level of influence in the affairs of state, nor did it enable the church to maintain its influence over the masses. While the ultramontanes continue to reenergize many of the faithful who looked upon the dead clergy of the French Revolution as martyrs of Enlightenment terror, the church’s position in Europe remains greatly diminished. See also Abolition of the Catholic Cult; Anti-Clericalism; Religion. FURTHER READING: Aston, Nigel. Religion and Revolution in France 1780 –1804. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003; Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy. New York: Image Books, 1994; Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997; Durant, Will. The Story of Civilization. Vol. 11. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975; Johnson, Paul. A History of Christianity. New York: Atheneum, 1977. PETER R. MCGUIRE

Ultras The ultras, or ultraroyalists, were aristocratic reactionaries opposed to the ideologies of the French Revolution. Following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France after the fall of Napoleon in 1814, and again in 1815 following his return from Elba, an extremist faction of royalists desired the elimination of revolutionaryera reforms and the purge of Bonapartists. Some of the ultras were émigrés, but most were members of the rural aristocracy. Among the ultras were members of the Chevaliers de la Foi, a secret society instrumental in bringing about the Restoration and the White Terror. Ultras were often militant and inflexible, believing any compromise with the ideals of the French Revolution betrayed their principles and those of their class. During the reign of Louis XVIII, they turned to the comte d’Artois (later Charles X) as a symbol of hope. After 1815, the ultras swept the national elections to dominate the Chamber of Deputies, creating a tensioned relationship among the king, his moderate royalist ministers, and the ultra-dominated Chamber. The ultras supported universal manhood suffrage under the assumption that the common man was more loyal to the aristocracy and tradition, while the wealthier bourgeoisie had become corrupted by un-French ideas. In 1816, Louis dissolved the Chamber, paving the way for more moderates in the legislature. Following the assassination in 1820 of the duc de Berry, the son of the comte d’Artois, the ultras dominated the French government for much of the decade, falling from power after the July Revolution of 1830. FURTHER READING: Davies, Peter. The Extreme Right in France, 1789 to the Present. London: Routledge, 2002; Higgs, David. Ultra - Royalism in Toulouse. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973; Skuy, David. Assassination, Politics, and Miracles: France and the Royalist Reaction of 1820. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003. ERIC MARTONE

United Irishmen See Society of United Irishmen

United States Constitution

United Kingdom of the Netherlands See Netherlands, United Kingdom of the

United States Congress See Congress (United States)

United States Constitution The United States Constitution (drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1789) is the oldest written constitution still in use in the contemporary world. The 1787 Constitution was the American revolutionaries’ second try at establishing a workable scheme of government among the 13 colonies after their war of independence with Britain. Although the text of the Constitution has undergone significant revision and amendment in the three intervening centuries since its adoption, its main concepts endure. Debates surrounding the strengths and weaknesses of the United States Constitution have occasioned some of the greatest political theorizing in the AngloAmerican tradition. Originally motivated by the shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation of 1777, which had united 13 independent colonies into a loose and unwieldy confederation, representatives from five states met in Annapolis, Maryland, in September of 1786 to discuss ways of strengthening the Articles. Realizing that what was called for was not amendment so much as a major overhaul, the representatives made the decision to invite delegates from each of the 13 states to convene in May 1787 in Philadelphia to discuss revisions to the Articles. Seventy-four delegates were chosen by the legislatures of 12 states (Rhode Island declined to participate), but only fifty-five of these delegates actually bothered to attend the Philadelphia Convention. Among the participants were such luminaries of the American revolutionary era as Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, whose presence served to give an air of authority to the proceedings. Among those who did the most to shape the document and influence the debates were James Madison, Edmund Randolph, and George Mason from Virginia; Pennsylvania’s Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson; Alexander Hamilton from New York; Elbridge Gerry and Rufus King from Massachusetts; William Paterson from New Jersey; and Charles Pinckney from Connecticut. Noteworthy nonparticipants included John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Patrick Henry, who famously complained after the fact that he had “smelled a rat.” More than any other single figure, James Madison is acknowledged as the driving force behind the design and ultimate ratification of the Constitution, even if the Constitution as it evolved through the debates did not conform perfectly to his ideal. The original charge of the Philadelphia Convention was to revise the Articles of Confederation, but the decision was quickly made to scrap the flawed Articles and draft an entirely new constitution. The architecture of this new constitution was debated vigorously and exhaustively through the hot Philadelphia summer of 1787. The final version was reported to the public on September 17, 1787, and submitted to the states for ratification. After fierce debate in the states, it was approved by the requisite 9 of 13 states on June 21, 1788, and took effect on March 4, 1789. The Philadelphia Convention operated in secrecy, and no official tally of votes or record of the

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debates was kept. Virtually all of what is known about the controversies and debates that shaped the Constitution is drawn from copious notes taken unofficially by James Madison and recorded each evening after the day’s debates had ended. These were first published posthumously in 1840 as Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention. Debate among the delegates centered on the following issues. First was the question of how power was to be balanced between large and small states. Delegates from small states argued that a scheme of proportional representation based on population would dilute their influence. Conversely, large states worried that they would be disadvantaged vis-à-vis the small states if each state had equal representation regardless of its size or population. The Great Compromise was to allocate seats proportionally in the lower House of Representatives based on the population of the state in question, with every state, regardless of its size, being guaranteed at least one representative. The upper legislature or Senate was to be composed of two senators from each state regardless of its size. The so - called Connecticut Compromise between the New Jersey Plan and the Virginia Plan was crucial to reaching an equitable balance of power between small and large states. Without this compromise, the Convention would have concluded quickly and in failure. The second and more daunting controversy was the constitutional status of slavery in the new union. Southern states insisted on guarantees that northern states would not move to outlaw slavery or the slave trade once the Constitution was approved, resulting in the 1808 sunset clause inserted in Section 9 of Article 1. Further, the original compromise document tacitly condoned the existence of slavery by providing that each person held in bondage would count for three-fifths of a white citizen for purposes of determining each state’s population and calculating representation in the House of Representatives; that slaves from one state could not be relieved of their servitude by the acts of any other state; and that individuals held in bondage who escaped to another state must be returned to their rightful owners. These tacit sanctions of slavery were enough to reassure southerners that their interests would not be sacrificed to the North, but they proved galvanizing in the nineteenth century. Apologists for slavery pointed to these provisions in support of a constitutional right to own slaves and the denial of citizenship to blacks, whereas critics like Abraham Lincoln lamented the practical political necessities that made the original Constitution a morally flawed document. The third significant controversy was over the relative balance of power between the 13 original state governments and the new, more powerful federal government. Many delegates were wary of concentrating such extensive powers in the hands of a centralized government. They (and later Anti-Federalist opponents of the Constitution’s ratification) argued that the new federal government effectively robbed states and local governments of their most significant prerogatives and liberties. Other Federalist defenders of the Constitution such as Alexander Hamilton and James Madison argued that the failings of the Articles of Confederation demonstrated clearly that the new nation would never be secure, powerful, and affluent without a strong centralized government and a vigorous executive power. More fundamentally, the United States Constitution bears the imprint of disparate historical precursors and intellectual traditions. As a blueprint of American government, the Constitution upholds the traditional doctrine of the separation of powers and checks and balances implicit in the British system and defended in the writings of William Blackstone, Montesquieu, and other commentators.

United States Constitution

This shapes the division of the federal government into executive, legislative, and judicial branches, each endowed with some unique powers and checks on the other branches: for example, the presidential power to veto laws passed by Congress, the senatorial prerogative of presiding over impeachment proceedings against the president, and the Supreme Court’s ability to declare laws unconstitutional. Following in the tradition of classical liberal thinkers like John Locke and David Hume, these checks and balances by separate powers or branches are calculated to secure the fundamental rights of individuals. Likewise, concerns with vigilance and wariness about centralizing power in any one area bear the imprimatur of classical republicanism, the determination to prevent corruption and maintain public spiritedness. The Constitution’s justification of executive power seems to owe something to the Machiavellian ideal of a vigorous executive, even as the office of the American presidency itself was conceived along the lines of the executive power in some of the extant state constitutions, particularly that of New York. More generally, the Framers of the Constitution drew upon the collective wisdom not only of the British tradition of limited government and the idea of the rights of British subjects but the uniquely American experience of constitution writing, both successful and unsuccessful, in the colonies and states. Vigorous debates over the ratification of the proposed constitution took place throughout the states after it was unveiled in September 1787. Exchanges between Federalist supporters of the Constitution and their Anti-Federalist opponents continued in earnest through the winter and into the following spring of 1788. The Federalists argued persuasively for a solid and durable union between the states, which they contended was impossible under the Articles of Confederation, or indeed any other kind of confederation. Notable Anti-Federalists like Richard Henry Lee, Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and Melancton Smith objected to the new constitution on a variety of grounds. They feared that this new centralized government could easily become tyrannical. They doubted the appropriateness of a single uniform legislation for parts of the United States as different as Puritan New England and the slave-owning South. They appealed to the tradition of classical republicanism premised on small, face-to-face, self-governing communities and doubted that republican government could ever successfully be extended to an orbit as large as an entire continent. They further complained that many of the Constitution’s provisions had an aristocratic or antidemocratic bias. Perhaps the most definitive explication of the Constitution’s rationale responding to these and other criticisms was put forward by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay in their 85 papers authored under the pseudonym “Publius” and published in New York newspapers throughout the fall and winter of 1787–1788. These were subsequently collected and published in book form in 1788 as The Federalist in two volumes. The work became an instant classic and is still widely regarded as the single most authoritative interpretation of the Constitution’s original intent and workings. The Constitution of 1787 is remarkably unceremonious and concise. While the preamble speaks broadly of aspirations “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” it is conspicuously devoid of reference to abstract principles or ideals. As originally drafted and unamended, the United States Constitution consists of seven separate articles, or sections.

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The first article describes the legislative branch, which consists of a bicameral legislature or Congress. This Congress is divided between an upper house, or Senate, composed of two representatives from each of the states, who serve six-year terms, and a lower House of Representatives, the members of which serve two-year terms and are elected popularly from districts within each of the states based on population. The article specifies the requisite age and qualifications for representatives to be elected to the House and Senate, respectively, as well as the specific powers delegated to each of the two legislative bodies. These include the power to initiate bills of revenue in the House, and the power to try impeachments in the Senate. Among those powers shared by both houses of Congress are the power to borrow money, regulate commerce, declare war, and make all laws “necessary and proper” for the execution of their appointed tasks. The second article pertains to the executive power of the president. The powers of the president consist of the power to serve as commander and chief of the armed forces, to issue pardons, and to make treaties and appoint ambassadors and judges with the concurrence of the Senate. The president is entrusted with the executive authority to uphold and defend the Constitution. Perhaps the most significant power outlined is that of vetoing laws passed by Congress, a veto that can be overridden by a two-thirds vote of both the House and the Senate. The third article outlines a federal judiciary branch appointed by the president with the concurrence of the Senate, and entrusted with the power to review laws passed by the legislative branch. Justices of the Supreme Court hold their positions for life, subject to good behavior. The article further specifies the kinds of cases over which federal courts have jurisdiction: namely, those in which the United States is a party, those between the United States and other nations, those between different states, or those between citizens of different states. The crime of treason is also defined, and it is stipulated that no person can be convicted of treason without the testimony of two corroborating witnesses or a confession in an open court. The fourth article describes relations between the states. It provides for “full faith and credit” between the official acts of the states and establishes that citizens of one state are entitled to equal protection by the laws of other states. It also establishes provisions by which new states can be admitted into the Union and provides for the federal government’s rule over unincorporated territories. The fifth article details the process by which the Constitution might be amended in the future. Amendments may be passed with a two-thirds majority in both of the houses of Congress and must be approved by three-fourths of the states in order to take effect. The sixth article guarantees that the new federal government will assume the debts previously incurred by the states and under the Articles of Confederation. The seventh article briefly outlines the process according to which the Constitution itself must be ratified. The remainder of the text of the Constitution consists of a series of amendments appended to the original text of the document. The first 10 amendments are known collectively as the Bill of Rights. Initially drafted by James Madison in 1789, the Bill of Rights was part of a compromise worked out between Federalist supporters and Anti-Federalist opponents of the Constitution. The condition that these amendments would be passed immediately was a key point in overcoming opposition to the Constitution’s ratification, particularly in divided states like Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York, which included such conditional language in their ratification instruments. The American Bill of Rights incorporated ideas from George Mason’s 1776 Virginia

United States Constitution

Declaration of Rights, the 1689 English Bill of Rights, and the Magna Carta. Many of the Constitution’s defenders, including Alexander Hamilton, argued not only that a bill of rights was unnecessary given the strictly delimited powers outlined in the Constitution’s main articles, but that a bill of rights might at some point in the future be interpreted to mean that these and only these liberties (and not some others heretofore unspecified) were secured to the people or the states. Others suspicious of the new and more extensive powers given to the federal government were only inclined to support the Constitution with the understanding that a bill of rights would be immediately appended to it. These first 10 amendments provide for most of the securities and civil liberties that citizens of the United States have come to think of as basic rights and privileges. They were ratified by the requisite three-fourths of the states and incorporated into the original Constitution on December 15, 1791. The First Amendment provides for religious liberty and freedom of expression, prohibiting the establishment of an official religion and guaranteeing free speech, petition, and assembly, and freedom of the press. The Second Amendment provides for state militias and a right to keep and bear arms. The Third Amendment prohibits the government from compelling individuals to quarter soldiers in their private homes. The Fourth Amendment secures their homes and property from unreasonable search, seizure, or inspection without probable cause or a legal warrant. The Fifth Amendment provides legal rights of due process, including grand juries, and prohibits double jeopardy, forced confessions, or takings. The Sixth Amendment guarantees defendants a speedy public trial, the right to be confronted by witnesses, and legal counsel. The Seventh Amendment provides for trial by jury. The Eight Amendment secures a right of bail and forbids cruel and unusual punishments. The Ninth Amendment stipulates clearly that the enumeration of these specific rights does not imply that there are no other significant rights retained by the people. The Tenth Amendment specifies that those powers not specifically delegated to the new federal government are to be retained by the states or the people at large. Of the subsequent amendments, the following are of the most enduring significance. The so-called Civil War Amendments (1865–1870) were originally proposed to resolve the uncertain constitutional status of freed African American slaves after the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1865. The Thirteenth Amendment (1865) once and for all unambiguously abolished slavery, which had been tacitly sanctioned in the original 1787 Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment (1868) guaranteed citizenship to the newly freed slaves, reversing the Supreme Court decision of Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), which had ruled that freed blacks could never become United States citizens. This amendment also contained several other provisions whose significance would grow in light of subsequent legal decisions. Most notably, it formally established the principle of birthright citizenship ( jus soli) and made the constitutional liberties enumerated in the Bill of Rights enforceable for the first time against encroachment by the states. As it has been subsequently interpreted by the Supreme Court, this provision more than any other has been credited with once and for all tipping the balance of the United States toward a strong centralized government and stripping states and localities of many of the regulatory powers they previously enjoyed. The Fourteenth Amendment’s provisions of due process and equal protection became important reference points for civil rights in twentieth-century jurisprudence. The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) stipulated that freed slaves should be guaranteed the right to vote.

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Other major democratizing amendments followed in the twentieth century. The Sixteenth Amendment (1913) provided for a graduated federal income tax. The Seventeenth Amendment (1913) transferred the power of electing senators from the state legislatures to the people of the states at large. The Eighteenth Amendment (1919) prohibited the production, sale, and importation of alcohol (later repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933). The Nineteenth Amendment finally and only belatedly secured the right to vote for women in 1920. In 1951 the Twenty-second Amendment limited the president to two terms in office of four years each. The Twenty-sixth Amendment secured the right to vote for all citizens age 18 and older. All told, 27 amendments have been made to the Constitution over the course of its history. See also Constitutional Convention; Constitutions, American State; The Federalist Papers; Slavery and the Slave Trade. FURTHER READING: Bailyn, Bernard, ed. The Debate on the Constitution: Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters during the Struggle over Ratification. New York: Library of America, 1993; Madison, James. Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, as Reported by James Madison. New York: W. W. Norton, 1987; Madison, James, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers. London: Penguin, 1987; Thach, Charles. The Creation of the Presidency, 1775 –1789: A Study of Constitutional History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1969. RICHARD BOYD

United States Supreme Court See Supreme Court (United States)

V Valmy, Battle of (1792) Fought approximately 100 miles from Paris on September 20, 1792, the Battle of Valmy ranks low in importance in a strict military sense—for it constituted little more than a cannonade between the opposing sides—yet had decisive political repercussions for Europe. As the engagement involved, on one hand, a French revolutionary force consisting of volunteers and recruits called up by the nation rather than the king and, on the other, the professional forces of an absolutist regime, Valmy represents a crossroads in military history between the formal style of warfare practiced by eighteenth-century armies and the more innovative form adopted by the new armies of revolution. In September 1792, the French Army of the Center under General François Kellermann linked up with the Army of the North under General Charles Dumouriez, bringing their combined strength to 36,000 men and 40 guns, opposed by 34,000 Prussians and 36 guns under the Duke of Brunswick, who sought to capture Paris and thus end the Revolution and restore the Bourbon dynasty in France. After several hours’ exchange of artillery fire and a hesitant Prussian advance, Brunswick chose to withdraw east, thus providing the French Revolution with a new lease on life. As the Allies did not enter Paris for another 22 years—and in the interim the armies of revolutionary, and later Napoleonic, France would conquer much of Europe, including the Low Countries, all of Germany, the whole of mainland Italy, and Switzerland—the decisive quality ascribed to Valmy is well justified. See also French Revolutionary Wars. FURTHER READING: Blanning, T.C.W. The French Revolutionary Wars, 1787 –1802. London: Arnold, 1996; Creasy, Edward. The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo. New York: Dorset, 1987; Fuller, J.F.C. A Military History of the Western World. Vol. 2. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1995. GREGORY FREMONT-BARNES

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Varennes, Flight to (1791) On June 21, 1791, Louis XVI and his family, disguised as bourgeois travelers, were stopped in the French border town of Varennes while fleeing Paris. The king’s failed attempt at escape from France would eventually exert a powerful destabilizing influence on French revolutionary politics. Louis’s decision to flee resulted from his distaste for the Revolution combined with mounting threats to his family, such as the popular march on Versailles during the October Days. Louis intended to flee to France’s northeast border and rendezvous with a sympathetic general. In the end, the plan failed due to repeated delays as well as the king’s ineptness at subterfuge. Indeed, Louis was recognized in Sainte-Menehould by a postmaster who rode ahead of the king’s procession and organized his detention in Varennes. Soon after, Louis was forced to return to Paris. News of Louis’s flight stunned most Frenchmen and unleashed a wave of antimonarchical, pro-republican sentiment. Portraits of the king disappeared from Parisian homes and businesses and were replaced by caricatures of “Louis the Pig.” Popular Parisian societies like the Cordeliers Club called for Louis to be put on trial. The National Assembly, however, had nearly finished penning a monarchical constitution, and consequently most deputies were anxious to keep Louis in power. Claiming that Louis had been kidnapped, they absolved him from blame, and when Parisian radicals demonstrated against Louis on the Champs de Mars on July 17, National Guard troops opened fire to disperse the radical mob. Although popular radicalism was temporarily checked, the king’s reputation never recovered. Following a series of military defeats in 1792, Louis was forcibly deposed by a popular insurrection on August 10 and was executed five months later. In addition, the flight to Varennes exacerbated the mounting climate of paranoia and distrust that fueled the fratricidal violence of the Reign of Terror. See also Abolition of the Monarchy; Emigrés; French Revolution; Marie Antoinette. FURTHER READING: Tackett, Timothy. When the King Took Flight. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. BENJAMIN REILLY

Vendéan Rebellion (1793 –1796) The Vendéan rebellion was a series of episodic revolts from 1793 to 1796 in the Vendée region in western France against the French revolutionary government. The poorly trained Vendéan peasants, led predominantly by aristocrats, scored victories over the National Guard, yet the regular army slaughtered the rebels, who reverted to guerilla tactics. Such methods invoked atrocities on the part of the republican army, in turn prompting the rebels to inflict cruelties on government soldiers. The western French peasantry’s hostility emanated from resistance to the clergy’s secularization, taxation, and military conscription. The oath of November 1790 forcing clergy to swear allegiance to the government compelled those opposed to the policy to oppose the Revolution. The church was the uniting force for scattered rural communities, serving as a social center and symbol of identity. The refusal to accept

Vendémiaire, Rising of

the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was extreme in insurrectionary regions. A high proportion of the western clergy originated from the countryside. The constitutional clergy and government-appointed officials were regarded as intruders. Dechristianizing efforts in 1793 and 1794 threatened rural cultural continuity. Thus, a cultural dichotomy developed in western France between anti-clerical, radical urban society and the more conservative countryside. Revolutionary reforms did not satisfy peasant grievances and exacerbated the peasants’ preexisting hostility to the bourgeoisie in the Vendée. Peasants desired an amelioration of their poverty, reforms to the seigneurial system and the tithe, more equitable taxation, and the abolition of military service. Seigneurial dues were light in western France; the pressing matter was the tithe. While suppressed in April 1790, a December decree allowed its addition to rents, causing tenants to be worse off than they were under the ancien régime. Western France had a history of resistance to conscription, and government efforts to raise 300,000 troops in February 1793 formed the immediate cause of the rebellion, while efforts to supply the army with rural provisions exacerbated the situation. Local Vendéan anti-revolutionary parties united with outside aristocrats to form a counterrevolutionary rebellion. Most rebels from the nobility were not fervent royalists, but moderates dissatisfied with the Revolution. Popular royalism was extremely different from the form espoused by the émigrés. Indeed, some émigrés who joined the peasant rebels were contemptuous of their newly found allies; likewise, many peasants developed contempt for their new aristocratic supporters. Following the bicentennial of the French Revolution, debate centered on whether or not the Vendéan rebellion was truly counterrevolutionary. It has been suggested that the rebellion might be better classified as anti-revolutionary, implying an interpretation of the rebellion, and the counterrevolution as a whole as a regressive rather than a progressive phenomenon if one argues that the rebellion was directed against the Revolution and its demands rather than for the restoration of the ancien régime. See also La Chouannerie; Chouans; French Revolutionary Wars; La Rochejaquelein, Henri Du Vergier, Comte de. FURTHER READING: Roberts, James. The Counter-Revolution in France, 1787–1830. London: Macmillan, 1990; Sécher, Reynald. A French Genocide: The Vendée. Translated by George Holoch. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003; Tilly, Charles. The Vendée. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964. ERIC MARTONE

Vendémiaire, Rising of (1795) A royalist uprising on 13 Vendémiaire, Year IV (October 5, 1795) was suppressed by the Convention, with General Napoleon Bonaparte distinguishing himself in the uprising by his energy and skill in using artillery. The uprising was caused by the heavyhanded policies of the National Convention, which decreed on August 22 and 30 that two-thirds of the new legislature, for which an election would be soon held, must be current members of the Convention. Although the law was intended to ensure the transition between the old and new legislative bodies, it also was an explicit attempt on the part of the Thermidorians to remain in power and to suppress rising quasi-royalist sentiment and activity.

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The quelling of the royalist rising of thirteenth Vendémiaire, Year IV (October 5, 1795). Courtesy of Alexander Mikaberidze.

Ensuing weeks saw growing agitation in the capital as the lower classes suffered from the high price of bread. Some members of the Paris National Guard began joining the ranks of the opposition, and there were signs of wavering loyalty among senior officers as well. In early October, General Jacques-François Menou made an unsuccessful attempt to arrest leading agitators, which only exacerbated the situation. As tensions mounted, the Convention chose Paul Barras to handle the situation. Barras released some Jacobins from prison to help him stem the royalist tide and appointed a young general, Napoleon Bonaparte, whom he knew and respected from Toulon, to command the troops. Bonaparte’s role proved to be of great consequence. As the royalist sympathizers prepared to march on the Tuileries Palace, the seat of the Convention, Bonaparte brought up artillery during the night of October 4 –5 and posted troops around the palace. The vast crowds advanced on the Tuileries on October 5 but were decimated by the grapeshot and musket fire of Bonaparte’s troops, who quickly dispersed them. This was the first time since the start of the Revolution that a military force was successfully employed to repress the Parisian crowds. The uprising secured the power of the Convention, which was soon after transformed into the Directory. Napoleon won recognition and eventual promotion to command the army of Italy, which served as a starting point for his remarkable career. See also French Revolution; Thermidorian Reaction. FURTHER READING: Lefebvre, Georges. The Thermidorians and the Directory: Two Phases of the French Revolution. New York: Random House, 1964; Soboul, Albert. La première République, 1792 –1804. Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1968. ALEXANDER MIKABERIDZE

Vergennes, Gravier, Charles, Comte de

Vergennes, Gravier, Charles, Comte de (1719 –1787) The comte de Vergennes served as France’s foreign minister from 1774 until his death in 1787. His support for the rebellion of Britain’s 13 North American colonies was crucial for American success. Starting in 1781, Vergennes played a significant role in the domestic affairs of France in the position of first minister to King Louis XVI. Vergennes was born in the city of Dijon on December 29, 1719. He followed numerous ancestors in obtaining an education in law. In 1739, he began his diplomatic career as an assistant to the French ambassador to Portugal. His prospects of rising to the top of his profession seemed limited, since top diplomatic posts normally went to members of the country’s ancient aristocratic families. Nonetheless, Vergennes emerged as a talented, famously hardworking, and welltrained diplomat. Years of experience in Germany gave him a solid grounding in the world of international affairs, and in 1755, he received the crucial position of envoy to the court of the Ottoman Empire at Constantinople. His long tenure there appeared to end on a note of failure when he was discharged from his post in 1768. He had clashed with the aristocratic foreign minister, the duc de Choiseul, over French policy. Choiseul had also objected to Vergennes’s marriage to a French woman of modest social status. His career seemed at an end. But, in 1771, Vergennes received a new assignment as France’s envoy to Stockholm. In 1774, Louis XVI, the newly crowned young king, brought him home to serve as foreign minister. The ensuing collaboration of monarch and foreign minister has led scholars to question which of the two dominated decision making. At the least, Vergennes set the range of policy choices for the king and strongly influenced the policies adopted. The outbreak of the American Revolution provided Vergennes with an opportunity to strike at Britain. He wanted Paris, not London, to be the center of the European diplomatic community. He likewise considered a new war with Britain inevitable. Nonetheless, Vergennes followed a cautious policy, providing the Americans only covert military and financial assistance for more than two years. Vergennes believed that France would be best served by a long war between Britain and the rebellious American colonists, since a quick victory would encourage the victor to strike at France’s empire. France formally recognized American independence and joined the war early in 1778. Vergennes pursued his ambitious foreign policy in the face of criticism that the French government could not stand the resulting financial burden. In 1781, he assumed the informal role of first minister to the monarch. This gave him a clearer understanding of the perilous state of French finances. Acting as a moderate reformer, he tried unsuccessfully to limit expenditures by curbing the powers of individual government ministers. Vergennes died in Paris on February 13, 1787. See also American Revolutionary War; Franco-American Alliance. FURTHER READING: Murphy, Orville T. Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes: French Diplomacy in the Age of Revolution: 1719 –1787. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982; Price, Munro. Preserving the Monarchy: The Comte de Vergennes, 1774 –1787. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. NEIL M. HEYMAN

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Vergniaud, Pierre-Victurnien (1753 –1793) One of the greatest orators of the French Revolution, Pierre-Victurnien Vergniaud, the son of a purveyor to the Limoges garrison who was ruined by exorbitant grain prices, was born in Limoges. Initially educated at home by a Jesuit, the abbé Roby, he received a scholarship from Turgot, a family friend, to attend the Collège de PlessisSorbonne in Paris to study philosophy. This was followed up with theological studies at the Sorbonne, which he gave up for the law. After studying law in Bordeaux, Vergniaud was received at the bar in 1781, the same year as Maximilien Robespierre. His legal career, during which he pleaded cases eloquently and dramatically, was successful. He became one of the leading lawyers of the Bordeaux Parlement. Vergniaud’s interest in literature—he wrote light verse—was shared by his future colleague Gensonné. Vergniaud, Gensonné, and other future Girondin deputies were members of a Bordeaux literary society, the Musée, which Vergniaud described as a sort of academy. Although the Musée had as its motto Liberté et Egalité, there was nothing revolutionary about this very respectable Old Regime Club of letters. Its members were drawn from the elite of this prosperous city: they included wealthy businessmen, barristers, and judicial officers. It was typical of the growing number of Enlightenment-style groups throughout France, and in the spirit of Enlightened toleration, both Jews and Protestants were admitted.

Pierre-Victurnien Vergniaud. Courtesy of Alexander Mikaberidze.

Vergniaud, Pierre-Victurnien

Vergniaud greeted the Revolution with enthusiasm. He was a captain of the local National Guard regiment, and in 1790, Vergniaud became president of the electoral assembly of the district of Bordeaux and was later elected to the general council of the department. He assisted in the foundation of the Bordeaux Jacobin Club with Marguerite Guadet and Gensonné in 1790. Vergniaud made an eloquent speech on the death of the comte de Mirabeau at the Jacobins Club of Bordeaux. Before Varennes, he drafted several circular letters sent to municipalities throughout France. After Varennes, on July 9, 1791, he sent a letter to the Constituent Assembly advocating the trial of Louis XVI before the high court in Paris. Vergniaud was elected to the Legislative Assembly on August 31, 1791, the fourth deputy out of 12, with Guadet, Gensonné, and Grangeneuve. He sat on the left. He delivered his first speech on October 25 on the subject of the émigrés. It was a rhetorical masterpiece. French historian Aulard has distinguished two periods in the eloquence of Vergiaud: before and after August 10. Before August 10, he spoke against the intrigues of the court, while after August 10, he railed against popular excesses. Vergniaud advocated vigorous measures against the refractory priests. He supported Jean-Pierre Brissot’s demand for war against Austria. He was elected president of the Assembly on October 30. The themes of Vergniaud’s state of the nation speech at the Assembly on July 3, 1791—the king’s continual attempt to undermine the legislature’s authority and Vergniaud’s suspicion of Louis’ connections with the counterrevolutionaries—were repeated by other Jacobin members. Reflecting the serious nature of the threats against the safety of the nation, he concluded his speech with the expression “The fatherland is in danger” (La patrie en danger), and he demanded the Assembly officially proclaim it. This was one of the greatest speeches of his career. Opposed to the preparations for the insurrection of August 10, Vergniaud became involved in the negotiations with the king, drafting letters to Boze, a court painter who acted as an intermediary between the Bordeaux deputies and Louis XVI. The second letter addressed to the king by the Bordeaux deputies was written by Vergniaud and dated July 29. In it, he warned Louis of the coming insurrection. Vergniaud advised the king that in light of the present circumstances, the only way to keep his throne would be to popularize the ministry. He suggested that the king could appoint to his council four members of the Constituent Assembly. During the insurrection of August 10, he sat in the president’s chair—Merlet, the president, was absent—when Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette sought refuge in the Assembly. Vergniaud proposed the suspension of the king and the summoning of a National Convention in the midst of the insurrection. After the September Massacres, he was openly opposed to the Paris Commune of August 10. The members of this Paris Commune included many future Paris deputies and future enemies of Vergniaud. Elected to the National Convention from the department of the Gironde, Vergniaud sat on the right. He was a leading figure in the Convention until June 2, 1792, when he was proscribed. Until March 10, when there was an attempted coup against the Convention, he was one of the more conciliatory deputies, attempting to bring the two warring factions, the Girondins and the Mountain, together. He was president of the Convention on January 10–24, 1793, when deputies were voting on the fate of Louis XVI. During the king’s trial, Vergniaud voted for the referendum, but for the

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death sentence without reprieve. This contrasts with the position taken by many of his Girondin colleagues. He was absent for the vote on Jean-Paul Marat’s impeachment on April 14. Once again, Vergniaud was out of step with his Girondin colleagues. Marguerite Guadet had introduced the motion to impeach Marat. Vergniaud was proscribed on June 2, 1793, during the popular uprising that purged the Convention of a number of deputies. He was placed under house arrest along with 28 other Girondin leaders. Again, unlike many of his colleagues, Vergniaud made no attempt to flee Paris. On July 26, he was sent to La Force prison in Paris. Tried and condemned by the revolutionary tribunal, Vergniaud was executed on October 31, 1793. See also Jacobins; Parlements; Reign of Terror. FURTHER READING: Aulard, François-Alphonse. Les grands orateurs de la Révolution française, Mirabeau—Vergniaud—Danton—Robespierre. Paris: F. Rieder et cie, 1914; Bowers, Claude G. Pierre Vergniaud: Voice of the French Revolution. New York: Macmillan, 1950; Bredin, Jean-Denis. “Vergniaud ou le genie de la parole.” In La Gironde et les Girondins, ed. François Furet and Mona Ozouf. Paris: Editions Payot, 1991; Forrest, Alan. Society and Politics in Revolutionary Bordeaux. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. LEIGH WHALEY

Vienna, Congress of (1814 –1815) A major international conference held in the Habsburg capital from September 1814 to June 1815, the Congress of Vienna convened to consider the multifarious problems connected with the end of the Napoleonic Wars, particularly the political reconstruction of Europe. The principal delegates included Count Metternich from Austria; Tsar Alexander I of Russia and several advisors; Lord Castlereagh and the Duke of Wellington for Britain; King Frederick William III and Count Hardenberg for Prussia; and Talleyrand for France. Most of the important decisions were reached by the four major victorious powers, though Talleyrand managed to have France included in much of the process, not least by playing one side against the other and sowing the seeds of suspicion between states with rival claims. Naturally, practically every European state, large and small, sent a representative to plead its case respecting its borders, political claims, and commercial rights. In the settlement reached on June 9, 1815, the Congress declared the creation of two new countries: the Kingdom of the Netherlands, to include Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and a German Confederation, to comprise 39 states with tenuous links to one another and no central governing body. It also created the kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, to be ruled by the Austrian emperor. Poland was restored, though in a reduced form of its eighteenth-century self, and would be ruled by Russia. The old dynasties of a number of states were restored: Spain, Naples, Piedmont, Tuscany, and Modena. The Swiss Confederation was reestablished, and its permanent neutrality guaranteed. Austria’s domains increased as a result of the annexation of Lombardy-Venetia, Dalmatia, Carniola, Salzburg, and Galicia. Prussia annexed Posen, Danzig, much of the former Kingdom of Saxony, large parts of former Westphalia, and Sweden’s possessions in Pomerania. Sweden received Norway. Britain retained Malta, occupied since 1800; the island of Heligoland in the North Sea; Cape Colony in southern Africa; Ceylon; Tobago; St. Lucia; and Mauritius. The Ionian Islands were granted to Britain as a protectorate, which

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remained in effect for nearly 50 years. The Congress also guaranteed the free navigation of the Rhine and the Meuse; condemned the slave trade; extended the civil rights of Jews, particularly in Germany; and established the precedent of international conferences as a diplomatic device in seeking redress and settling disputes between nations. FURTHER READING: Alsop, Susan. The Congress Dances. New York: Harper and Row, 1984; Chapman, Tim. The Congress of Vienna: Origins, Process and Results. London: Routledge, 1998; Dallas, Gregor. The Final Act: The Roads to Waterloo. New York: Holt, 1997; Ferrero, Guglielmo. The Reconstruction of Europe: Talleyrand and the Congress of Vienna, 1814 –1815. New York: W. W. Norton, 1963; Kissinger, Henry A. A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812 – 22. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2000; Nicolson, Harold. The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity: 1812 –1822. Gloucester, MA: Smith, 1973; Schroeder, P. W. The Transformation of European Politics, 1763 –1848. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996; Webster, Charles. The Congress of Vienna, 1814 –1815. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1969. GREGORY FREMONT-BARNES

Virginia Virginia was the leading state during the American Revolution and provided much of the military and political leadership for both the independence movement and the formation of the new nation. George Washington led the Patriot forces during the American Revolutionary War, while Thomas Jefferson was the main author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and James Madison was principally responsible for the United States Constitution (1789). All three Virginians also served two terms as president of the United States. In what came to be known as the Virginia Dynasty, four of the first five American presidents were from Virginia. Early History In the 1580s, a failed attempt was made to create an English colony on the midAtlantic seaboard. The territory was named Virginia in honor of Elizabeth I (popularly known as the Virgin Queen). In 1607, the first permanent English colony was established at Jamestown, Virginia, on Chesapeake Bay, by a joint-stock group, the Virginia Company. The original settlers sought gold and silver but instead found other resources, including tobacco and cotton. By 1619, Virginia exported more than 50,000 pounds of tobacco per year. The rise of tobacco and cotton led to the development of a slave economy; in the 1620s, about 1,000 slaves were imported annually. By the 1680s, slavery was common and the colony’s economy was based on slavery and indentured servitude. Through the seventeenth century, more than threequarters of the colonists in Virginia either were currently or had been in some form of servitude. The increasing reliance on slave labor during the eighteenth century led to a dramatic rise in the nonwhite population. By the 1770s, approximately 40 percent of Virginians were black. Nonetheless, like other colonies, Virginia offered a degree of social mobility unmatched in Europe. In 1619, the colonists created a legislature, the House of Burgesses. Although the franchise remained limited throughout the colonial period, there emerged a strong tradition of democracy and representative government in the colony. Virginia remained loyal to the monarchy during the English Civil War and was granted dominion status by Charles II (1630 –1685). Virginia was subsequently known as

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the Old Dominion. In 1698, the capital of Virginia was moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg. The colony grew rich on tobacco, and a planter elite emerged. The wealthy had close ties to the mother country and many maintained summer homes in London and educated their children in Britain. The colony became the largest and wealthiest of the 13 British colonies in North America. Although the elites maintained a strong affinity for Britain, the colonial wars of the mid-eighteenth century undermined confidence in London’s administration. During the French and Indian War (1754 –1763), British officers ignored advice from, and looked down on, the colonial militias. This undermined confidence in the British and their ability to protect the colony. Following the war, London initiated a series of measures designed to increase revenues to pay off the debt accumulated during the war. Virginia and the Prelude to Revolution In 1765, Parliament passed the Stamp Act in an attempt to generate new revenues by requiring all legal documents and contracts and other printed documents such as newspapers and even playing cards to bear a stamp indicating that a fee had been paid. The measure was bitterly opposed by all classes in Virginia. There were boycotts of the stamps and even attacks on tax collectors. Nevertheless, Virginia did not send a delegation to the Stamp Act Congress called by Massachusetts in 1765. Instead, the Burgesses created a committee to draft a response directly from Virginia to Parliament. The committee included political conservatives such as Peyton Randolph, who chaired the group, and radicals such as Patrick Henry. The committee drafted a compromise series of resolutions, the Virginia Resolves, which helped unite the disparate classes. The repeal of the Stamp Act was followed by the imposition of the Townshend Acts (1767). The new import duties and enforcement measures were also met by opposition. Colonial resistance to the Townshend Acts led to the dissolution of the legislature in 1769. Tensions within the colony were briefly reduced following the appointment of John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, in 1770. Dunmore led the Virginia militia in a series of campaigns against Native Americans, which culminated in Lord Dunmore’s War (1774). The frontier of Virginia moved westward, and Dunmore expanded Virginia’s claims in the Ohio Valley. During the war, relations between Dunmore and the legislature deteriorated quickly. Many accused him of initiating the 1774 conflict as a means of depleting the militia because of his fears of an armed rebellion. Virginia sent a delegation to the First Continental Congress in 1774. Because of Virginia’s size and economic power, those in the other colonies who favored independence sought to bind the Old Dominion into the growing anti-British coalition. Randolph was elected president of the Congress (he resigned after a month to return to Virginia to serve as Speaker of the Burgesses). After the confrontations at Lexington and Concord in 1775, the Second Continental Congress was convened. Randolph was again elected president but died after a month in office. The new Congress included such luminaries as Virginians Jefferson and Richard Henry Lee. Washington was chosen to be the military commander of the newly formed Continental Army. Meanwhile, Lee offered a resolution on independence. Congress adopted Lee’s measure and charged Jefferson to draft a declaration of independence. The resultant Declaration of Independence (1776) declared the

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13 colonies an independent nation, presented a list of grievances against the Crown, and stated the political principles of the new country. The Revolutionary War Dunmore fled Williamsburg in 1775 to his personal estate. He attempted to quell the growing rebellion, but he only increased anti-British sentiment when he issued a proclamation in November 1775 that granted freedom to slaves if they joined the British Army. Several thousand slaves in Virginia joined the British forces. Dunmore’s tactic was later used by the British throughout the colonies. Dunmore’s forces were defeated at the Battle of Great Bridge on December 9, 1775. The following year he fled Virginia, which was governed throughout the remainder of the war by an elected governor and legislature. In 1776, the legislature declared its independence from Britain and proclaimed itself the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Congress debated a government for the new country and in 1781 approved the Articles of Confederation. The Articles created a weak central government in which the states retained a high degree of sovereignty and the majority of political power. Virginia emerged as the leader of the southern bloc of delegates in the Congress. The northern and southern delegations differed over a range of issues, including strategy, command of the army, and the structure of the government. Patrick Henry served as the first governor of Virginia from 1776 to 1779. On June 12, 1776, the legislature unanimously approved the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which contained 16 articles designed to protect individual freedom and liberty (including freedom of religion and the press, and the right to a jury trial). The declaration also endorsed the separation of powers as the basis for government. The document was written by George Mason. The Virginia declaration served as the model for the U.S. Bill of Rights and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Jefferson succeeded Henry as governor. In 1779, Jefferson crafted the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom. The document rejected the practice of state-sponsored religion (including the use of taxes to support the state religion). It also established the principles of freedom of religious practice. The bill was not adopted until 1786, but it was the inspiration for the religious freedom components of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In 1780, the capital of Virginia was moved to Richmond because of Williamsburg’s perceived vulnerability to British attack. The British launched an offensive in the South under Lord Cornwallis and invaded Virginia in 1781. The British forces became encircled on the peninsula at Yorktown and Cornwallis surrendered to Washington on October 19, 1781. The siege of Yorktown was the last major land action during the Revolutionary War. Virginia and the New Nation Following the peace treaty with Britain in 1783, disagreements over the scope and structure of the national government dominated American and Virginian politics. In an effort to keep the national government solvent, Virginia and other frontier states surrendered western territories and claims to the Congress so that the land could be sold. Lingering territorial disputes created tensions and almost led to conflict between several states. In June 1784, Virginia and Maryland appointed a joint body, the Mount Vernon Commission, to settle jurisdiction on the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. The two states were able to settle their

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differences and the Virginia government urged the creation of a stronger central government that could resolve boundary differences and other disputes among the states. Continuing financial difficulties and the inability of the government to forge consensus in other matters led Virginia to join four other states (Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania) at the Annapolis Convention in 1786. The delegations met to discuss reforms to the national government but concluded that more states needed to participate. They called for a follow-up conference the next year. The Constitutional Convention in 1787 included all the states except Rhode Island, and there was agreement on the need to create a new constitution. There were sharp differences among the delegates over whether states should have equal power in a national legislature or if power should be based on population size (thereby giving larger states more influence). A compromise was proposed by the Virginians (known as the Virginia Plan). The Virginia Plan, crafted by Madison and presented by Edmund Randolph, called for a bicameral legislature in which the lower house would be based on population and the upper house would consist of equal representation among the states. Madison’s vision also called for a separation of powers and the creation of three branches of government. The Virginia Plan formed the basis for a series of compromises that resulted in the Great Compromise and the U.S. Constitution. Adoption of the Constitution required ratification by three-quarters, or nine, of the states. In Virginia, a faction led by Jefferson opposed the Constitution because they believed it would grant too much authority to the central government. However, leading figures such as Washington and Madison supported the Constitution. Washington’s endorsement swayed many, and Virginia ratified the Constitution on June 26, 1788, on the condition that a bill of rights be added to the basic law in order to protect individual and states’ rights. In accordance with the new Constitution, Washington was elected the first president of the United States. He appointed Jefferson secretary of state. Washington left office after two terms (1789 –1797) and was succeeded by John Adams of Massachusetts. In the election of 1800, Jefferson was elected and appointed Madison as secretary of state. Madison succeeded Jefferson in 1809 and appointed Monroe secretary of state. Monroe also followed Madison as president but was the last chief executive in the Virginia Dynasty. See also Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms; Declaratory Act; Slavery and the Slave Trade. FURTHER READING: Billings, Warren. A Little Parliament: The Virginia General Assembly in the Seventeenth Century. Richmond: Library of Virginia Press, 2004; Bridenbaugh, Carl. Jamestown, 1544 –1699. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980; Geiter, Mary, and W. A. Speck. Colonial America: From Jamestown to Yorktown. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002; Hardwick, Kevin R., and Warren R. Hofstra. Virginia Reconsidered: New Histories of the Old Dominion. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003; Hatzenbuehler, Ronald L. “I Tremble for My Country”: Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Gentry. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2006; Hoobler, Dorothy, and Thomas Hoobler. Captain John Smith: Jamestown and the Birth of the American Dream. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2006; Philyaw, Leslie Scott. Virginia’s Western Visions: Political and Cultural Expansion on an Early American Frontier. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004; Sidbury, James. Ploughshares into Swords: Race, Rebellion, and Identity in Gabriel’s Virginia, 1730 –1810. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. TOM LANSFORD

Virginia Resolves

Virginia Resolves (1765) The Virginia Resolves were a series of five resolutions passed by the Virginia House of Burgesses (the colony’s elected legislative body) on May 29, 1765. The resolutions were passed by the colonial legislature in response to the Stamp Act, legislation by Parliament that imposed a direct tax on the American colonies for the first time. Parliament had passed the Stamp Act, which required a government stamp to be purchased from government agents for all official and many unofficial papers, including legal documents, newspapers, and playing cards, in March of 1765. The initial reaction among American colonial elites, despite previous protestations against direct taxation from London, was muted. However, in Williamsburg, Virginia, Patrick Henry, a 29-year-old lawyer and radical freshman legislator, wrote and introduced a set of resolutions at the end of the legislative session, when most of the older, more conservative Burgesses had gone home. The first four resolutions were not particularly controversial, as they were based on long-standing arguments of colonial politicians. They declared that the original colonial settlers, and their descendants, possessed all the rights of Englishmen; that the royal charters of the colony confirmed that; that the people of Virginia, as Englishmen, were entitled to be governed by their own legislature; and that the Virginia legislature had never forfeited their right to impose taxes on themselves. The fifth resolution was far more controversial; it stated that only the colony’s Assembly had the right to impose taxes on its own people, and that any attempt by any other body (i.e., Parliament) to do so was “illegal, unconstitutional, and unjust.” After fierce debate, the resolutions passed. The next day, Patrick Henry went home, and the day after that, the conservatives forced through a vote to reconsider the final resolution. There, the matter appeared to end. The local newspaper did not even see fit to publish an account of the resolutions, but a paper in Rhode Island did. In addition, the Rhode Island paper printed two additional resolves, which had not been passed by the Virginians and may not even have been debated: that the inhabitants of the colony were not bound to obey the tax law, and that anyone who supported it “shall be deemed an enemy of this his majesty’s colony.” The resolves, with the additions, were then reprinted throughout the colonies and provoked reactions, not among the political elites, but among what would now be called the middle and working classes. In Boston, mobs were organized to force the agent responsible for selling the stamps to resign; his office was destroyed, his house was pillaged, and he was threatened with worse. Similar mobs forced the resignation of most of the stamp distributors throughout the colonies. By the end of 1765, the Stamp Act was effectively dead, because British authorities could not find anyone willing to sell the stamps. The Virginia Resolves had three effects. First, they provided a cogent legal and philosophical basis for resistance to taxes imposed from London. This foundation was soon shortened to what would be called in modern parlance a bumper-sticker slogan: “No taxation without representation.” Second, the first protests—or at least what appeared to be the first protests—against the Stamp Act began in the largest and richest of the North American colonies, Virginia. The Stamp Act riots, and subsequent protests against later parliamentary laws, were not just the actions of a few radicals in Massachusetts but represented (arguably) all the colonies.

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Finally, and perhaps most important, the Virginia Resolves and the subsequent actions of the urban mobs set the pattern for the coming decade. The elites in all of the colonies became increasingly radicalized against the British government. This radicalization lent substance to the hitherto isolated radicals of Massachusetts. FURTHER READING: Anderson, Fred. Crucible of War. New York: Knopf, 2000; Mayer, Henry. A Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Revolution. New York: Grove Press, 1991. JOSEPH ADAMCZYK

Voltaire, François Marie (1694 –1778) Voltaire was the pseudonym of François Marie Arouet, French writer, playwright, poet, essayist, skeptic, and philosopher, and one of the leaders of the Enlightenment. Voltaire was also called the Dictator of Letters and used other less well-recognized pen names: Rabbi Akib; Pastor Bourn; Lord Bolingbroke; M. Mamaki, “interpreter of Oriental languages to the king of England”; Clocpitre; Cubstorf; and Jean Plokof. Voltaire was born in Paris and educated at the Jesuit College Louis-le-Grand. Voltaire was an eighteenth-century French Enlightenment philosophe (from the Old French for philosopher). The philosophes generally accepted deism, emphasized toleration, and believed human reason could and would discover truth through reason, logic, knowledge, and education. Social injustice and religious authority were based in ignorance, fanaticism, and superstition. The philosophes thus believed that humanity was capable of discovering, knowing, classifying, understanding, and applying natural or empirically based truths to the betterment of humanity. For the philosophes, the time for vain speculations had ended and the time for applying the ideas of philosophical inquiry and the emerging sciences to social issues had arrived. Voltaire’s age was a time of transition from enlightenment to the application of enlightened ideas, but it was still an age ruled—or at least strongly influenced by—ignorance, superstition, and powerful entities that tolerated only narrow deviations from the established religious and political beliefs and social structures. Because open criticism of the state and church power structures in France was illegal, many of the philosophes, Voltaire in particular, communicated their ideas sub-rosa (under the table) through plays, novels, histories, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other types of literature. The impact of the philosophes was felt throughout French and wider European society, affecting not only the church (Gallicanism and Conciliarism) and rulers such as Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine II of Russia, and Maria Theresa and Joseph II of Austria, but cultural and political movements, most notably the French Revolution. Voltaire advocated material prosperity for all, and though he became wealthy from his own investments and speculations, guided in part by Joseph Pâris Duverney, he was noted for his generosity. Voltaire advocated an enlightened monarchy advised by philosophes and rejected democracy in general—a French democracy in particular because he believed the masses to be ignorant and guided by superstition, and the aristocracy to be corrupt parasites who added little to nothing to the wealth and power of France. He advocated the abolition of torture and inappropriate punishments, free speech and the open exchange of ideas, and respect for human rights and freedoms, asserting that the personal liberties enjoyed by the British led to their leadership in the scientific revolution, a growing economy, and their military dominance over Louis XIV.

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Although Voltaire endorsed a simple deism in his first philosophical work, entitled For and Against (1722), the more atheistic philosophes such as Denis Diderot (1713 –1784), Claude-Adrien Helvétius (1715 –1771), and Baron d’Holbach (1723 –1789) openly criticized him for his temerity in rejecting the theistic God. However, he was convinced that the organized religious establishment, the French church, and Christianity served the positive purpose of being a counterbalance to the monarchy and providing some solace for the ignorant masses. Though he viewed Christianity and the God it professed as inconsistent with the moral and natural evil pervasive in the world and the French church as more interested in the maintenance of its power and wealth derived from the religious tax (tithe), his abhorrence of the church, what he called l’infâme (infamous thing), was based primarily on the church’s intolerance—views different from the accepted dogmas. Gallicanism’s rejection of papal infallibility and advocacy of the authority of the civil government over the temporal affairs of the church gave him hope. Voltaire’s tendency to mock the French aristocracy, specifically the French regent Louis Philippe, the duc d’Orléans, led to his imprisonment in the Bastille for eleven months (1717). His first play, the tragedy Œdipe, produced in Paris when he was only 24, was completed during that time, and it was then as well that he began his poem on Henry IV of France. This defense of religious toleration was later printed anonymously in Geneva under the title Poem of the League (1723). He was imprisoned again (1726) in the Bastille when he quarreled with a prominent French nobleman, the Chevalier de Rohan, but was released when he promised to leave France. Voltaire journeyed to England and remained there for more than two years, producing an enlarged Poem of the League published as The Henriad in France (1728), and writing an epic poem and a history of France’s civil wars. Here he also met John Locke, “wisest of human beings,” and became enamored with the simplicity and tolerance of Quakerism. Voltaire returned to Paris in 1729 and in 1731 published an historical narrative on the Swedish soldier-king Charles XII entitled The History of Charles XII, which compared the desolation wrought by Charles’s warring to the rise of Russian civilization under Peter the Great and concluded that the warring of great men may actually further the development of civilization. This idea was present as well in his effusive Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733, in English), published in French as Lettres philosophiques (Philosophical Letters, 1734), wherein he extolled the virtues of English personal liberty, especially religious tolerance, empirical philosophy and psychology, and natural laws derived by Newtonian science in contrast with René Descartes’ a priori speculations and Blaise Pascal’s future heavenly fulfillment of humanity’s potential. Voltaire left Paris when the English Letters were rightly perceived as criticizing the French political, intellectual, and ecclesiastical establishment; its publisher was imprisoned in the Bastille; the book was denounced, burned, and banned; and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Voltaire fled to the independent duchy of Lorraine and there resided with Gabrielle Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, in her Château de Cirey. The intense intimate and intellectual relationship that ensued provided an environment conducive to Voltaire’s writing of plays, novels, tales, satires, light verses, and his The Elements of Newton’s Philosophies (1736), which introduced at least in part Newtonian physics to France and the Continent. Voltaire slowly ingratiated himself to Versailles by traveling to Berlin in 1742 –1743 and convincing the king

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of Prussia to continue his alliance with the French during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740 –1748) and by developing friendships and investment partnerships with members and ministers of Louis XV’s (1710 –1774) court, as well as his mistress Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Madame de Pompadour. Though Voltaire’s play Mahomet was not allowed to be produced (1742) because it portrayed Islam’s founder, Mohammed, as an imposter and was thereby considered blasphemous, his tragedy of the mythical Greek queen Mérope was publicly acclaimed (1743). That same year Voltaire sought membership in the French Academy on the death of Cardinal Fleury, but he was denied this position, held by a clergyman, in part due to his vilification of the French church, the Vatican, and Christianity in general. At 50 years of age Voltaire seemed more interested in position and his legacy than his earlier condemnation of the l’infâme, which he then sought to mollify. He slavishly complimented the cardinals and received permission to dedicate the banned Mahomet to Pope Benedict XIV (1740 –1758). After the publication of his poem (Poème de Fontenoy, 1745) positively describing the French victory over the British at Fontenoy during the War of the Austrian Succession, Voltaire was appointed the king’s historiographer, gentleman of the king’s chamber, and academician. In 1746, with the support of Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour, and Benedict XIV, Voltaire added membership in the French Academy to his membership in Britain’s Royal Society and Prussia’s Hall of Fame. Voltaire accepted a standing invitation from Frederick II of Prussia to become a member of his court at Potsdam after the death of Madame du Châtelet (1749). While in residence there he wrote the Epitome of the Age of Louis XIV, a historical study of the period of Louis XIV (1638 –1715), but the king soon tired of Voltaire’s wit, satire, disputations, and interference in matters of the court. Voltaire left Prussia (1753) and moved to a Swiss château known as Les Délices just outside Geneva and acquired a house near Lausanne as well. Voltaire’s sojourn in Geneva was stormy at best. Fellow exiled Frenchman and political and social philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau resided three miles away, and though they agreed on much of what they perceived to be wrong in politics, society, and the church, they did not develop a friendship. Voltaire hosted frequent private theatrical performances at Les Délices, much to the consternation of Calvinist Genevese authorities. Rousseau allied himself with the clergy of Geneva against Voltaire, who responded by beginning a long public and private disputation with Rousseau. Voltaire further enraged Genevese Calvinist clergy when he encouraged Jean d’Alembert (1717 –1783) to write an article (“Genêve”) falsely stating that the Genevese clergy had abandoned organized religion for d’Alembert and Diderot’s Encyclopédie (1751–1765). When an earthquake destroyed Lisbon on November 1, 1755, and killed 30,000 people, most of whom died while celebrating All Saints Day in the cathedrals and churches, Voltaire was moved to publicly speculate on the “problem of evil”: how an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving God could allow such natural evil to exist. He asserted that the response of the pope and the Calvinist clergy was the simple acceptance of the tragedy, the purpose of which could be known only by God, and that humanity should accept that reality. He soon published a poem entitled The Disaster of Lisbon (1756) and another entitled Natural Law, the latter seeking and failing to comprehend some all-encompassing divine and eternal plan.

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He then published an Essay on General History and on the Customs and the Character of Nations (1756) that he had begun in 1740. This work studied the customs and morals of the history of the entire world, East and West, from the end of the Roman Empire until his own age and, using some of the same themes developed in his The History of Charles XII, was intended to establish that humanity was moving from barbarism to civilization. Voltaire asserted in this work a belief in a simple deistic God and railed against supernaturalism, superstition, fanaticism, and organized religion as impediments to the growth and freedom of humanity. Voltaire’s deism asserted that the order of the universe indicated a designer, but the power, knowledge, and morality or immorality of the designer could not be deduced. Voltaire never asserted that humanity would or even could achieve perfection; rather he asserted that humanity would not be as bad as it was if humanity embraced knowledge, freedom, and rational thought and correlatively rejected supernaturalism, superstition, fanaticism, and organized religion. Voltaire also asserted that just as there are discoverable natural laws, such as Newton’s law of gravity, that govern the universe, true ethics and justice are also governed by discoverable natural laws. Voltaire acquired his estate, Ferney, in France, in 1758. The proximity of the estate to Geneva gave him easy access to both Switzerland and France, allowing him to flee from one country to the other depending on which authorities he had least offended at that point in time. He remained at his château in Ferney for the last 20 years of his life and was locally known as the patriarch of Ferney because of his management of his estate and the kind treatment of his tenants and employees. He imported silkworms and manufactured silk, farmed, and developed a large watch factory as well as other industries. He paid his employees well and provided refuge for those who were persecuted for political or religious reasons. He welcomed many visitors, maintained a voluminous and varied correspondence, campaigned against religious and political persecution, and sought an end to all torture. Specifically, he protested the execution of a Toulouse Huguenot named Jean Calas who was accused of murdering his eldest son in order to prevent his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church. Although Calas repeatedly affirmed his innocence, he was convicted on the basis of a confession obtained under torture on the wheel (March 10, 1762). Though it was too late for Voltaire to stop the execution, he was able to establish Calas’s innocence. He was unable, however, to vindicate the 19-year-old Chevalier de La Barre after her beheading for insulting a religious procession and damaging a crucifix ( July 1, 1766). Voltaire continued to write while at Ferney. He contributed articles to d’Alembert and Diderot’s Encyclopédie and penned perhaps his most studied work, the satirical and philosophical fantasy Candide (1759). Candide is the story of a youth burdened with the moral and natural evil that abounds in the world, evil created and allowed both by a supposedly good, loving, and all-powerful God and the church that supposedly represented that God. Candide is a satirical renunciation of the philosophical optimism of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 –1716), for Candide is the youthful disciple of the fictional Doctor Pangloss, who is himself a follower of Leibniz. Voltaire mocks the resolution of the “problem of evil” offered by the Catholic Church in particular and Christianity in general. Specifically, he has Doctor Pangloss parrot the words Voltaire had, on an earlier occasion, satirically attributed to Pope Benedict XIV, his French Academy benefactor, on the destruction of Lisbon, asserting that this is “the best of all possible worlds.”

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Voltaire published his Philosophical Dictionary in 1764 and enlarged it after 1770 with Questions on the Encyclopedia. He asserted in this work that the ideal religion is one that emphasizes morality over dogma. Though the articles contained in his Dictionary mainly address issues concerning the Bible and the Roman Catholic Church, he attacks some of his personal enemies and France’s political establishment and institutions as well. Voltaire also generated a number of historical works while at Ferney: History of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great (vol. 1, 1759; vol. 2, 1763), The Philosophy of History (1765), and Epitome of the Age of Louis XV (1768). Voltaire triumphantly returned to Paris (1778) to attend the first performance of his tragedy Irène after many years in the safety of Ferney. The play was well received, but he died in Paris a short time later. Voltaire had desired a Christian burial and, seeking to obtain permission from the church for such, had signed a partial retraction on those of his writings deemed derogatory of the Catholic Church, the Pope, and Catholic beliefs. The church determined that the renunciation was inadequate, and Voltaire refused to sign a broader retraction. He was therefore secretly buried without church permission at an abbey in Champagne. His remains were brought back to Paris in 1791 and buried in the Panthéon opposite Rousseau’s remains. The tombs of both Voltaire and Rousseau were broken open in 1814 by a group of ultras (right-wing religious zealots) after the Bourbon restoration. Voltaire’s remains were dumped into a garbage pit outside the city and covered with quicklime, which reduced the body to ash. It was 50 years before the loss of the remains was discovered, however; his heart and brain had been removed from his body prior to the theft. His brain was lost, but his heart remains in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. FURTHER READING: Besterman, Theodore. Voltaire. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976; Davidson, Ian. Voltaire in Exile: The Last Years, 1753 –1778. New York: Grove Press, 2006; Knapp, Bettina Liebowitz. Voltaire Revisited. New York: Twayne, 2000; Leigh, John. Voltaire: A Sense of History. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2004; Pearson, Roger. Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2005. RICHARD M. EDWARDS

W Washington, George (1732 –1799) Commander of the Continental Army that helped achieve independence for the United States from Britain, first president of the United States of America, staunch republican, and father of the country , George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, at Pope’s Creek Plantation, Westmoreland County , near present-day Colonial Beach, Virginia. His father , Augustine Washington, was a wealthy slaveholder and landowner who had two surviving children, Lawrence and Augustine, from his first marriage to Jane Butler. Washington’s mother , with whom Augustine had five children, George being the eldest son, was Mary Ball Washington of Lancaster , Virginia. Four years after the senior Washington’s death on April 23, 1743, George moved to Mount Vernon to live with his half-brother Lawrence, who became a surrogate father. This was due to the acrimonious relationship he had with his mother. He thrived at Mount Vernon; this move provided an opportunity to enter into Virginia society. Unlike his half-brothers, George received an inexact and unfocused education. He had been tutored by a convict-slave in reading, writing, and mathematics until his father died. However , he was determined to educate himself further and learned the necessary social graces for acceptance into Virginian society by repeatedly writing out the Jesuits’ 110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. He excelled at mathematics and in 1748 trained as a surveyor. Washington surveyed northern Virginia for Lawrence’s father-in-law, Lord Fairfax, who owned lands in the Shenandoah Valley. Washington also helped survey and plan the town of presentday Alexandria, Virginia, and in 1749 was appointed surveyor for Culpeper County. He saved his wages, which allowed him to buy land in western Virginia. Lawrence and Washington traveled to Barbados, hoping to cure the former’s tuberculosis. Washington contracted smallpox while there. Lawrence died in 1752 shortly after returning to Virginia. Washington administered Mount Vernon as a lessee until Lawrence’s wife died in 1761, when he inherited the estate. Managing the estate became his forte; he became a remarkable administrator. The growing enmity between the French and the British was exacerbated by the issue of who controlled the Ohio Valley , which the British claimed. This conflict

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General George Washington on horseback during the battle of Princeton, New Jersey , in 1777. Library of Congress.

eventually evolved into the French and Indian War , which initiated the more global Seven Years’ War of 1756 –1763. Washington became involved in politics and in military affairs when he was made an adjutant. In April 1752, Washington was ordered to establish a military post at the forks of the Ohio River (present-day Pittsburgh) but soon realized the French were already established in the vicinity. Washington entrenched himself at a quickly constructed but inadequate fortification at Great Meadows that he named Fort Necessity. During a preemptive strike on May 28, 1754, he ambushed the French, most of whom were still sleeping. Their commander , Joseph Coulon de Villiers, sieur de Jumonville, was killed together with 10 French soldiers. Washington left the bodies to nature, allowing animals to devour the corpses. On July 3, 1753, the French retaliated and forced Washington’s surrender. His surrender paper indicated that he had assassinated Jumonville. In October 1753 Washington was sent to warn the French commander at Fort le Boeuf about ceasing their penetration of British claimed territory. His handling of the task earned him great respect. Washington resigned at the end of 1754, not only due to his defeat by the French, but also because of his belief that the British discriminated against colonial officers at various levels. He was ambitious and wished to become a British officer but was repeatedly refused a commission by British Army officials. Not wishing to serve with a reduced rank, which was the condition imposed on him by the British, Washington served with distinction as an aide-de-camp to General Edward Braddock. At the Battle of the Monongahela on July 9, 1755, the 1,500 British and colonial American troops were ambushed and defeated by 30 French soldiers and 450 Indians. Washington demonstrated his courage when several horses were shot from under him,

Washington, George

his numerous layers of clothing saved him from four bullets, and he saved soldiers while Braddock and many of his British troops were killed. Washington resigned once again, in 1758, and devoted his time to Mount Vernon and his business ventures. He married the wealthy widow of Colonel Daniel Parke Custis, 28-year-old Martha Dandridge Custis, on January 6, 1759. She already had two children, John Parke Custis and Martha Parke Custis, whom he raised as his own. The couple was happy despite the fact that Washington did not sire children of his own. Washington administered the Custis estate on behalf of the children. He also claimed land in West Virginia as bounty for his service in the French and Indian War. Mount Vernon by this time had grown to 6,500 acres with 100 slaves. Washington believed British colonial policies were oppressive; this became evident during his service in the Virginia House of Burgesses in Williamsburg from 1759 to 1775. Washington strongly resented the Proclamation of 1763 because it restricted western expansion and controlled Native American relations with colonials. He was enraged by the Townshend Acts passed by Parliament. Washington was instrumental in leading the boycott of British goods in 1764 as a result of the Sugar Act. Even though the Townshend Acts were repealed in 1770, tea was taxed, resulting in the Boston Tea Party in 1773. In retaliation the British passed punitive legislation. The Coercive Acts (known in America as the Intolerable Acts) further enraged the Americans. Washington and his fellow plantation owners also strongly disliked their continual indebtedness to London-based agents. On August 5, 1774, Washington was elected by the Virginia Convention to attend the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. On March 25, 1775, he was elected to represent Virginia at the Second Continental Congress, where he served on three committees. Ambitious and hoping for a military command, Washington wore his red-and-white uniform. He was voted commander-in-chief of the continental forces in a unanimous decision in June 1775. However , being a good administrator does not equate to being an effective military leader. Washington faced numerous difficulties: his lack of military leadership experience, the shortage of adequately trained men, and the paucity of adequate supplies proved problematic. The one-year enlistment period meant many men returned home, leaving Washington with a smaller army than he required. The inability of the Continental Congress to meet his frequent financial requests also frustrated his ability to be an effective leader. When the American Revolution broke out, Washington only had 14,000 troops. Fighting between British and rebel troops broke out in Massachusetts when in July 1775 Washington’s troops surrounded the British in Boston. He occupied Dorchester Heights for eight months and forced the British to evacuate on March 17, 1776. The Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, stirred great loyalty within the new country. Washington firmly believed in its republican tenets and illustrated by his personal involvement in the war that the Patriot cause was a worthy endeavor. He firmly believed Parliament was tyrannical, acting against the interests of the colonial population. After his victory in Boston, Washington immediately decided to defend New York City against General Sir William Howe’s superior land and sea forces. However , Washington’s inexperience became evident when he occupied an untenable position and lost the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, and had to retreat

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into Pennsylvania. By the end of the year , the troops’ enlistment period was nearly over and he was in desperate straits. Washington was not a particularly brilliant military leader. He rarely formulated battle plans, he was overly cautious, and he often failed to use valuable military opportunities to defeat the enemy. He generally only fought when he knew his enemy was at a disadvantage and he knew he could win. Nevertheless, Washington crossed the frozen Delaware River and staged a strategically brilliant attack against the Hessians and captured Trenton, New Jersey , on December 25, 1776. He also defeated the British at Princeton, New Jersey , on January 23 of the following year. Although he had won three major battles, on September 9, 1777, Washington lost the Battle of Brandywine and on October 2 he was defeated at the Battle of Germantown—though this loss can be attributed more to bad luck than to faulty military strategy. Washington’s poorly equipped, badly fed, and inadequately dressed troops spent a long cold winter at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. His 12,000 men built shelters that barely protected them from the cold, while unhygienic conditions caused rampant disease, by which Washington lost 2,500 men to typhus, dysentery , and pneumonia. For its part, the Continental Congress was unable to offer financial relief. But the months at Valley Forge would become a time of transformation with the arrival of a Prussian military instructor , Baron Friedrich von Steuben. He trained the troops and taught them to march in unison, to lock muskets, and to execute a bayonet charge. The Continental Army paraded on May 6, 1778, and proved that it was now a reliable fighting machine. Other foreigner adventurers joined Washington’s staff, including Thaddeus Kosciuszko, a Pole serving as an adjutant, and the Marquis de Lafayette, an officer in the French army. Financial and military support from France eventually turned the tide of the conflict in favor of the Americans. In the course of the Conway Cabal, some members of the Continental Congress intrigued against Washington’s military leadership and handling of the war by calling him a weak general, and seeking his replacement. However , the plan lacked adequate support, while Washington had countless supporters. Moreover , he was liked by his troops for his strong character and his integrity. The charges were reviewed and dismissed by the Congress on January 19, 1778. The war reached a stalemate from 1778 until 1781 when French aid arrived. Washington spent his time planning strategy with the comte de Rochambeau about the direction of the war and coordinating allied operations in a new theater of operations: the South. A brilliantly coordinated sea and land operation against Lord Cornwallis led to the British surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, leaving Howe penned up in New York with the last substantial British force left in the American colonies. Washington and his troops eventually marched into New York City on November 28, 1783, after the British evacuated the place. America had won its war of independence. The news sent shockwaves around the world, and by the terms of the Treaty of Paris, Britain recognized the independence of the United States. Washington returned to Mount Vernon after the war. He restored the badly neglected estate by adding new buildings and adopting various new agricultural practices and welcomed hundreds of visitors. He traveled to the Ohio Valley in 1784 along with his family , visited friends and relatives, and became involved in commercial projects and western development.

Washington, George

Washington had promoted a confederation of states for a number of years. The Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia in 1787 and the United States Constitution was drafted. Washington was unanimously elected as president. He accepted the position with some reluctance, as he had planned to stay retired at Mount Vernon. His inauguration took place on April 30, 1789, in New York City. Washington declined the presidential salary of $25,000. His belief that a practical executive structure would best serve the presidency consumed his time. He toured the states to gauge opinion about major issues to try to prevent divisive issues from developing. Washington effectively used his estimable administrative skills to create a smooth-running presidency. During Washington’s first term as president he was also occupied with the serious ideological conflict between the secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, who advocated the right of individual states, and the secretary of the treasury , Alexander Hamilton, who preferred a strong central government. Never a member of any political party , Washington attempted to mediate between the two, though he himself appeared to favor Hamilton’s Federalist ideas. He agreed with Hamilton that the federal government should assume the debts of the states and that a national bank should be established, and he agreed with the introduction of an excise tax. Washington also advocated a neutral foreign policy , an approach also opposed by Jefferson, whose Democratic-Republican supporters often attacked his policies. Washington also faced problems during his second term, which began in 1792. American neutrality was a huge issue during the French Revolutionary Wars. The issue upset the pro-French Jeffersonians. Washington could not excuse the cruelty of the French Revolution and was upset with the cunning tactics of the French minister Edmond-Charles Genet, who interfered with American politics. Washington wanted peace with Britain. He accepted the Jay Treaty in 1794, which resolved lingering differences between the two countries. Trade relations were normalized and the political boundaries were adjusted. Some pre-revolutionary debts were settled, and the British opened American trade to the West Indies. As a result, the United States and Britain remained at peace for another 10 years. Washington had agreed with Hamilton to impose an excise tax on distilled beverages and liquor. This led to a popular uprising in 1794 known as the Whiskey Rebellion. Washington made the uprising a test for federal authority , invoked the Militia Act of 1792, and summoned 12,000 men under his personal command. The uprising was easily suppressed. The Jefferson Democratic-Republicans were especially vituperative against Washington’s handling of the uprising. Washington left office in March 1797 after refusing a third term as president. He had accomplished a number of major achievements: he had placed the office of the president on a sound republican footing; American finances were firmly established; Thomas Pinckney’s Treaty , or the Treaty of San Lorenzo, with Spain (October 27, 1795) had expanded U.S. territory; the Indian threat had been eliminated; and the two political parties had reached agreement on the functions and powers of the federal government. Washington’s Farewell Address, which cautioned against partisanship and foreign wars, has become renowned in American history. John Adams, his Federalist vice president, succeeded him. In 1798 when war with France loomed on the horizon, Washington agreed to accept what amounted to honorary command of the United States Army , but war

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with France never materialized. Adams awarded him the rank of lieutenant general, the highest military rank at the time. Washington was happy in retirement at Mount Vernon. He caught a serious cold that developed into acute laryngitis and pneumonia. His medical treatment likely caused his rapid decline, and he died at Mount Vernon on December 14, 1799. Washington was buried at the family cemetery on his estate. FURTHER READING: Achenbach, Joel. The Grand Idea: George Washington’s Potomac and the Race to the West. New York: Simon and Schuster , 2004; Grizzard, Frank E., Jr. George! A Guide to All Things Washington. Charlottesville: Mariner Publishing. 2005; Higginbotham, Don, ed. George Washington Reconsidered. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001; Hirschfeld, Fritz. George Washington and Slavery: A Documentary Portrayal. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997; Hogeland, William. The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty. New York: Scribner , 2006; Jackson, Donald, and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1976 –1979; Johnson, Paul. George Washington: The Founding Father. New York: Atlas Books/HarperCollins, 2005; McCullough, David. 1776: America and Britain at War. London: Penguin, 2006; McDonald, Forrest. The Presidency of George Washington. New York: W. W. Norton, 1974; Wiencek, Henry. An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. New York: Farrar , Straus and Giroux, 2003. ANNETTE RICHARDSON

Waterloo, Battle of (1815) Fought on June 18, 1815, between the Anglo-Allied army under Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington and elements of a Prussian army under Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher , and a French army under Napoleon, Waterloo was the last and most decisive battle of the Napoleonic Wars. Following his departure from exile on Elba in February 1815, Napoleon landed on the south coast of France, gathering supporters as he marched triumphantly on Paris, from which the recently restored Bourbon monarchy under Louis XVIII fled. The Allied powers, still meeting at the Congress of Vienna, where they were seeking to redraw the map of Europe after the turmoil of over two decades of war , immediately declared the French emperor an outlaw and mobilized their armies against him. The only forces close at hand were those in Belgium under Wellington and Blücher , who were confronted separately but simultaneously by the French on June 16 at Quatre Bras and Ligny , respectively. Despite taking a severe mauling, the Prussians withdrew east, Blücher promising the Duke his assistance at the next engagement. This came two days later , 12 miles south of Brussels on the Charleroi road, around a ridge called Mont St. Jean. There, Wellington, with 68,000 troops, established a defensive position after his retreat from Quatre Bras and was confronted on the eighteenth by Napoleon, who with his army of 72,000 men intended to push through to Brussels and seize Antwerp, thus cutting off Wellington’s line of communications and supply with Britain. As heavy rain from the previous night had softened the ground, Napoleon waited until approximately 11:30 a.m. to allow the surface to harden before opening his attack with a massive artillery bombardment. Moving aggressively against the château of Hougoumont, a fortified farmhouse and enclosure that protected the Anglo-Allied

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right, a French corps under Reille advanced as a feint to draw off Wellington’s reserves while the main French effort was to be concentrated against the enemy center with d’Erlon’s corps. In the event, however , the assault on Hougoumont unintentionally grew in intensity , attracting increasing numbers of French troops to this sector of the battlefield until the assault developed from a diversionary operation to a battle within a battle. Around 1:30 p.m., d’Erlon launched his attack, only to be repulsed around 2:00 by British cavalry , which, ploughing through his ranks in a frenzied charge, suffered severe casualties of its own when it failed to maintain its discipline and galloped deep into enemy lines. At about the same time, elements of the Prussian army , detached from Wavre about 12 miles to the east, began arriving on the battlefield to bolster the Anglo-Allied left and confront the French right flank. The Prussians’ arrival was unexpected by Napoleon, who after Ligny had specifically detached Marshal Grouchy to follow and contain Blücher’s battered army in the area around Wavre. Still, the emperor possessed the means to contain those Prussians who, in fulfilling their commander’s promise, were gradually reaching the battlefield to aid Wellington. Lobau’s corps was duly transferred from the French center to the village of Plancenoit, on the French right, to meet this new threat. It is indeed significant to note that by evening, something on the order of 50,000 Prussians would eventually reach the Waterloo battlefield, either to bolster Wellington’s left or to engage the French right. Apart from the fighting around Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, a fortified position in the Allied center , a lull in the fighting took place around 3:00 p.m., as both sides considered their next moves. A new and dramatic phase of the battle began around 4:00 p.m., when Marshal Ney , the de facto battlefield commander (as Napoleon was indisposed and headquartered beyond view of most of the action), erroneously interpreted Wellington’s retrograde movement for a general withdrawal. In fact, the Duke was merely redeploying his men behind the ridge for better protection against enemy artillery. Sensing the moment opportune for destroying his opponent while apparently in the process of retreat, Ney foolishly launched a series of cavalry attacks—eventually involving 10,000 troopers—against the enemy center without the benefit of artillery or infantry support. Stubbornly executed though these repeated charges proved, they completely failed to break the squares of British infantry that dotted the slopes and only brought a temporary silence to the Allied guns, whose crews took temporary refuge in the squares as French cavalry swirled ineffectively around them. By 6:00 p.m., the exhausted horsemen, unable to advance faster than a trot, withdrew—a spent force with nothing to show for themselves but massive losses in men and horses. During the course of the afternoon, as the Prussians continued to arrive at Plancenoit in increasing numbers, Napoleon dispatched the Young Guard to expel them. This expedient, however , proved merely a temporary measure, for with pressure mounting on his right, Napoleon knew that time was running short. Anxious, therefore, to break Wellington’s line before the Prussians turned the tide in the Allies’ favor , the emperor redoubled his efforts to seize La Haye Sainte, a fortified farm in the Allied left-center whose small garrison of Hanoverians had withstood determined attacks all day. With much of their position on fire, their numbers down to a handful of weary defenders, and their ammunition exhausted, the few remaining survivors of the garrison were finally expelled sometime between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m. This strategically important position, together with an ill-conceived counterattack

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ordered by the Prince of Orange, one of Wellington’s subordinates, left a large gap in the center of the Anglo-Allied line. Fortunately for Wellington, who quickly shifted units from other sectors to plug the gap, Napoleon failed to take advantage of circumstances by severing the enemy line altogether. Finally , between 7:00 and 7:30 p.m., with the Prussians in possession of Plancenoit and poised to roll up the French right, Napoleon launched elements of his Imperial Guard up the slopes of Mont St. Jean, straight into the Anglo-Allied center. After issuing an intense fusillade to the attackers’ front and flank, the British infantry repulsed this elite corps of the French army , whose retreat caused panic within the enemy ranks up and down the line, and Napoleon’s army rapidly disintegrated into a fleeing mass. Wellington signaled a general advance, and with Prussian cavalry pursuing the remnants of Napoleon’s shattered force through the night and over the following days, the campaign of the Hundred Days was effectively over well before the Allies reached Paris. Napoleon abdicated for a second time in scarcely more than a year , surrendered himself to British authorities, and was exiled on the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena, where he died in 1821. The significance of Waterloo cannot be overestimated, for it put an end to more than two decades of war in Europe and marked the last time France would seek continental hegemony. FURTHER READING: Adkin, Mark. 2001. The Waterloo Companion: The Complete Guide to History’s Most Famous Land Battle. London: Aurum, 2001; Barbero, Alessandro. The Definitive History of the Battle of Waterloo. London: Atlantic Books, 2005; Chandler , David G. Waterloo: The Hundred Days. New York: Macmillan, 1981; Fletcher , Ian. “A Desperate Business”: Wellington, the British Army and the Waterloo Campaign. Staplehurst, UK: Spellmount, 2003; Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. The Napoleonic Wars: The Fall of the French Empire, 1813 –1815. Oxford: Osprey , 2002; Hamilton-Williams, David. Waterloo: New Perspectives: The Great Battle Reappraised. London: Arms and Armour , 1993; Haythornthwaite, Philip. Waterloo Men: The Experience of Battle, 16 –18 June 1815. Ramsbury , UK: Crowood, 1999; Hibbert, Christopher. Waterloo: Napoleon’s Last Campaign. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Cooper Square, 2004; Hofschröer , Peter. 1815, the Waterloo Campaign: The German Victory. London: Greenhill, 1999; Hofschröer , Peter. 1815, the Waterloo Campaign: Wellington, His German Allies and the Battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras. London: Greenhill, 1997; Houssaye, Henry. Napoleon and the Campaign of 1815: Waterloo. Uckfield, UK: Naval and Military Press, 2005; Howarth, David. Waterloo: A Near Run Thing. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2003; Longford, Elizabeth. Wellington: The Years of the Sword. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973; Nofi, Albert. The Waterloo Campaign: June 1815. New York: Da Capo, 1998; Roberts, Andrew. Waterloo: Napoleon’s Last Gamble. London: HarperCollins, 2005; Schom, Alan. One Hundred Days: Napoleon’s Road to Waterloo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993; Weller , Jac. Wellington at Waterloo. London: Greenhill, 1992; Wooten, Geoffrey. Waterloo 1815. Oxford: Osprey , 1992. GREGORY FREMONT-BARNES

Watson-Wentworth, Charles See Rockingham, Watson-Wentworth, Charles, Marquess of

Whigs The term “Whig” arose in the late seventeenth century when it was applied, by their opponents, to those politicians who strove to prevent James, Duke of York, from

Whigs

succeeding his brother Charles II, because York was a Catholic with absolutist tendencies. The Whigs played a major role in achieving the Glorious Revolution of 1688 –1689 and the Hanoverian Succession of 1714. They went on to dominate every administration under the first two Hanoverian monarchs (1714 –1760). By 1760 almost every politician in Parliament would have described himself as a Whig. They accepted Britain’s mixed government and balanced constitution, the sovereignty of king-in-parliament, annual sessions of Parliament, the established churches in England and Scotland with toleration for Protestant Dissenters, the rule of law, quite extensive civil liberties for the British people, and a political system dominated by men of substantial property (especially the landed elite). Since so many politicians were Whigs and there was no organized alternative party in the state, Parliament in the 1760s was dominated by a number of competing Whig factions that sought power rather than pursuing distinctive programs. Ministries in the 1760s were usually coalitions of different Whig groupings. Ministerial instability in the 1760s, the growth of popular radicalism, and, in particular , the American crisis influenced one of the larger Whig factions, led by the Marquess of Rockingham and with Edmund Burke as its leading thinker , to become an organized party increasingly based on principle, not just the pursuit of power. Alarmed by George III’s use of Crown patronage, convinced that there was a conspiracy to keep them out of power , and deeply concerned at the treatment of Wilkite radicals at home and American Patriots in the colonies, the Rockingham Whigs claimed to be the only true Whigs and the only parliamentary group ready on principle to safeguard the constitution. The Rockingham Whigs, with Charles James Fox as a new recruit in the 1770s, blamed Frederick North, Lord North, for pursuing the authoritarian measures that provoked the rebellion in America and for badly mismanaging the American Revolutionary War. In power for a short period after the fall of Lord North in 1782, the Rockingham Whigs brought the war to an end, recognized American independence, and tried to reduce Crown patronage by passing several acts of Parliament. Rockingham’s death in the summer of 1782 weakened the party , and Shelburne and Fox disputed the succession to the leadership. When Fox allied with North in a surprising coalition and proposed the unpopular India Bill, the king turned in late 1783 to the younger William Pitt, who was only 24, as an alternative prime minister. Although in a minority at first, Pitt soon built up majority support when independent MPs (members of Parliament) and many voters in the 1784 general election recognized his qualities and saw Fox as too factious. The Foxites were to be in opposition for decades, but they strove to present themselves as a true party of principle. They developed a sophisticated party organization at the national and constituency levels to rally support, distribute propaganda, and increase unity. They believed that they were the true inheritors of Whig principles, and they were united in believing that the king had acted unconstitutionally in excluding Fox from power and bringing in Pitt. The wealthy Duke of Portland and other peers helped fund the party , while Fox, Edmund Burke, Sheridan, and other major Whig debaters led the most effective opposition to Pitt in the Commons. Unfortunately for them, the Foxite Whigs committed major blunders that played into the hands of Pitt. Fox was for a time a bosom companion of the Prince of Wales, encouraging his love of wine, women, and gambling. This greatly angered the king. Fox committed a worse misjudgment when, in 1788 –1789, George III was

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temporarily incapacitated by a mental disorder and Fox strove to pass a Regency Bill that would allow the Prince of Wales to assume the full powers of his father. Pitt was able to “un-Whig” Fox by accusing him of betraying his declared principles of wishing to curb royal power. When the king was restored to health, Fox found that he was even more unpopular with George III and had also lost much credit in Parliament and in the country. It was the French Revolution, however , that really destroyed the Foxite Whigs. When Burke came out as a fierce critic of the Revolution in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (November 1790), many of his Whig associates were surprised. Fox was a firm admirer of the French Revolution, believing that the French had overthrown royal absolutism to create a limited, constitutional monarchy of the kind established in Britain in 1688 –1689. When events in France became more anarchic and violent, Fox was ready to excuse the actions of the French revolutionaries by placing the blame on reactionary elements inside and outside France. When war broke out in Europe in 1792, Fox blamed Austria and Prussia, not France. When France declared war on Britain in early 1793, Fox blamed Pitt for supporting the reactionary enemies of France. When peace negotiations failed at various stages in the 1790s, Fox again blamed Pitt for being intransigent when France was the more unwilling to make peace. The French Revolution encouraged British radicals to press for extensive parliamentary reform in the early 1790s. Several of Fox’s younger colleagues in the Whig opposition believed that the granting of moderate reform was the best response to this radical challenge at home and abroad. Fox did not join their Association of the Friends of the People, but he did not oppose its creation either. Despite the political damage caused by his view of the French Revolution, Fox refused to change his mind and always regarded Pitt as the source of the country’s difficulties. The French Revolution abroad, growing radicalism throughout the British Isles, and a long, bitter war greatly alarmed conservative opinion in Britain. The clear majority in Parliament and among the propertied elite, and perhaps among the people at large, grew increasingly ready to defend the status quo and oppose the French and radical threat. Fox found that many of his Whig allies could not agree with his stance on the French Revolution. Burke had broken with Fox as early as May 1791. Several other prominent Whigs deserted Fox in 1792 –1793, before Portland led a large element of the opposition into a grand coalition with Pitt in July 1794. Fox was left with a tiny rump of Whigs in opposition, and he even stopped attending Parliament for a time in the late 1790s. Deserted by conservative opinion and unwilling to give a clear lead to the radicals, Fox and his allies were a weak and disunited party for well over a decade. Although they were part of a short-lived coalition in 1806 –1807, they could not rally much support in the country or in Parliament in support of their policies. Their one success was the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. The successors of Pitt dominated politics for nearly a quarter of a century after his death in 1806. The great war against France kept the Pittites in power even when Napoleon’s France was clearly in the ascendant because majority opinion in Britain continued to oppose French principles and the extension of French power. The Whig opposition very slowly began to recover , however. The blood and treasure spent in the long war and occasionally wasted on ill-judged expeditions helped them increase their support in Parliament and in the nation. Some major cases of political corruption and the abuse of executive

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power enabled them to land some effective blows against the government. When middle-class opinion began to rally again in support of moderate parliamentary reform in the early 1810s, some of the Whigs sought to build a loose alliance with these reformers. By 1815, the Whigs were again a significant opposition party , but they were still a long way from power. See also French Revolutionary Wars; Slavery and the Slave Trade; Tories. FURTHER READING: Elofson, W. M. The Rockingham Connection and the Second Founding of the Whig Party. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1996; Guttridge, George H. English Whiggism and the American Revolution. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963; Hill, B. W. British Parliamentary Parties 1742 –1832. London: Allen and Unwin, 1985; Mitchell, L. G. Charles James Fox and the Disintegration of the Whig Party 1782 –1794. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971; O’Gorman, Frank. The Rise of Party in England: The Rockingham Whigs 1760 –1782. London: Allen and Unwin, 1975; O’Gorman, Frank. The Whig Party and the French Revolution. London: Macmillan, 1967; Roberts, Michael. The Whig Party 1807 –12. New York: Macmillan, 1939; Smith, E. A. Whig Principles and Party Politics: Earl Fitzwilliam and the Whig Party 1748 –1833. Manchester , UK: University of Manchester Press, 1975. H. T. DICKINSON

White Terror (1815 –1816) After the fall of Napoleon in June 1815, King Louis XVIII returned to power and committed himself to a policy of reconciliation for France. But for more than a year , royalist elements punished former revolutionaries and supporters of the deposed emperor. These royalists who were “more royalist than the king” conducted an informal reign of terror , mainly in southern France. Once strongly established in the new French Parlement, they then unleashed their program of revenge on the entire country. In June and July 1815, royalist mobs murdered, imprisoned, or exiled their political opponents in locations like Toulouse and Marseilles. Efforts by the government in Paris to appoint moderate administrators had no immediate effect, and the king’s reactionary nephew, the duc d’Angoulême, placed his supporters in positions of power in much of the south. A notable example of events here was the murder of General Guillaume Brune, one of Napoleon’s subordinates, by a royalist mob in Avignon. By the fall of 1815, national elections had placed the extreme royalists in a position to control France’s new Chamber of Deputies. They set up special courts and widened the definition of sedition to trap as many foes as possible. They established lists of those they considered especially notorious subversives (e.g., those who rallied to Napoleon after his return from Elba). A prominent victim of such proscriptions was the great French military hero Marshal Michel Ney , who was executed for treason. The king and his ministers responded by trying to soften many such measures. By the time the Chamber was dissolved in September 1816, the White Terror had waned. FURTHER READING: Resnick, Daniel P. The White Terror and the Political Reaction after Waterloo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966; Roberts, James. The Counter-Revolution in France, 1787 –1830. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Macmillan, 1990. NEIL M. HEYMAN

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Wilberforce, William (1759 –1833) William Wilberforce, a lifelong conservative, worked to abolish slavery and the slave trade. Wilberforce was born on August 27, 1759, to wealthy parents. When his father died, William was placed under the care of his Methodist aunt and uncle. Before long he showed an interest in Methodism, though his High Church mother retrieved him when she discovered this problem. Wilberforce attended St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he was rather sickly , and did not enjoy his time there, though he met many people who would become lifelong friends, among them William Pitt the Younger. Wilberforce’s wealth allowed him to follow a political career. He became a member of Parliament for Hull from 1780 until 1824. His oratorical skills astounded everyone he met. He converted to Evangelical Christianity in 1784 and became interested in social reform. He was appalled at the working conditions faced by millions of his countrymen. He delivered his first speech against the slave trade on May 12, 1789, but when in 1791 Wilberforce introduced a bill to end the slave trade, it was soundly defeated. He reintroduced this bill every subsequent year. Wilberforce married on April 15, 1797. The couple had six children. In 1805 a law was passed that forbade British subjects from transporting slaves, but it was blocked by the wealthy and aristocratic House of Lords, whose business interests often depended on slavery. After Wilberforce wrote a public letter about the export of slaves, whose numbers exceeded 100,000 annually, more notice was taken of this inhumane policy. In 1807 the House of Commons and the House of Lords agreed that the slave trade was inhumane and unjust. The proposal succeeded and the slave trade was abolished throughout the British Empire. Nevertheless, in practice the trade did not end—even though British captains received hefty fines for transporting slaves. Wilberforce joined the campaign to abolish the slave trade entirely. The Slavery Abolition Act was passed in August 1833, just after Wilberforce’s death on July 29. FURTHER READING: Pollock, John. Wilberforce. London: Constable, 1977; Steele Everett, Betty. Freedom Fighter: The Story of William Wilberforce. Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade. 1994; Wilberforce, Wiliam. A Practical View of Christianity. Edited by Kevin C. Belamonte. Peabody , MA: Hendrickson, 1996. ANNETTE RICHARDSON

Wilkes, John (1725 –1797) The son of a prosperous malt distiller, Wilkes was born in London. Witty, intelligent, and eminently sociable, he was cultured and well educated yet a notorious rake and blasphemer. In 1747 he married an older, wealthy woman and had a beloved daughter Mary (Polly) but abandoned his wife in 1757. Thereafter he had several mistresses and at least two illegitimate children. He joined the Hell-Fire Club at Medmenham and wrote his Essay on Woman, an obscene parody of Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man. He entered the House of Commons as a member for Aylesbury in 1757. He was not a very successful MP because he was a poor public speaker and debater. He was to win much greater fame and notoriety with his pen. Having been a supporter of William Pitt the Elder, Earl of Chatham, during the latter’s great military successes, he became a fierce critic of the ministers who succeeded him in the early 1760s.

Wilkes, John

On June 5, 1762, Wilkes established his political weekly , the North Briton, and used it to attack the peace policies of the Bute and Grenville administrations. Issue number 45 of the North Briton finally overstepped the mark in attacking Grenville’s “odious measures,” and the government prosecuted him for seditious libel. The ministry blundered, however , by using a general warrant directed against the authors, printers, and publishers of the North Briton, without mentioning anyone by name. Wilkes challenged the legality of general warrants on principle and sought damages for false arrest. The ministry’s use of general warrants was ruled unlawful by the courts in 1764 and 1765, and their use against individuals was thereafter abandoned. Wilkes had won an important legal victory and became identified as a friend of liberty. The ministry used a copy of his Essay on Woman, however , to blacken his reputation in the House of Lords (where it was read out). The House of Commons condemned number 45 of the North Briton as a seditious libel and denied that parliamentary privilege could be used to prevent Wilkes from being prosecuted in the courts. Having been wounded in a duel with a fellow MP, Wilkes feared the vindictiveness of his opponents and fled to France in December 1763. In January 1764 he was expelled from the House of Commons for publishing the North Briton, and on February 21, he was condemned in the courts for publishing both the North Briton and the Essay on Woman. After failing to appear in court, he was finally outlawed on November 1, 1764. Wilkes enjoyed the life of a rake and an intellectual on the Continent but fell heavily in debt. He made short secret visits back home in a vain attempt to secure a pardon before returning permanently in February 1768 to participate in the general election. Heavily defeated in London, he stood as a candidate for Middlesex. Superb organization and much popular support saw him come top of the polls on March 20. He then surrendered to the courts. His outlawry was revoked on a technicality , but he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment on June 14 for his two seditious libels. On February 3, 1769, while he was in prison, the House of Commons expelled him and called a by-election in Middlesex. Wilkes was returned unopposed. Expelled again, he was again returned unopposed in March. At the third by-election on April 13, a government supporter , Henry Luttrell, stood against the absent Wilkes. Although Luttrell was heavily defeated, the House of Commons declared him the rightful MP (member of Parliament) for the county. This played into Wilkes’s hands. He was now able to wage a massive and impressive popular campaign as the champion of liberty. He used the Middlesex election case to argue that ministers were disenfranchising the voters and subverting the constitution. This campaign helped Wilkes to widen popular participation in politics and to build up a power base in London. A Society of Supporters of the Bill of Rights was established to promote the Middlesex election issue and to raise funds to pay Wilkes’s huge debts. Wilkite supporters began to capture control of the offices and the common council of the city of London. Wilkes himself became an alderman while still in prison, then later sheriff, lord mayor in 1774 (after prolonged opposition to him), and finally city chamberlain, in charge of London’s finances, in December 1779. In all these posts he took his duties very seriously , and he was very popular and effective. His greatest triumph was in the printers’ case, in 1771, when he used widespread support in the City to force Parliament to give up its efforts to prevent London newspapers from printing detailed reports of parliamentary debates.

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Wilkes was elected MP for Middlesex in the general election of 1774. Several of his supporters were successful in other seats, but Wilkes never led a radical party in the House of Commons. He was a more diligent MP than before and a much more frequent and effective speaker. He made many speeches in support of liberty. While never supporting American independence on principle, he urged conciliation, attacked government policies, agreed with the Americans that Parliament had no authority to tax them, and denounced the war against the rebellious colonies as bloody , expensive, and quite futile. On November 26, 1778, he was the first MP to urge the recognition of American independence. Wilkes was also the first MP to support a motion for parliamentary reform, on March 21, 1776, when he advocated a redistribution of parliamentary seats from rotten boroughs to more populous towns and counties, and an extension of the franchise. His motion was defeated without a vote. Also very liberal in his religious views, Wilkes supported the Dissenters’ Relief Bill of April 1779, and he was active in suppressing the anti-Catholic Gordon riots in London in June 1780. After the American Revolutionary War , Wilkes became a supporter , though largely a silent one, of the ministries of Shelburne and then the younger William Pitt. Increasingly neglectful of his parliamentary duties, he decided there was no point in contesting the general election of 1790. In his last years, he was a critic of the violence and political extremism of the French Revolution. See also American Revolution. FURTHER READING: Cash, Arthur H. John Wilkes: The Scandalous Father of Civil Liberty . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006; Christie, Ian R. Wilkes, Wyvill and Reform. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1962; Thomas, Peter D. G. John Wilkes: A Friend to Liberty. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. H. T. DICKINSON

Wilson, James (1742 –1798) James Wilson was an American jurist, revolutionary politician, and a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Of all the Founding Fathers, Wilson was perhaps the most distinguished constitutional lawyer , and he ended his career as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1789 –1798). The son of a farmer , Wilson, who was born in Scotland, studied at St. Andrews University and all his adult life would be influenced by the ideas generated by the Scottish Enlightenment, especially the philosophy of Thomas Reid. The unexpected death of his father cut short his studies in 1762, and he left St. Andrews without graduating. After trying his hand at many jobs, including tutoring and bookkeeping, he immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1765. Briefly teaching at the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania) he was awarded an honorary MA in 1766 and began studying law under John Dickinson, the leader of the proprietary interest in the Pennsylvania colonial legislature and conservative opponent of Benjamin Franklin. Called to the Pennsylvania bar in 1767, he later moved to the western Pennsylvania Scots-Irish settlement of Carlisle. Opposing British colonial regulation and taxation, Wilson took a leading part in Pennsylvania’s revolutionary committee of correspondence and in Pennsylvania’s first provincial convention. In the summer of 1774, he published

Wilson, James

Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament, a work that opposed British imperial policy but also, nonetheless, reflected the moderate political position of many in Pennsylvania in 1774. Elected to the Second Continental Congress in May 1775, Wilson continued to take a cautious, moderate position, and although he later signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, his initial vote to delay the decision to declare independence in June 1776 earned him the enmity of the more popular political element in Philadelphia. Although he continued to support the independence movement, his marriage to a local heiress, Rachel Bird, and his own involvement in speculative land and business schemes, together with his political alliance with Robert Morris, the wealthy financier who was accused of war profiteering, only increased suspicion that Wilson was largely motivated by his own economic self-interest. Such suspicions were compounded in October 1779, when Wilson undertook the public defense of Quaker merchants accused of being Tories, an action that led to an attack on his house in Philadelphia by a mob and the death of six people. In something of a political wilderness, Wilson resurrected his career when France appointed him its advocate general in America, a position he held until 1783. His new position entailed advising the French on American law, and his political profile was increased when the Congress, due to Robert Morris’s influence, appointed Wilson a director , trustee, and lawyer to the newly chartered Bank of North America in 1781. An economic nationalist and visionary regarding the economic potential of North America, Wilson came to support a position in his Considerations on the Bank of North America (1785) that reflected the later position of Alexander Hamilton. Appointed a Pennsylvania representative to the Confederation Congress in 1783, Wilson became a vocal critic of the weak federal union under the Articles of Confederation. Appointed a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787, Wilson took a leading role in the creation of a national constitution in Philadelphia. A noted lawyer , Wilson was probably the most systematic thinker at the convention. While more democratically inclined than most of the delegates, he passionately believed in a system of checks and balances that would uphold the rule of law. Believing in government administered by the great and good, he also believed that government should be representative; be instituted to encourage the general good; and, if power was properly controlled, be an engine to promote the general happiness of the governed. As an active member of the convention Wilson delivered a reported 160 speeches, and although allied to James Madison, he was initially opposed to the Virginia Plan, as he thought it gave too much power to the lower house of the legislature. Wilson, however , also opposed the Connecticut Plan, the great compromise that preserved the equal representation of the states in the upper chamber , as he thought the upper chamber should be directly elected. Wilson was almost alone among his colleagues in believing that the executive should be directly elected and control an absolute veto. His most important role, however , was as a member of the Committee of Detail, which transformed the delegates’ ideas and resolutions into a formal document—the actual United States Constitution. Wilson had misgivings about the Constitution but signed it and became the foremost advocate of its ratification in Pennsylvania; his influential Statehouse Address of October 1787 became, next to the Federalist Papers, one of the most influential

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Federalist defenses of the Constitution and was published in 34 newspapers. Following the ratification of the Constitution, Wilson returned to the law. Appointed professor of law at the College of Philadelphia, he was instrumental in drafting the new, more conservative Pennsylvania state constitution of 1790 and was appointed by President George Washington to the United States Supreme Court. In the twodozen reports he wrote, especially the important Chisholm v. Georgia decision of 1793, Wilson upheld the notion of the sovereignty of the federal government and the importance of federal judicial review. Wilson’s career as a Founding Father has been overshadowed by the careers of many of his contemporaries, and although he was academically conservative, his bankruptcy ruined his reputation. His increasing financial speculations eventually led to personal disaster , and to escape his creditors in Philadelphia, he fled to New Jersey in 1797. Briefly imprisoned, Wilson then fled to Edenton, North Carolina, where he died of a stroke in August 1798. See also Committees of Correspondence; Constitutions, American State. FURTHER READING: Carey , George W. “ James Wilson’s Political Thought.” Political Science Reviewer 17 (1987): 49 –107; Hall, M. D. The Political and Legal Philosophy of James Wilson, 1742 –1798. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997; Harlan, John M. “ James Wilson and the Formation of the Constitution.” American Law Review 34 (1900): 481 –504; McCloskey , Robert G., ed. The Works of James Wilson. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967. RORY T. CORNISH

Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759 –1797) An English radical who advocated rights for women, Wollstonecraft was born in London on April 27, 1759. Self-taught, she opened a private school with her sister , Eliza. From her experiences she wrote Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787), which advocated using Enlightenment ideals to educate women. She argued that women were just as reasonable and capable of learning as men. In 1790 she translated from German Christian Salzmann’s Elements of Morality. She also published A Vindication of the Rights of Men in response to Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. Wollstonecraft’s most important book was A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), in which she extended the idea of equality espoused in the French Revolution to women as well as men. She argued that men and women are equal because they share reason. She claimed that women must gain equality by rejecting romantic love in favor of reason; otherwise they will remain slaves to male domination. Her posthumously published Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman used fiction to illustrate the theme. In late 1792, Wollstonecraft moved to Paris to observe the events of the French Revolution. In 1793 she married an American, Gilbert Imlay , whose daughter (Fanny Imlay) she bore on May 14, 1794. That same year she published Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution. Deserted by Imlay , Wollstonecraft married William Godwin on March 29, 1797, but she died of puerperal fever on September 10 of that year , after bearing Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (the future Mary Shelley , author of Frankenstein) on August 30.

Women (American)

FURTHER READING: Wollstonecraft, Mary. Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975; Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Criticism. Edited by Carol H. Poston. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975. ANDREW J. WASKEY

Women (American) The lives of eighteenth-century American women centered on the family. The American Revolution offered women an opportunity to expand their lives beyond the home, at least for a limited time period. The Revolution affected women of different race, classes, and status in different ways. It provided white middle-class women with new roles, such as performing men’s work by running farms and businesses, often with great trepidation at the outset. Abigail Smith Adams (1744 –1818), wife of future president John Adams, not only managed the family farm and its workers but also conducted extensive financial enterprises unusual for women at the time. She purchased and speculated in land in addition to selling goods that her husband brought back from England. Patriot women experienced increased pride and self-respect. They learned to manage financial affairs and to act autonomously while their husbands were at the front. As far as Native American women were concerned, the Revolution did not bring about positive changes. For African Americans, wartime conditions enabled many slaves to acquire new liberties: slavery was eliminated in every state north of Maryland. Struggling to provide for their families, women banded together in times of dearth and high inflation to demonstrate their demands and dissatisfactions. They attacked merchants, especially those with Loyalist leanings who were suspected of hoarding, and demanded goods at a just price. When they met with resistance, they seized the goods, sometimes leaving the amount of money they believed to be just. Women participating in boycotts simply made different decisions about what items to purchase and consume; they did not move beyond the boundaries of the feminine sphere. When colonial leaders began to stress the need for homespun cloth to be produced as a substitute for British cloth, women were not asked to take on an “unfeminine” task: spinning was the very role symbolic of femininity itself. From the 1760s, women formed anti-tea leagues and ladies’ associations, which provided crucial support for the boycotts and non-importation efforts of the men. Patriot women increased their production and use of homespun clothes and avoided British-made goods. They drank herbal teas and coffee rather than British tea after the passing of the Townshend Acts of 1767. Male leaders knew that women’s cooperation was necessary to ensure that colonists would forego the use of tea and luxury goods until the act was repealed. Male leaders of the boycott movement needed female support, but they wanted to set the limits of women’s activism. They did not expect or necessarily approve of clear signs of female autonomy. This was clear in the well-known exchange between Abigail and John Adams. She had asked her husband in March 1776 to ensure that the new nation’s legal code include protection for wives against the “Naturally Tyrannical” tendencies of their spouses. In reply , her husband declared, “I cannot but laugh at your extraordinary Code of Laws.” He failed to come to terms with the implications raised by the

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growing interest in politics among colonial women. He could deal with his wife’s display of independent thought only by refusing to take it seriously. Although women were excluded from participating in the politics of government before and after the Revolution, the New Jersey state constitution of 1776 allowed everyone who had lived in the state for one year and who owned £50 of property to vote. Unmarried women voted in this state until 1807, when the DemocraticRepublican Party ended this right. By the 1780s, women had become politically literate in the sense that they were widely read in political literature and joined in the debates. For example, in the South, groups of women generally supported non-importation policies and did not confine such support to the issue of tea. The women’s meeting satirized in the famous British cartoon of the so-called Edenton Ladies’ Tea Party illustrates this. The agreement signed in October 1774 by 51 female North Carolinians did not mention tea. Instead, the women declared their “sincere adherence” to the resolves of the Provincial Congress and proclaimed it their “duty” to do “everything as far as lies in our power” to support the “publick good.” This simple statement had unprecedented implications. The Edenton women were not only asserting their right to support political measures, but they were also taking upon themselves a “duty” to work for the common good. It marked an important turning point in American women’s political perceptions, signaling the start of a process by which they would eventually come to regard themselves as participants in the polity rather than as females with purely private concerns. The Daughters of Liberty and other organizations like it that promoted the Patriot cause paralleled those of men. Women attended and sponsored bonfire rallies, and they burned tax collectors’ effigies and produced their own anti-British propaganda. As individuals, they influenced the men in their efforts to support the revolutionary cause by withdrawing their womanly favors, services, and esteem. As professional printers and propagandists, women produced important revolutionary broadsides, newspapers, and documents. Until recently, most scholarly studies of the American Revolution neglected the role of women in the army simply because they tended to examine it from the perspective of senior commanders. They did not analyze the army from the viewpoint of the foot soldier and the thousands of women who followed the troops. From this perspective, the army looks far less professional and far more disorganized. Camp followers, as they were known, worked as cooks, nurses, and washerwomen, as well as undertakers for the dead. Camp followers were usually the wives and children of soldiers. The most famous was Molly Pitcher (1754–1832), who earned this name at the Battle of Monmouth while carrying water from a nearby spring to American troops. After her husband, John Casper Hays, was wounded, she was in charge of the cannon of Colonel William Irvine’s Seventh Company of the Pennsylvania Artillery until the end of the war. The daughter of a German dairyman in Mercer County, New Jersey, her true name was Mary Ludwig. Patriots were skeptical about giving women like Molly Pitcher official status in the army; Washington objected to a fixed quota of women. He saw them as a great hindrance, notwithstanding the fact that these women provided essential services in an army that lacked the support staff more associated with modern military. In addition to the tasks mentioned above, these women provided solace for the men. By the end of the war, Washington’s General Orders established a ratio of one woman for every 15 men in a regiment. Although statistics for men and women in the army are often unreliable, Linda Grant De Pauw estimates that in the course of the war, some 20,000 women served in the Continental Army.

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A number of women disguised themselves as men and fought in the army. One of these, Deborah Samson (1760 –1827), fought for two-and-a-half years in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment before she was discovered to be a woman after she was injured. She took the name of Robert Shurtliff or Shirtliffe. Congress did grant her husband a pension later in life—after she had died—as the widower of a revolutionary soldier. She welcomed the war as a kind of liberation from the restrictions on female behavior. Margaret Corbin (1751 –1789), a soldier’s wife and camp follower , survived the British attack on Fort Washington. After her husband was killed, she took his place in the line of duty. Those women who did not fight or serve as camp followers assumed the responsibilities and positions of the men who volunteered and served in the army: they sewed clothes for soldiers, rolled bandages, and prepared foodstuffs for the front. In addition, they fought British soldiers who attempted to attack their property. Nancy Hart (1735? –1830) earned the name Amazon Warrior for shooting British soldiers who approached her property. Women provided medical services by converting their homes into makeshift hospitals or by providing local medical services, as was done by the Quaker widow Margaret Hill Morris (1737 –1816) of Burlington, New Jersey. Traditional medicines such as herbal remedies were the most common form of treatment. Loyalist women were no less committed to their cause than Patriot women. Approximately 15 percent of adult white male Loyalists took up arms for Britain. Among women it was about 5.5 percent. Some helped British soldiers by carrying letters through the lines. Others served as spies. Two women from upstate New York worked to prevent the Iroquois from joining the Americans. The work of Loyalist women was by definition clandestine and dangerous. At the outset, the American Revolutionary War represented an ironic inversion of the colonists’ themes of independence, liberty , and self-government. Initially , slaves found in the presence of British troops a possible avenue to freedom. In November 1775, Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, offered liberation to any slaves who fled to join the British Army. The high number of women with children in the resulting flood of runaways contrasts sharply with statistics from before and after the Revolution, when very few women with their children escaped. Once women were convinced that the presence of British redcoats and the general disruptions of the war made it possible to escape without abandoning their families, they eagerly seized the chance. In a brief period when revolutionary ideology caused many to question slavery and the disturbances of war diverted attention, free blacks had room to maneuver as they began to participate in and institutionalize Afro-American culture in black schools and churches. The opportunity to buy freedom for their kin, which occurred predominantly in the North and upper South during the Revolution, further strengthened family life. Native American women found no real sources of hope or transformation in the Revolution through alignment with either the colonial or British cause. Warfare touched them when both sides competed for Indian loyalties. For women it meant increased mobility , traditional war preparations, and the loss of husbands and sons. Most of tribes supported the British as a way of resisting the pressure of white settlement in the west. The theories of the Enlightenment raised new questions for women during the revolutionary era. Enlightenment thinkers in France offered a powerful critique of aristocratic society premised on the subordination of one class to another. The men

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of the Enlightenment stressed human perfectibility. In addition, through education, people could abandon the superstition and irrationality of tradition. Educated citizens became the foundation of a rational and just republican social order. Men such as Benjamin Rush promoted education for women. Educated women were useful in the sense that they kept men on the path of virtue. A new ideology of republican motherhood developed, and republican mothers would take up their new patriotic duty of educating the next generation of moral and virtuous citizens. Citizenship was thus gender based and brought about a new civic role for women. Nevertheless, in the Lockean worldview, men remained the head of the household. The future of a government based on such principles as “power is derived from the people,” liberty , and justice offered hope to women. But the founding fathers had a restricted view of the citizen. For them, women, slaves, men who owned no property , children, and the mentally ill lacked the capacity for independent and rational judgment for the general good. The phrase “ All men are created equal” used the word “men” quite literally. Women did receive civil benefits from the American Revolution. Divorce was legalized in 1800 in 12 states; primogeniture was abolished in states that had practiced it; and all children, regardless of gender , could inherit property equally , although coverture remained in effect into the nineteenth century except for wealthy women. The American Revolution brought significant changes to women’s lives, for they contributed to the war effort at home and on farms, in aid of the armies, and, in some cases, as soldiers on the battlefield. Historians are divided when they turn to the question of what lasting gains women actually made. Certainly in terms of status, work, and public roles, they gained very little. The principles of equality and natural rights hailed by the Declaration of Independence did not apply to women, African Americans, Native Americans, or white men without property. Nevertheless, many women still experienced considerable growth in self-esteem, organizational skills, and political acumen. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade; Women (French). FURTHER READING: Gells, Edith. First Thoughts: Life and Letters of Abigail Adams. New York: Twayne, 1998; Grant, De Pauw Linda. “Women in Combat: Revolutionary War Experience.” Armed Forces and Society 7, no. 2 (Winter 1981): 209 –26; Hoffman, Ronald, and Peter J. Albert, eds. Women in the Age of the American Revolution. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1989; Hoff-Wilson, Joan. “The Illusion of Change: Women and the American Revolution.” In The American Revolution: Explorations in the History of American Radicalism, ed. Alfred F. Young. DeKalb: Northern Illinois Press, 1976; Kerber , Linda K. Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980; Lewis, Jane E. “ A Revolution for Whom? Women in the Era of the American Revolution.” In A Companion to American Women’s History , ed. Nancy A. Hewitt. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002; Norton, Mary Beth. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750 –1800: With New Preface. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996. LEIGH WHALEY

Women (French) The Age of the Enlightenment and French Revolution was a time of mixed blessings for women. The Enlightenment produced three different principal views about women’s nature and abilities. First, women were mentally and sociall inferior to

Women (French)

men ( Jean-Jacques Rousseau). Second, women were equal but different (Voltaire). And third, women were potentially equal in both mental ability and contribution to society (the Marquis de Condorcet). These differing perspectives prevailed during the French Revolution. Women’s experiences and roles in the French Revolution were diverse and multifarious. They cut across social boundaries, religious differences, politics, and geography. Similar to men’s political views during the Revolution, women’s political views ranged from conservative and counterrevolutionary to radical and militant. Although women in revolutionary France were excluded from the formal political process in the sense that they could not vote and they could not sit as deputies, they nevertheless retained some means of participation in the political life of the nation. Political activism outside the formal structures of power , for instance, was exercised through petitions, marches, and acts of violence. Women’s political activity and interest in the Revolution can be traced back to the first months of 1789, when, like many others in France, they assisted with the drafting of cahiers de doléances (lists of grievances) in which their concerns were made known. These cahiers provide an interesting window into the reforms that women from different social and economic backgrounds sought. Working women were keen to obtain improved working conditions and the reestablishment of medieval guilds to protect their rights. Like their male counterparts, middle class and noble women desired the acquisition of civil rights. For women, these included the franchise, equality in marriage, and the right to initiate divorce. Economic issues such as access to bread and employment were the traditional concerns of women. The French Revolution was no exception here, as there was an acute shortage of bread in the summer of 1789 and women were the primary instigators of the bread riots of October 5 –6, 1789, and the uprisings of Germinal and Prairial (April and May 1795) of the Year III. Hufton has argued that women’s concerns were primarily bread oriented. Others such as Landes have contended that female militants were not only interested in but acutely aware of the contemporary political scene. In any case, bread, or the lack thereof, remained the primary motivating factor for the march to Versailles on the rainy day of October 5. On the morning of October 5, women from les Halles sounded the tocsin and went to the Hôtel de Ville. From there they marched to Versailles under the protection of the Marquis de Lafayette and the more radical contingents of the National Guard. Once there, they demanded bread. The king agreed to provide a regular bread supply , to consent to revolutionary legislation proposed by the Constituent Assembly , and to live in Paris. The pattern set by the uprising in October is of central importance for understanding the involvement of Parisian women from 1789 to 1795. French revolutionary women certainly had political as well as economic demands. The October Days resulted in the transfer of government from Versailles to Paris. Contemporary accounts demonstrate that women understood the role of the deputy and that they supported what the deputies were demanding. Women joined the protest against the 1791 Chapelier Law abolishing guilds that prohibited any professional or workers’ organizations. Throughout the early years of the Revolution, women petitioned the National Assembly on several occasions. Middle-class women wanted legislation that would improve the condition of women. Educated women wanted to see the transformation of the women’s place in the family and in the economy , the legal equality of rights within marriage, the right to divorce,

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and publicly guaranteed educational opportunities that would allow girls and women to work. In 1791, Olympe de Gouges, a playwright and the daughter of a butcher , drafted a Declaration of the Rights of Women in which she demanded a representative institution for women. She argued that France now had rights guaranteed to men in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 26, 1789) but that this document did not apply to women. In addition, de Gouges demanded greater equality between spouses within the institution of marriage similar to that championed by Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). The organization of female clubs was another avenue through which women expressed their views and fostered their interests. Women were banned from the Jacobin Club, but they did participate in the more popular Cordeliers Club and formed the earliest of the truly popular societies, the Société Fraternelle de l’Un et l’Autre Sexe, Défenseur de la Constitution. One of the earliest clubs in which women actively participated was the Cercle Social, founded in January 1790. By the autumn, it was explicitly supporting women’s issues, and some prominent women came to speak before it. Women were granted full membership in this society and also served as officers. Three female members of the Société Fraternelle, Etta Palm d’Aelders, Théroigne de Méricourt, and Pauline Léon, were active in revolutionary politics from 1790 to 1793. D’Aelders, a Dutch baroness who had been in Paris since 1774, addressed the Cercle Social on women’s rights twice in the late autumn of 1790. In February 1791, she introduced an ambitious plan to form women’s patriotic societies in each of the sections of Paris and in each of the 83 departments, all to be coordinated by a “central and federative circle.” Her goal was to establish schools and workshops to teach skills to poor girls. She did manage to buy apprenticeships for three girls. Her club survived until she became a suspect in the autumn of 1792. She immigrated to Holland in January 1793. Théroigne de Méricourt, whose real name was Anne Josèphe Terwagne, was described as the Amazon of the Revolution by contemporaries and historians alike. The journalist Camille Desmoulins in his Le Vieux Cordelier called her the “beautiful Amazon of Liège, the Queen of Sheba.” Armed with a saber and pistols, she distinguished herself on June 20 and August 10, 1792. The period from January 1792 to February 1793 marked a crucial stage in the evolution of women’s involvement in the politics of the Revolution. It was a year of critical changes: war , the overthrow of monarchy , economic hardship, and the creation of a National Convention, the first truly republican assembly in France. Issues with which women concerned themselves were the defense of Paris, divorce legislation, and other laws concerning equal rights for women. In 1792, sans-culotte women joined the Enragés, the extreme radical movement. Its leader , Jacques Roux, spoke for the demands of the common people: political and economic terror against all enemies of the sovereign people, stringent laws against hoarding and speculation, and the immediate execution of the king. As political institutions of Paris came increasingly under the control of the ordinary people, women were allowed to have more power. But men were still the leaders. The Paris sections began admitting passive citizens in 1792; they had been meeting consistently since July 1792. Leadership in the sections passed from rich lawyers and merchants to small shopkeepers, revolutionary journalists, and less wealthy clerks. Sections were never led by the poorest sans-culottes, but by those more literate and skilled in

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speech making and petition drafting, skills necessary for communicating with the Commune, the Jacobins, and the National Convention. Women were relegated to the spectator galleries. The real power of women was, at the best of times, limited and short lived. At the height of its power , the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, a society that brought together radical women, had several hundred members. Its presidents included Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe. Lacombe was a well-known provincial actress who had acted in Lyon and Marseille. Arriving in Paris at the beginning of 1792 with Léon, she frequented the Cordeliers Club. She also participated in the overthrowing of the monarchy and in the uprisings of May 30 to June 2, 1793. She demanded the removal of nobles from the army in the Convention on August 28. On September 5, she demanded the purification of the government. She was protected by the Hébertistes and was violently attacked by Chabot and other Jacobins. Léon, the daughter of a chocolate maker , was the most radical of the two women. In 1793, she became a leader of the female sans-culottes. By the spring of 1791, she was a member of the fraternal society of her section and of the Société Fraternelle, and an associate of the Cordeliers. In March 1790, she petitioned the Assembly for the right of women to bear arms. The Society of Revolutionary Republican Women campaigned for a law compelling all women to wear the tricolor cockade as a symbol of their republican loyalties. They circulated petitions to popular societies and to the Convention for the immediate implementation of price controls and the Law of Suspects, which the Enragés and Cordeliers also pushed for. These measures were decreed by the Convention in September 1793. In addition to forming clubs and radical societies, women of the French Revolution also held political salons. One such woman was Madame Roland, wife of the minister of the interior in 1792. She held meetings in 1791 and 1792 at her Paris home at which journalists and men from the various assemblies and from the Jacobin Club would assemble to discuss public policy. Although Madame Roland did not actively engage in the discussions, she noted everything in her letters and memoirs. Lucile Duplessis Desmoulins and Louise de Kéralio-Robert, both wives of journalists and deputies, also held political salons in their homes. Robert, like Madame Roland, was a journalist during the moderate years of the Revolution. While Roland was a ghostwriter for Brissot’s Patriote Français, Kéralio-Robert was the editor of a major newspaper , the Mercure National. Her husband assisted her with the publication of this paper , a journal dedicated to promoting the new popular society movement that existed between 1789 and 1791. Both played an active part in reconstructing the Société Fraternelle, of which Robert became president in March 1790. The growing hostility of other women and male Jacobins brought about the ultimate defeat of the society. Market women, former servants, and religious women opposed controls and severe punishments for former aristocrats and clergy. The Jacobins began to regard these women as rabble-rousers. On October 30, the Convention decreed all women’s clubs and associations illegal. Chaumette, of the Paris Commune, dissolved women’s clubs because he said he had the right to expect his wife to run his home while he attended political meetings. Hers was the care of the family: this was the full extent of her civic duties. The Thermidorians excluded women from the galleries of the Convention, though women did participate in the popular insurrections that occurred during

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the spring of the Year III (1795). The uprisings of Germinal and Prairial were a response to food shortages and the Convention’s lifting of the Maximum. Women called for bread and the Constitution of 1793, but the government took harsh measures to prevent a recurrence of popular uprisings. The aftermath resulted in a number of suicides of women and children, who were fished out of the Seine. After June 1795, it seemed the women of Paris had been a failure as a political force: clubs were closed, and they were kept out of the Convention. Although women never gained equal rights during the French Revolution—they had to wait until the twentieth century for them—their activities did make a lasting contribution in French history. They pressured government officials to act in times of crisis; they contributed to the political education of the nation, and the content of French political vocabulary was permanently changed by women. Indeed, much of their revolutionary rhetoric survives to this day. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Women (American). FURTHER READING: Elson Roessler , Shirley. Out of the Shadows: Women and Politics in the French Revolution, 1789 –1795. New York: Peter Lang, 1998; Godineau, Dominique. The Women of Paris and Their French Revolution. Translated by Katherine Streip. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998; Hufton, Olwen. Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992; Hunt, Lynn. “Male Virtue and Republican Motherhood.” In The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture. Vol. 4: The Terror , ed. Keith Michael Baker. Oxford: Pergamon, 1994; Landes, Joan. Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988; Levy , Darlene Gay , and Harriet Branson Applewhite, eds. Women in Revolutionary Paris, 1789 –1795: Selected Documents. Translated with Notes and Commentary. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1979; Melzer , Sara E., and Leslie W. Rabine, eds. Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992; Spencer , Samia I. French Women and the Age of Enlightenment. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984; Whaley, Leigh. “Partners in Revolution: Louise de Kéralio and François Robert, Editors of the Mercure National, 1789 –1791.” In Enlightenment and Revolution: Essays in Honour of Norman Hampson, ed. William Doyle, Alan Forrest, and Malcolm Crook. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004. LEIGH WHALEY

Wright, James (1716 –1785) James Wright served as the third and last royal governor of Georgia from 1760 to 1782, except for a brief period during the American Revolution. Wright stood out among Georgia’s royal governors for his popularity and effectiveness. Born in London on May 8, 1716, Wright came to America in 1730 when his father secured a position as the chief justice of South Carolina. He also entered the legal profession, practicing in South Carolina and eventually becoming the attorney general for the colony in 1747, a position he held for a decade. Over the course of his career , Wright purchased a considerable amount of land and many slaves in the colony. He married in 1742. His wife, Sarah Maidman, bore eight children before her death in 1763. Following Henry Ellis’s retirement, Wright was appointed royal governor of Georgia as a consequence of his status in South Carolina. As governor , Wright encouraged Georgia’s expansion by purchasing large tracts of land from the Creek and Cherokee Indians. Though Wright was generally a popular governor , he was

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staunchly loyal to the Crown. Under his leadership, Georgia became the only colony in which the Stamp Act was enforced. This led to his removal when rebels seized power in Georgia in 1776. Wright escaped to London and there lobbied for forces to retake the colony. When British troops arrived and occupied Georgia in 1778, the king reinstalled Wright as governor. Owing to the strength of revolutionary sentiment in Georgia, however , Wright would hold this position for only three difficult years. The British abandoned the colony in 1782, and Wright returned to London. With other displaced Loyalists, Wright would spend the remainder of his life seeking reparations for the losses he incurred during the Revolution. He never recouped his entire fortune and died at 69 on November 20, 1785. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. FURTHER READING: Coleman, Kenneth. The American Revolution in Georgia, 1763 –1789. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1958; Cook, James F. The Governors of Georgia, 1754 –2004. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2005. CHARLES H. WILSON III

Wyvill, Christopher (1738 –1822) Wyvill was educated at Cambridge University and ordained as a clergyman in the Church of England. He showed little interest in his clerical duties and preferred to live as a country gentleman, especially after 1773, when he married his cousin, who inherited large estates in North Yorkshire. From 1772, when he supported the Feathers Tavern petition to abolish the requirement for Anglican clergymen to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles, he was an active campaigner for religious toleration for both Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholics. Deeply concerned by the American Revolutionary War , and convinced that this disaster owed much to excessive royal influence and executive power , he persuaded over 600 Yorkshire gentlemen to join the Yorkshire Association on December 30, 1779, and to mount a campaign to reduce Crown patronage and public expenditure. Determined to prevent peers and MPs (members of Parliament) from dominating this association, Wyvill sought the active support of country gentlemen, many of them liberal clergymen. With deep commitment, enormous energy and remarkable firmness of purpose, he corresponded widely , arranged county meetings, and organized petitions for reform. He collected about 8,000 signatures for the Yorkshire petition of 1780 and was active in encouraging many other counties and boroughs to establish similar associations and to join in a nationwide petitioning campaign for reform that eventually secured 60,000 signatures. Most of these petitions supported economical reform, the creation of additional county MPs, and triennial parliaments, but the Westminster Association adopted a much more radical program, which included universal manhood suffrage, annual general elections, and equal-sized constituencies. Wyvill opposed such radical proposals, but he strove to bring unity to the Association movement at meetings of Association delegates in London from March to April 1781. Wyvill organized another , but less substantial, petitioning movement in early 1783, and he strongly backed the efforts of William Pitt the Younger to pass moderate reform bills in May 1783 and April 1785. These failed, and with the ending of the American war , the reform movement waned in the later 1780s. The outbreak of

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the French Revolution soon revived considerable interest in parliamentary reform, but Wyvill could raise little support for moderate reform among the gentlemen in the country , while he himself was alarmed at the radical demands of the popular reformers. He tried to stand on the narrow middle ground as the country was increasingly polarized between advanced radicals and militant loyalists. He thought moderate reform would prevent revolution but radical reform would precipitate it. Wyvill opposed Pitt’s repressive legislation of 1795 and looked to Charles James Fox for support in Parliament as he grew concerned once more that war was creating waste, extravagance, and an increase in executive power. He was pleased with the abolition of the slave trade in 1807 and continued to campaign for full religious toleration. His caution and political moderation were condemned by John Cartwright in a series of essays in the Statesman from October 1813 to March 1814. This helped persuade Wyvill to retire from active political campaigning, but he remained interested in political issues and he maintained his voluminous correspondence. He had little sympathy with the extreme mass radicalism after 1815 and little confidence in the reform credentials of the parliamentary Whigs. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade. FURTHER READING: Black, Eugene C. The Association: British Extraparliamentary Political Organization, 1769 –1793. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963; Christie, Ian R. Wilkes, Wyvill and Reform. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1962; Dinwiddy , John. Christopher Wyvill and Reform, 1790 –1820. York, UK: Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, 1971. H. T. DICKINSON

Y Yates, Abraham (1724 – 1796) A lawyer, public servant, and political writer who was born to a middle-class family, Yates was one of the most important Anti-Federalist figures in American history . Known for his ardent opposition to the newly promulgated United States Constitution, Yates consistently and persistently defended a more decentralized administrative structure. While he started his career as a lawyer, Yates became known for his political writings on the alleged dangers posed by strong centralized federalism. Born in Albany, New York, before the American Revolution Yates, the son of a blacksmith, also mended shoes. His past as a shoemaker was used against him during the controversy over the ratification of the federal constitution by representatives from New York. This and similar experiences, as well as his personal observations during his career, greatly affected Yates’s stance toward aristocracy . His basic contention was that aristocrats had conspired to weaken the status of the common man in New York throughout the colonial era. For Yates, the U.S. Constitution was nothing more than the extension of this conspiracy . He maintained that the Constitution was designed to serve the special interests of aristocracy, whom Yates distrusted entirely . Yates attacked the Constitution on the grounds that it provided a centralized system of administration, which, according to him, would be exploited as a means of repression in the hands of aristocrats. For him, the amendments made to the Constitution in 1789 were also unsatisfactory, for they did not address the most imminent problem—the dangers posed by the centralized power . FURTHER READING: Bielinski, Stefan. Abraham Yates, Jr., and the New Political Order in Revolutionary New York. Albany: New York State American Revolution Bicentennial Commission, 1975; Lynd, Staughton. “ Abraham Yates’s History of the Movement for the United States Constitution.” William and Mary Quarterly 20 (1963): 223 – 45. CENAP CAKMAK

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Yorktown, Siege of (1781) One of the few decisive actions of the American Revolutionary War, the siege of Yorktown (September 28 – October 19, 1781) sealed the fate of Major General Lord Cornwallis’s British army of 8,000 troops in Virginia, leaving the commanderin-chief of British forces in America, Sir Henry Clinton, with only one major force remaining in the 13 colonies, at New York. Operating in the southern theater, Cornwallis withdrew his army from the Carolinas without authorization from Clinton, and though he had defeated the Americans on a number of occasions, he had to abandon a number of garrison towns in order to consolidate his forces in Virginia, control of which the British government was keen to retain. There he established a good defensive position at Yorktown, whose port could provide a safe anchorage for a Royal Navy fleet. This appeared a sensible decision, for Cornwallis could, in theory at least, be supplied indefinitely from the sea. When, however, the British temporarily lost naval superiority to the French at the Battle of the Virginia Capes on September 5 – 9, 1781, Cornwallis found himself cut off from water-borne supply and communication. Recognizing Cornwallis’s vulnerability, Major General George Washington, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, concentrated a numerically superior force of 9,500 American and 7,800 French troops under Rochambeau, which he then marched south from New York. On September 28, the Allied force began investing Yorktown. Once he found himself boxed in by Washington, Cornwallis suffered from greater disadvantages than merely the numerical one: the Allies possessed siege guns and an abundant supply of ammunition, whereas the British had begun to run low and could not replenish their supply . The outbreak of smallpox within his

Lord Cornwallis surrenders the British forces besieged at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 19, 1781. Library of Congress.

Young, Thomas

lines also contributed to Cornwallis’s discomfiture. Compounding these problems, Cornwallis, believing that his outer defenses could not be defended with the number of troops available to him, withdrew to his inner works. This was probably a premature decision, for he might have lasted several more weeks had he stood fast. Now he could no longer hold up the besiegers, whose artillery pounded the new, more cramped positions. Once the Allies seized two important redoubts on October 14, Cornwallis’s position became untenable, and he capitulated on October 19. Five days later, Clinton arrived in the Chesapeake with 7,000 reinforcements, but by then he was too late and returned to New York. The war in America was already unpopular in Britain, and Yorktown proved a fatal blow to the government under Lord North, which opened negotiations in April 1782. With the Treaty of Paris, concluded in September 1783, Britain formally recognized American independence. FURTHER READING: Chidsey, Donald B. Victory at Yorktown. New York: Crown, 1962; Davis, Burke. The Campaign That Won America: The Story of Yorktown. New York: Dial, 1970; Ketchum, Richard. Victory at Yorktown: The Campaign That Won the Revolution. New York: Henry Holt, 2004; Lewis, Charles Lee. Admiral de Grasse and American Independence. Reprint,. New York: Arno, 1980; Morrill, Dan. L. Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution. Baltimore: Nautical and Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1993; Wickwire, Franklin, and Mary Wickwire. Cornwallis and the War of Independence. London: Faber and Faber, 1971. GREGORY FREMONT-BARNES

Young, Thomas (1731 – 1777) Born in Ulster County, Albany, New York, in February 1731, Thomas Young began practicing medicine in 1753. A very well-known deist, Young was also a writer and poet. Historical scholarship has emphasized Young’s role as a revolutionary ideologue. He moved to Boston from Albany because of the Stamp Act passed by Parliament in 1765, which imposed a tax on the American colonies for every piece of paper used, including legal documents, newspapers, and even playing cards. Young left Boston in 1774 before the war started due to a fear of being attacked. Even though he was a practicing physician who liked his profession very much—so much so that he reportedly developed medical theories, the accuracy of which he insisted upon, so producing the term “ Youngism”—Young became renowned for his political activities. A radical, he was involved in almost every politically significant development, especially during the period between 1766 and 1774. He assumed active roles in several local organizations in Boston founded to oppose British rule. While publicly justifying the resort to violence against the opponents of freedom, Young also extensively relied on peaceful means in his activism, such as organizing colonists to prevent the importation of goods from Britain. He designed plans to enhance local production and employment so that the American colonies would become less dependent on the British economy . After the colonies gained their independence from Britain, Young became an ardent advocate of democratic reform. In consideration of his ideas, which were progressive for the time, some called him a radical, a label reflecting his enthusiasm and ambition for a democratic transformation. Young favored democratic rule not only in theory but also in practice. He apparently held that legislatures

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should ensure that people meet in public buildings to discuss communal issues and participate in the decision-making process. Young was especially concerned with the status of the lower strata of society and asserted that government should be able to protect the poor and allow the participation of the underprivileged in the political process. Young’s popular and democratic inclinations contributed to his recognition as a political radical. Young’s radicalism was mainly associated with his past experiences as a poor man, and it was largely as a result of his poverty that he adopted a hostile attitude toward the apparently unfair distribution of wealth and especially toward those who held large estates. Indeed, he was always involved in conflicts between the landed and the poor . Young’s deism has also been cited by historians as more evidence of his radicalism. In a society whose commitment to Christianity was axiomatic, Young’s deism was equated with atheism. Young died in Philadelphia in 1777. FURTHER READING: Edes, Henry H. “Memoir of Dr . Thomas Young: 1731 – 1777.” Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Transactions, vol. 11, 1906 – 1907 (1910): 2 – 54; Hawke, David. “Dr . Thomas Young: Eternal Fisher in Troubled Waters: Notes for a Biography .” New York Historical Society Quarterly 54 (1970): 6 – 29; Maier, Pauline. “Reason and Revolution: The Radicalism of Dr . Thomas Young.” American Quarterly 28 (1976): 229 – 49. CENAP CAKMAK

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In the interests of saving space, the texts of the Declaration of the Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are not reproduced here. Readers should note, however, that these documents can be found on the Web site of the National Archives at: www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/declaration.html www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution.html www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/bill_of_rights.html

All three documents, as well as the Federalist Papers, are also available online courtesy of the Library of Congress at: memory.loc.gov/ammem/help/constRedir.html

1. Currency Act (April 19, 1774) The Currency Act, passed by Parliament, was intended to compensate for the scarcity of precious metals in Britain’s North American colonies by controlling the issuance of paper money. It proved exceedingly unpopular with the colonists.

Whereas great quantities of paper bills of credit have been created and issued in his Majesty’s colonies or plantations in America, by virtue of acts, orders, resolutions, or votes of assembly, making and declaring such bills of credit to be legal tender in payment of money: and whereas such bills of credit have greatly depreciated in their value, by means whereof debts have been discharged with a much less value than was contracted for, to the great discouragement and prejudice of the trade and commerce of his Majesty’s subjects, by occasioning confusion in dealings, and lessening credit in the said colonies or plantations: for remedy whereof, may it please your most excellent Majesty, that it may be enacted; and be it enacted by the King’s most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, That from and after the first day of September,

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one thousand seven hundred and sixty four, no act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, in any of his Majesty’s colonies or plantations in America, shall be made, for creating or issuing any paper bills, or bills of credit of any kind or denomination whatsoever, declaring such paper bills, or bills of credit, to be legal tender in payment of any bargains, contracts, debts, dues, or demands whatsoever; and every clause or provision which shall hereafter be inserted in any act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, contrary to this act, shall be null and void. II. And whereas the great quantities of paper bills, or bills of credit, which are now actually in circulation and currency in several colonies or plantations in America, emitted in pursuance of acts of assembly declaring such bills a legal tender, make it highly expedient that the conditions and terms, upon which such bills have been emitted, should not be varied or prolonged, so as to continue the legal tender thereof beyond the terms respectively fixed by such acts for calling in and discharging such bills; be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every act, order, resolution, or vote of assembly, in any of the said colonies or plantations, which shall be made to prolong the legal tender of any paper bills, or bills of credit, which are now subsisting and current in any of the said colonies or plantations in America, beyond the times fixed for the calling in, sinking, and discharging of such paper bills, or bills of credit, shall be null and void. III. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if any governor or commander in chief for the time being, in all or any of the said colonies or plantations, shall, from and after the said first day of September, one thousand seven hundred and sixty four, give his assent to any act or order of assembly contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, every such governor or commander in chief shall, for every such offence, forfeit and pay the sum of one thousand pounds, and shall be immediately dismissed from his government, and for ever after rendered incapable of any public office or place of trust. IV. Provided always, That nothing in this act shall extend to alter or repeal an act passed in the twenty fourth year of the reign of his late majesty King George the Second, intituled, An act to regulate and restrain paper bills of credit in his Majesty’s colonies or plantations of Rhode Island and Providence plantations, Connecticut, the Massachuset’s Bay, and New Hampshire, in America, and to prevent the same being legal tenders in payments of money. V. Provided also, That nothing herein contained shall extend, or be construed to extend, to make any of the bills now subsisting in any of the said colonies a legal tender. Pickering, Danby, ed. The Statutes at Large of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. . . [1225–1867]. London: His Majesty’s Statute and Law Printers, 1762–1869.

{ 2. Declaratory Act (March 18, 1766) Passed by Parliament immediately after repeal of the unpopular Stamp Act, the Declaratory Act reaffirmed Parliament’s right to enact laws pertaining to the North American colonies.

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An act for the better securing the dependency of his majesty’s dominions in America upon the crown and parliament of Great Britain. Whereas several of the houses of representatives in his Majesty’s colonies and plantations in America, have of late against law, claimed to themselves, or to the general assemblies of the same, the sole and exclusive right of imposing duties and taxes upon his majesty’s subjects in the said colonies and plantations; and have in pursuance of such claim, passed certain votes, resolutions, and orders derogatory to the legislative authority of parliament, and inconsistent with the dependency of the said colonies and plantations upon the crown of Great Britain: may it therefore please your most excellent Majesty, that it may be declared; and be it declared by the King’s most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, That the said colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be, subordinate unto, and dependent upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain; and that the King’s majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons of Great Britain, in parliament assembled, had. bath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever, II. And be it further declared and enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all resolutions, votes, orders, and proceedings, in any of the said colonies or plantations, whereby the power and authority of the parliament of Great Britain, to make laws and statutes as aforesaid, is denied, or drawn into question, arc, and are hereby declared to be, utterly null and void to all in purposes whatsoever. Pickering, Danby, ed. The Statutes at Large of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. . . [1225–1867]. London: His Majesty’s Statute and Law Printers, 1762–1869.

{ 3. Association of the Sons of Liberty (New York, December 15, 1773) The Sons of Liberty was a secret society composed of disgruntled American colonists who objected to the imposition of taxes imposed by Parliament. They played an important part in agitating for rebellion against Britain in the decade prior to the outbreak of hostilities in 1775.

The following association is signed by a great number of the principal gentlemen of the city, merchants, lawyers, and other inhabitants of all ranks, and it is still carried about the city to give an opportunity to those who have not yet signed, to unite with their fellow citizens, to testify their abhorrence to the diabolical project of enslaving America. It is essential to the freedom and security of a free people, that no taxes be imposed upon them but by their own consent, or their representatives. For “What property have they in that which another may, by right, take when he pleases to himself ?” The former is the undoubted right of Englishmen, to secure which they expended millions and sacrificed the lives of thousands. And yet, to the astonishment of all the

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world, and the grief of America, the Commons of Great Britain, after the repeal of the memorable and detestable Stamp Act, reassumed the power of imposing taxes on the American colonies; and insisting on it as a necessary badge of parliamentary supremacy, passed a bill, in the seventh year of his present Majesty’s reign, imposing duties on all glass, painters’ colours, paper, and teas, that should, after the 20th of November, 1767, be “imported from Great Britain into any colony or plantation in America.” This bill, after the concurrence of the Lords, obtained the royal assent. And thus they who, from time immemorial, have exercised the right of giving to, or withholding from the crown, their aids and subsidies, according to their own free will and pleasure, signified by their representatives in Parliament, do, by the Act in question, deny us, their brethren in America, the enjoyment of the same right. As this denial, and the execution of that Act, involves our slavery, and would sap the foundation of our freedom, whereby we should become slaves to our brethren and fellow subjects, born to no greater stock of freedom than the Americans-the merchants and inhabitants of this city, in conjunction with the merchants and inhabitants of the ancient American colonies, entered into an agreement to decline a part of their commerce with Great Britain, until the above mentioned Act should be totally repealed. This agreement operated so powerfully to the disadvantage of the manufacturers of England that many of them were unemployed. To appease their clamours, and to provide the subsistence for them, which the non-importation had deprived them of, the Parliament, in 1770, repealed so much of the Revenue Act as imposed a duty on glass, painters’ colours, and paper, and left the duty on tea, as a test of the parliamentary right to tax us. The merchants of the cities of New York and Philadelphia, having strictly adhered to the agreement, so far as it is related to the importation of articles subject to an American duty, have convinced the ministry, that some other measures must be adopted to execute parliamentary supremacy over this country, and to remove the distress brought on the East India Company, by the ill policy of that Act. Accordingly, to increase the temptation to the shippers of tea from England, an Act of Parliament passed the last session, which gives the whole duty on tea, the company were subject to pay, upon the importation of it into England, to the purchasers and exporters; and when the company have ten millions of pounds of tea in their warehouses exclusive of the quantity they may want to ship, they are allowed to export tea, discharged from the payment of that duty with which they were before chargeable. In hopes of aid in the execution of this project, by the influence of the owners of the American ships, application was made by the company to the captains of those ships to take the tea on freight; but they virtuously rejected it. Still determined on the scheme, they have chartered ships to bring the tea to this country, which may be hourly expected, to make an important trial of our virtue. If they succeed in the sale of that tea, we shall have no property that we can call our own, and then we may bid adieu to American liberty. Therefore, to prevent a calamity which, of all others, is the most to be dreaded-slavery and its terrible concomitants-we, the subscribers, being influenced from a regard to liberty, and disposed to use all lawful endeavours in our power, to defeat the pernicious project, and to transmit to our posterity those blessings of freedom which our ancestors have handed down to us; and to contribute to the support of the common liberties of America, which are in danger to be subverted, do, for those important purposes, agree to associate together, under the name and style of the sons of New York, and engage our honour to, and with each other faithfully to observe and perform the following resolutions, viz.

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1st. Resolved, that whoever shall aid or abet, or in any manner assist, in the introduction of tea from any place whatsoever, into this colony, while it is subject, by a British Act of Parliament, to the payment of a duty, for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, he shall be deemed an enemy to the liberties of America. 2d. Resolved, that whoever shall be aiding, or assisting, in the landing, or carting of such tea, from any ship, or vessel, or shall hire any house, storehouse, or cellar or any place whatsoever, to deposit the tea, subject to a duty as aforesaid, he shall be deemed an enemy to the liberties of America. 3d. Resolved, that whoever shall sell, or buy, or in any manner contribute to the sale, or purchase of tea, subject to a duty as aforesaid, or shall aid, or abet, in transporting such tea, by land or water, from this city, until the 7th George III, chap. 46, commonly called the Revenue Act, shall be totally and clearly repealed, he shall be deemed an enemy to the liberties of America. 4th. Resolved, that whether the duties on tea, imposed by this Act, be paid in Great Britain or in America, our liberties are equally affected. 5th. Resolved, that whoever shall transgress any of these resolutions, we will not deal with, or employ, or have any connection with him. Niles, Hezekiah, ed. Principles and Acts of the Revolution in America. . . . Baltimore: W. O. Niles, 1822.

{ 4. Circular Letter of the Boston Committee of Correspondence (May 13, 1774) Committees of correspondence were established to enable colonists from different regions of the 13 American colonies to discuss colonial policy and coordinate their activities in response to legislation passed by Parliament. The Boston Committee of Correspondence, the first such committee, was established by Samuel Adams in 1772; it sent out the following circular letter to other colonial committees in 1774.

We have just received the copy of an Act of the British Parliament passed in the present session whereby the town of Boston is treated in a manner the most ignominious, cruel, and unjust. The Parliament have taken upon them, from the representations of our governor and other persons inimical to and deeply prejudiced against the inhabitants, to try, condemn, and by an Act to punish them, unheard; which would have been in violation of natural justice even if they had an acknowledged jurisdiction. They have ordered our port to be entirely shut up, leaving us barely so much of the means of subsistence as to keep us from perishing with cold and hunger; and it is said that [a] fleet of British ships of war is to block up our harbour until we shall make restitution to the East India Company for the loss of their tea, which was destroyed therein the winter past, obedience is paid to the laws and authority of Great Britain, and the revenue is duly collected. This Act fills the inhabitants with indignation. The more thinking part of those who have hitherto been in favour of the measures of the British government look upon it as not to have been expected even from a barbarous state. This attack, though made immediately upon us, is doubtless designed for every other colony who will not surrender their sacred rights and liberties into the hands of an infamous ministry. Now therefore is the

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time when all should be united in opposition to this violation of the liberties of all. Their grand object is to divide the colonies. We are well informed that another bill is to be brought into Parliament to distinguish this from the other colonies by repealing some of the Acts which have been complained of and ease the American trade; but be assured, you will be called upon to surrender your rights if ever they should succeed in their attempts to suppress the spirit of liberty here. The single question then is, whether you consider Boston as now suffering in the common cause, and sensibly feel and resent the injury and affront offered to here If you do (and we cannot believe otherwise), may we not from your approbation of our former conduct in defense of American liberty, rely on your suspending your trade with Great Britain at least, which it is acknowledged, will be a great but necessary sacrifice to the cause of liberty and will effectually defeat the design of this act of revenge. If this should be done, you will please to consider it will be, though a voluntary suffering, greatly short of what we are called to endure under the immediate hand of tyranny. We desire your answer by the bearer; and after assuring you that, not in the least intimidated by this inhumane treatment, we are still determined to maintain to the utmost of our abilities the rights of America, we are, gentlemen, Your friends and fellow countrymen. Cushing, Harry Alonzo, ed. The Writings of Samuel Adams. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904–08.

{ 5. Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress (October 14, 1774) The First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in September 1774, when delegates from 12 colonies assembled to discuss the Coercive Acts passed by Parliament. The establishment of the Congress set an important precedent in the process of American independence, for the Congress declared that while Parliament had a right to regulate trade, it should not pass laws concerning the American colonies without the consent of the colonists themselves.

Whereas, since the close of the last war, the British parliament, claiming a power, of right, to bind the people of America by statutes in all cases whatsoever, hath, in some acts, expressly imposed taxes on them, and in others, under various presences, but in fact for the purpose of raising a revenue, hath imposed rates and duties payable in these colonies, established a board of commissioners, with unconstitutional powers, and extended the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty, not only for collecting the said duties, but for the trial of causes merely arising within the body of a county: And whereas, in consequence of other statutes, judges, who before held only estates at will in their offices, have been made dependant on the crown alone for their salaries, and standing armies kept in times of peace: And whereas it has lately been resolved in parliament, that by force of a statute, made in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, colonists may be transported to England, and tried there upon accusations for treasons and misprisions, or concealments of treasons

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committed in the colonies, and by a late statute, such trials have been directed in cases therein mentioned: And whereas, in the last session of parliament, three statutes were made; one entitled, “An act to discontinue, in such manner and for such time as are therein mentioned, the landing and discharging, lading, or shipping of goods, wares and merchandise, at the town, and within the harbour of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts-Bay in New England;” another entitled, “An act for the better regulating the government of the province of Massachusetts-Bay in New England;” and another entitled, “An act for the impartial administration of justice, in the cases of persons questioned for any act done by them in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of the Massachusetts-Bay in New England;” and another statute was then made, “for making more effectual provision for the government of the province of Quebec, etc.” All which statutes are impolitic, unjust, and cruel, as well as unconstitutional, and most dangerous and destructive of American rights: And whereas, assemblies have been frequently dissolved, contrary to the rights of the people, when they attempted to deliberate on grievances; and their dutiful, humble, loyal, and reasonable petitions to the crown for redress, have been repeatedly treated with contempt, by his Majesty’s ministers of state: The good people of the several colonies of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts-Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, NorthCarolina and South-Carolina, justly alarmed at these arbitrary proceedings of parliament and administration, have severally elected, constituted, and appointed deputies to meet, and sit in general Congress, in the city of Philadelphia, in order to obtain such establishment, as that their religion, laws, and liberties, may not be subverted: Whereupon the deputies so appointed being now assembled, in a full and free representation of these colonies, taking into their most serious consideration, the best means of attaining the ends aforesaid, do, in the first place, as Englishmen, their ancestors in like cases have usually done, for asserting and vindicating their rights and liberties, DECLARE, That the inhabitants of the English colonies in North-America, by the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English constitution, and the several charters or compacts, have the following RIGHTS: Resolved, N.C.D. 1. That they are entitled to life, liberty and property: and they have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent. Resolved, N.C.D. 2. That our ancestors, who first settled these colonies, were at the time of their emigration from the mother country, entitled to all the rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural- born subjects, within the realm of England. Resolved, N.C.D. 3. That by such emigration they by no means forfeited, surrendered, or lost any of those rights, but that they were, and their descendants now are, entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of all such of them, as their local and other circumstances enable them to exercise and enjoy. Resolved, 4. That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council: and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances, cannot properly be represented in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and

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exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed: But, from the necessity of the case, and a regard to the mutual interest of both countries, we cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British parliament, as are bonfide, restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefits of its respective members; excluding every idea of taxation internal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects, in America, without their consent. Resolved, N.C.D. 5. That the respective colonies are entitled to the common law of England, and more especially to the great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage, according to the course of that law. Resolved, N.C.D. 6. That they are entitled to the benefit of such of the English statutes, as existed at the time of their colonization; and which they have, by experience, respectively found to be applicable to their several local and other circumstances. Resolved, N.C.D. 7. That these, his Majesty’s colonies, are likewise entitled to all the immunities and privileges granted and confirmed to them by royal charters, or secured by their several codes of provincial laws. Resolved, N.C.D. 8. That they have a right peaceably to assemble, consider of their grievances, and petition the king; and that all prosecutions, prohibitory proclamations, and commitments for the same, are illegal. Resolved, N.C.D. 9. That the keeping a standing army in these colonies, in times of peace, without the consent of the legislature of that colony, in which such army is kept, is against law. Resolved, N.C.D. 10. It is indispensably necessary to good government, and rendered essential by the English constitution, that the constituent branches of the legislature be independent of each other; that, therefore, the exercise of legislative power in several colonies, by a council appointed, during pleasure, by the crown, is unconstitutional, dangerous and destructive to the freedom of American legislation. All and each of which the aforesaid deputies, in behalf of themselves, and their constituents, do claim, demand, and insist on, as their indubitable rights and liberties, which cannot be legally taken from them, altered or abridged by any power whatever, without their own consent, by their representatives in their several provincial legislature. In the course of our inquiry, we find many infringements and violations of the foregoing rights, which, from an ardent desire, that harmony and mutual intercourse of affection and interest may be restored, we pass over for the present, and proceed to state such acts and measures as have been adopted since the last war, which demonstrate a system formed to enslave America. Resolved, N.C.D. That the following acts of parliament are infringements and violations of the rights of the colonists; and that the repeal of them is essentially necessary, in order to restore harmony between Great Britain and the American colonies, viz. The several acts of Geo. III. ch. 15, and ch. 34.-5 Geo. III. ch.25.-6 Geo. ch. 52.-7 Geo. III. ch. 41 and ch. 46.-8 Geo. III. ch. 22. which impose duties for the purpose of raising a revenue in America, extend the power of the admiralty courts beyond their

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ancient limits, deprive the American subject of trial by jury, authorize the judges certificate to indemnify the prosecutor from damages, that he might otherwise be liable to, requiring oppressive security from a claimant of ships and goods seized, before he shall be allowed to defend his property, and are subversive of American rights. Also 12 Geo. III. ch. 24, intituled, “An act for the better securing his majesty’s dockyards, magazines, ships, ammunition, and stores,” which declares a new offence in America, and deprives the American subject of a constitutional trial by jury of the vicinage, by authorizing the trial of any person, charged with the committing any offence described in the said act, out of the realm, to be indicted and tried for the same in any shire or county within the realm. Also the three acts passed in the last session of parliament, for stopping the port and blocking up the harbour of Boston, for altering the charter and government of Massachusetts-Bay, and that which is entitled, “An act for the better administration of justice, etc.” Also the act passed in the same session for establishing the Roman Catholic religion, in the province of Quebec, abolishing the equitable system of English laws, and erecting a tyranny there, to the great danger (from so total a dissimilarity of religion, law and government) of the neighboring British colonies, by the assistance of whose blood and treasure the said country was conquered from France. Also the act passed in the same session, for the better providing suitable quarters for officers and soldiers in his majesty’s service, in North-America. Also, that the keeping a standing army in several of these colonies, in time of peace, without the consent of the legislature of that colony, in which such army is kept, is against law. To these grievous acts and measures, Americans cannot submit, but in hopes their fellow subjects in Great Britain will, on a revision of them, restore us to that state, in which both countries found happiness and prosperity, we have for the present, only resolved to pursue the following peaceable measures: 1. To enter into a non-importation, non-consumption, and non-exportation agreement or association. 2. To prepare an address to the people of Great-Britain, and a memorial to the inhabitants of British America: and 3. To prepare a loyal address to his majesty, agreeable to resolutions already entered into. Tansill, Charles C., ed. Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the American States. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1927.

{ 6. Articles of Confederation (March 1, 1781) The Articles of Confederation established the first proper government of the United States. The Second Continental Congress approved the Articles in November 1777, but full ratification by all 13 states did not occur until March 1787.

Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut,

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New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. 1 March 1781 I. The Stile of this Confederacy shall be “The United States of America”. II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled. III. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever. IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any State, to any other State, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any State, on the property of the United States, or either of them. If any person guilty of, or charged with, treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor in any State, shall flee from justice, and be found in any of the United States, he shall, upon demand of the Governor or executive power of the State from which he fled, be delivered up and removed to the State having jurisdiction of his offense. Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these States to the records, acts, and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other State. V. For the most convenient management of the general interests of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the legislatures of each State shall direct, to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November, in every year, with a power reserved to each State to recall its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others in their stead for the remainder of the year.

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No State shall be represented in Congress by less than two, nor more than seven members; and no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years; nor shall any person, being a delegate, be capable of holding any office under the United States, for which he, or another for his benefit, receives any salary, fees or emolument of any kind. Each State shall maintain its own delegates in a meeting of the States, and while they act as members of the committee of the States. In determining questions in the United States in Congress assembled, each State shall have one vote. Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Congress, and the members of Congress shall be protected in their persons from arrests or imprisonments, during the time of their going to and from, and attendence on Congress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. VI. No State, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any embassy from, or enter into any conference, agreement, alliance or treaty with any King, Prince or State; nor shall any person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States, or any of them, accept any present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatever from any King, Prince or foreign State; nor shall the United States in Congress assembled, or any of them, grant any title of nobility. No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confederation or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how long it shall continue. No State shall lay any imposts or duties, which may interfere with any stipulations in treaties, entered into by the United States in Congress assembled, with any King, Prince or State, in pursuance of any treaties already proposed by Congress, to the courts of France and Spain. No vessel of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any State, except such number only, as shall be deemed necessary by the United States in Congress assembled, for the defense of such State, or its trade; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any State in time of peace, except such number only, as in the judgement of the United States in Congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defense of such State; but every State shall always keep up a well-regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of filed pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage. No State shall engage in any war without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, unless such State be actually invaded by enemies, or shall have received certain advice of a resolution being formed by some nation of Indians to invade such State, and the danger is so imminent as not to admit of a delay till the United States in Congress assembled can be consulted; nor shall any State grant commissions to any ships or vessels of war, nor letters of marque or reprisal, except it be after a declaration of war by the United States in Congress assembled, and then

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only against the Kingdom or State and the subjects thereof, against which war has been so declared, and under such regulations as shall be established by the United States in Congress assembled, unless such State be infested by pirates, in which case vessels of war may be fitted out for that occasion, and kept so long as the danger shall continue, or until the United States in Congress assembled shall determine otherwise. VII. When land forces are raised by any State for the common defense, all officers of or under the rank of colonel, shall be appointed by the legislature of each State respectively, by whom such forces shall be raised, or in such manner as such State shall direct, and all vacancies shall be filled up by the State which first made the appointment. VIII. All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States in proportion to the value of all land within each State, granted or surveyed for any person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the United States in Congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint. The taxes for paying that proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the several States within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled. IX. The United States in Congress assembled, shall have the sole and exclusive right and power of determining on peace and war, except in the cases mentioned in the sixth article—of sending and receiving ambassadors—entering into treaties and alliances, provided that no treaty of commerce shall be made whereby the legislative power of the respective States shall be restrained from imposing such imposts and duties on foreigners, as their own people are subjected to, or from prohibiting the exportation or importation of any species of goods or commodities whatsoever—of establishing rules for deciding in all cases, what captures on land or water shall be legal, and in what manner prizes taken by land or naval forces in the service of the United States shall be divided or appropriated—of granting letters of marque and reprisal in times of peace—appointing courts for the trial of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and establishing courts for receiving and determining finally appeals in all cases of captures, provided that no member of Congress shall be appointed a judge of any of the said courts. The United States in Congress assembled shall also be the last resort on appeal in all disputes and differences now subsisting or that hereafter may arise between two or more States concerning boundary, jurisdiction or any other causes whatever; which authority shall always be exercised in the manner following. Whenever the legislative or executive authority or lawful agent of any State in controversy with

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another shall present a petition to Congress stating the matter in question and praying for a hearing, notice thereof shall be given by order of Congress to the legislative or executive authority of the other State in controversy, and a day assigned for the appearance of the parties by their lawful agents, who shall then be directed to appoint by joint consent, commissioners or judges to constitute a court for hearing and determining the matter in question: but if they cannot agree, Congress shall name three persons out of each of the United States, and from the list of such persons each party shall alternately strike out one, the petitioners beginning, until the number shall be reduced to thirteen; and from that number not less than seven, nor more than nine names as Congress shall direct, shall in the presence of Congress be drawn out by lot, and the persons whose names shall be so drawn or any five of them, shall be commissioners or judges, to hear and finally determine the controversy, so always as a major part of the judges who shall hear the cause shall agree in the determination: and if either party shall neglect to attend at the day appointed, without showing reasons, which Congress shall judge sufficient, or being present shall refuse to strike, the Congress shall proceed to nominate three persons out of each State, and the secretary of Congress shall strike in behalf of such party absent or refusing; and the judgement and sentence of the court to be appointed, in the manner before prescribed, shall be final and conclusive; and if any of the parties shall refuse to submit to the authority of such court, or to appear or defend their claim or cause, the court shall nevertheless proceed to pronounce sentence, or judgement, which shall in like manner be final and decisive, the judgement or sentence and other proceedings being in either case transmitted to Congress, and lodged among the acts of Congress for the security of the parties concerned: provided that every commissioner, before he sits in judgement, shall take an oath to be administered by one of the judges of the supreme or superior court of the State, where the cause shall be tried, ‘well and truly to hear and determine the matter in question, according to the best of his judgement, without favor, affection or hope of reward’: provided also, that no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States. All controversies concerning the private right of soil claimed under different grants of two or more States, whose jurisdictions as they may respect such lands, and the States which passed such grants are adjusted, the said grants or either of them being at the same time claimed to have originated antecedent to such settlement of jurisdiction, shall on the petition of either party to the Congress of the United States, be finally determined as near as may be in the same manner as is before prescribed for deciding disputes respecting territorial jurisdiction between different States. The United States in Congress assembled shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective States—fixing the standards of weights and measures throughout the United States—regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the States, provided that the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated—establishing or regulating post offices from one State to another, throughout all the United States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to defray the expenses of the said office—appointing all officers of the land forces, in the service of the United States, excepting regimental officers—appointing all the officers of the naval forces, and commissioning all officers whatever in the service

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of the United States—making rules for the government and regulation of the said land and naval forces, and directing their operations. The United States in Congress assembled shall have authority to appoint a committee, to sit in the recess of Congress, to be denominated ‘A Committee of the States’, and to consist of one delegate from each State; and to appoint such other committees and civil officers as may be necessary for managing the general affairs of the United States under their direction—to appoint one of their members to preside, provided that no person be allowed to serve in the office of president more than one year in any term of three years; to ascertain the necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the United States, and to appropriate and apply the same for defraying the public expenses—to borrow money, or emit bills on the credit of the United States, transmitting every half-year to the respective States an account of the sums of money so borrowed or emitted—to build and equip a navy— to agree upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from each State for its quota, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such State; which requisition shall be binding, and thereupon the legislature of each State shall appoint the regimental officers, raise the men and cloath, arm and equip them in a solid-like manner, at the expense of the United States; and the officers and men so cloathed, armed and equipped shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed on by the United States in Congress assembled. But if the United States in Congress assembled shall, on consideration of circumstances judge proper that any State should not raise men, or should raise a smaller number of men than the quota thereof, such extra number shall be raised, officered, cloathed, armed and equipped in the same manner as the quota of each State, unless the legislature of such State shall judge that such extra number cannot be safely spread out in the same, in which case they shall raise, officer, cloath, arm and equip as many of such extra number as they judge can be safely spared. And the officers and men so cloathed, armed, and equipped, shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed on by the United States in Congress assembled. The United States in Congress assembled shall never engage in a war, nor grant letters of marque or reprisal in time of peace, nor enter into any treaties or alliances, nor coin money, nor regulate the value thereof, nor ascertain the sums and expenses necessary for the defense and welfare of the United States, or any of them, nor emit bills, nor borrow money on the credit of the United States, nor appropriate money, nor agree upon the number of vessels of war, to be built or purchased, or the number of land or sea forces to be raised, nor appoint a commander in chief of the army or navy, unless nine States assent to the same: nor shall a question on any other point, except for adjourning from day to day be determined, unless by the votes of the majority of the United States in Congress assembled. The Congress of the United States shall have power to adjourn to any time within the year, and to any place within the United States, so that no period of adjournment be for a longer duration than the space of six months, and shall publish the journal of their proceedings monthly, except such parts thereof relating to treaties, alliances or military operations, as in their judgement require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the delegates of each State on any question shall be entered on the journal, when it is desired by any delegates of a State, or any of them, at his or their request shall be furnished with a transcript of the said journal, except such parts as are above excepted, to lay before the legislatures of the several States.

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X. The Committee of the States, or any nine of them, shall be authorized to execute, in the recess of Congress, such of the powers of Congress as the United States in Congress assembled, by the consent of the nine States, shall from time to time think expedient to vest them with; provided that no power be delegated to the said Committee, for the exercise of which, by the Articles of Confederation, the voice of nine States in the Congress of the United States assembled be requisite. XI. Canada acceding to this confederation, and adjoining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States. XII. All bills of credit emitted, monies borrowed, and debts contracted by, or under the authority of Congress, before the assembling of the United States, in pursuance of the present confederation, shall be deemed and considered as a charge against the United States, for payment and satisfaction whereof the said United States, and the public faith are hereby solemnly pledged. XIII. Every State shall abide by the determination of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State. And Whereas it hath pleased the Great Governor of the World to incline the hearts of the legislatures we respectively represent in Congress, to approve of, and to authorize us to ratify the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union. Know Ye that we the undersigned delegates, by virtue of the power and authority to us given for that purpose, do by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained: And we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determinations of the United States in Congress assembled, on all questions, which by the said Confederation are submitted to them. And that the Articles thereof shall be inviolably observed by the States we respectively represent, and that the Union shall be perpetual. In Witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands in Congress. Done at Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania the ninth day of July in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-Eight, and in the Third Year of the independence of America.

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Tansill, Charles C., ed. Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the American States. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1927.

{ 7. Tennis Court Oath (June 20, 1789) The deputies of the French Third Estate, upon finding themselves locked out of their usual meeting hall, moved to the royal tennis court at Versailles and declared that thereafter legislative authority would rest with them rather than with the king, thus setting the stage for the establishment of the National Assembly.

The National Assembly, considering that it has been summoned to determine the constitution of the kingdom, to effect the regeneration of public order, and to maintain the true principles of the monarchy; that nothing can prevent it from continuing its deliberations in whatever place it may be forced to establish itself, and lastly, that whenever its members meet together, there is the National Assembly. Decrees that all the members of this assembly shall immediately take a solemn oath never to separate, and to reassemble whenever circumstances shall require, until the constitution of the kingdom shall be established and consolidated upon firm foundations; and that, the said oath being taken, all members and each of them individually shall ratify by their signatures this steadfast resolution. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

{ 8. Fourth of August Decrees (August 4–5, 1789) These decrees established various rights for the French population and abolished the centuries-old institution of feudalism. 1. The National Assembly completely abolishes the feudal regime. It decrees that, among the rights and dues, both feudal and censuel, all those originating in real or personal serfdom, personal servitude, and those which represent them, are abolished, without indemnification; all others are declared redeemable, and that the price and mode of the redemption shall be fixed by the National Assembly. Those of the said dues which are not extinguished by this decree shall, nevertheless, continue to be collected until indemnification takes place. 2. The exclusive right to maintain pigeon-houses and dove-cotes is abolished; the pigeons shall be confined during the seasons fixed by the communities; and during that time, they shall be regarded as game, and every one shall have the right to kill them upon his hand. 3. The exclusive right to hunt and to maintain unenclosed warrens is likewise abolished; and every land-owner shall have the right to kill or to have destroyed upon his own land only, all kinds of game, observing, however, such police regulations as may be established with a view to the safety of the public.

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All captaineries, royal included, and all hunting reserves, under whatever denominations, are likewise abolished; and provision shall be made, in a manner compatible with the respect due to property and liberty, for maintaining the personal pleasures of the king. The president of the assembly shall be commissioned to ask for the king the recall of those sent to the galleys or exiled simply for violations of the hunting regulations, as well as for the release of those at present imprisoned for offences of this kind, and the dismissal of such cases as are now pending. 4. All manorial courts are suppressed without indemnification; nevertheless, the magistrates of these courts shall continue to perform their functions until such time as the National Assembly shall provide for the establishment of a new judicial system. 5. Tithes of every description and the dues which have been substituted for them, under whatever denomination they are known or collected, even when compounded for, possessed by secular or regular congregations, by holders of benefices, members of corporations, including the Order of Malta and other religious and military orders, as well as those impropriated to lay persons and those substituted for the portion congruë, are abolished, on condition, however, that some other method be devised to provide for the expenses of divine worship, the support of the officiating clergy, the relief of the poor, repairs and rebuilding of churches and parsonages, and for all establishments, seminaries, schools, academies, asylums, communities and other institutions, for the maintenance of which they are actually devoted. And moreover, until such provision shall be made and the former possessors shall enter upon the enjoyment of an income on the new system, the National Assembly decrees that the said tithes shall continue to be collected according to law and in the customary manner. Other tithes of whatever nature they may be, shall be redeemable in such manner as the Assembly shall determine. Until such regulation shall be issued, the National Assembly decrees that these, too, shall continue to be collected. 6. All perpetual ground rents, payable either in money or in kind, of whatever nature they may be, whatever their origin, and to whomsoever they may be due, as to members of corporations, domanial apanagists, or to the Order of Malta, shall be redeemable; champarts, of every kind and under every denomination, shall likewise be redeemable at a rate fixed by the assembly. No due shall in the future be created which is not redeemable. 7. The sale of judicial and municipal offices shall be suppressed forthwith. Justice shall be dispensed gratis; nevertheless, the magistrates at present holding such offices shall continue to exercise their functions and to receive their emoluments until the assembly shall have made provision for indemnifying them. 8. The fees of the country curés are abolished; and shall be discontinued as soon as provision shall be made for increasing the minimum salary (portion congrué) for priests and for the payment of the curates; and there shall be a regulation drawn up t determine the status of the priests in the towns. 9. Pecuniary privileges, personal or real, in the payment of taxes are abolished forever. The assessment shall be made upon all the citizens and upon all property, in the same manner and in the same form; and plans shall be considered by which the taxes shall be paid proportionally by all, even for the last six months of the current year. 10. Inasmuch as a national constitution and public liberty are of more advantage to the provinces than the privileges which some of these enjoy, and inasmuch as the surrender of such privileges is essential to the intimate union of all parts of the realm, it is declared that all the peculiar privileges, pecuniary or otherwise, of the provinces, principalities, districts, cantons, cities and communes, are once for all abolished and are absorbed into the law common to all Frenchmen.

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11. All citizens, without distinction of birth, are eligible to any office or dignity, whether ecclesiastical, civil or military; and no profession shall imply any derogation. 12. Hereafter no remittances shall be made for annates or for any other purpose to the court of Rome, the vice-legation at Avignon, or to the nunciature at Lucerne; but the clergy of the diocese shall apply to their bishops for all provisions in regard to benefices and dispensations, which shall be granted gratis, without regard to reservations, expectancies, and monthly divisions, all the churches of France enjoying the same freedom. 13. The rights of deport, of côte-morte, dépouilles, vacat, censaux, Peter’s pence, and other dues of the same kind, under whatever denomination, established in favour of bishops, archdeacons, archpresbyters, chapter, curés primitifs and all others, are abolished, but appropriate provision shall be made for those benefices of archdeacons and archpresbyters which are not sufficiently endowed. 14. Pluralities shall not be permitted hereafter in cases where the revenue from the benefice or benefices held shall exceed the sum of three thousand livres. Nor shall any individual be allowed to enjoy several pensions from benefices, or a pension and a benefice, if the revenue which he already enjoys from such sources exceeds the same sum of three thousand livres. 15. The National Assembly shall consider, in conjunction with the king, the report which is to be submitted to it relating to pensions, favors and salaries, with a view to suppressing all such as are not deserved and reducing those which shall prove excessive; and the amount shall be fixed which the king may in the future disburse for this purpose. 16. The National Assembly decrees that a medal shall be struck in memory of the recent grave and important deliberations for the welfare of France, and that a Te Deum shall be chanted in gratitude in all the parishes and the churches of France. 17. The National Assembly solemnly proclaims the king, Louis XVI, the Restorer of French Liberty. 18. The National Assembly shall present itself in a body before the king, in order to submit to His Majesty the decree which has just been passed, to tender to him the tokens of its most respectful gratitude, and to pray him to permit the Te Deum to be chanted in his chapel, and to be present himself at this service. 19. The National Assembly shall consider, immediately after the constitution, the drawing up of laws necessary for the development of the principles which it has laid down in the present decree which shall be transmitted without delay by the deputies to all the provinces, together with the decree of the tenth of this month, in order that both may be printed, published, announced from the parish pulpits, and posted up wherever it shall be deemed necessary. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

{ 9. Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 26, 1789) In the course of its debates, the French National Assembly established a manifesto that articulated the principles and philosophy of the Revolution. The Declaration of the Rights of Man stated that all citizens were equal under the law, were entitled to freedom of speech and opinion, and possessed the right to liberty and property.

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The representatives of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, unalienable, and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the Social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the objects and purposes of all political institutions and may thus be more respected, and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen: Article I. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good. Article II. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. Article III. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation. Article IV. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law. Article V. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law. Article VI. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents. Article VII. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense. Article VIII. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense. Article IX. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner’s person shall be severely repressed by law. Article X. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law. Article XI. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law. Article XII. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be entrusted.

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Article XIII. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means. Article XIV. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes. Article XV. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration. Article XVI. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all. Article XVII. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

{ 10. Decree on the Church (November 2, 1789) The Decree on the Church declared all ecclesiastical property henceforth at the disposal of the French nation but offered provision for those clergy who continued to perform their religious duties.

The National Assembly decrees, 1st, that all the ecclesiastical estates are at the disposal of the nation, on condition of providing in a suitable manner for the expense of worship, the maintenance of its ministers, and the relief of the poor, under the supervision and following the directions of the provinces; 2d. that in the provisions to be made, in order to provide for the maintenance of the ministers of religion, there can be assured for the endowment of each cure not less than twelve hundred livres per annum, not including the dwelling and the gardens attached. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

{ 11. Decree Abolishing Hereditary Nobility and Titles (June 19, 1790) In the course of a few years, the French Revolution swept away centuries of privilege, including hereditary titles and other trappings of the hitherto entrenched aristocracy and nobility. 1. Hereditary nobility is forever abolished; in consequence the titles of prince, duke, count, marquis, viscount, vidame, baron, knight, messire, écuyer, noble, and all other similar titles, shall neither by taken by anyone whomsoever nor given to anybody.

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2. A citizen may take only the true name of his family; no one may wear liveries nor cause them to be worn, nor have armorial bearings incense shall not be burned in the temples, except in order to honor the divinity, and shall not be offered for any one whomsoever. 3. The titles of monseigneur and messeigneurs shall not be given to any society nor to any person, likewise the titles of excellency, highness, eminence, grace, etc.; nevertheless, no citizen, under pretext of the present decree, shall be permitted to make an attack on the monuments placed in the temples, the charters, titles and other tokens of interest to families or properties, nor the decorations of any public or private place; nevertheless, the execution of the provisions relative to the liveries and the arms placed upon carriages shall not be carried out nor demanded by any one whomsoever before the 14th of July for the citizens living in Paris and before three months for those who inhabit the country. 4. No foreigners are included in the provisions of the present decree; they may preserve in France their liveries and their armorial bearings. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

{ 12. Decree for Reorganizing the Judicial System (August 16, 1790) In seeking to establish freedom for all before the law and a more equitable system of justice, the French revolutionaries abolished the sale of judicial offices, guaranteed trial by jury, and decreed that all such proceedings must be held in public.

TITLE I. OF THE ARBITERS 1. Arbitration being the most reasonable means for the termination of disputes between citizens, the legislature shall not make any provision which may tend to diminish either the popularity or the efficiency of the compromise.

TITLE II. OF THE JUDGES IN GENERAL 1. Justice shall be rendered in the name of the King. 2. The sale of judicial offices is abolished forever; the judges shall render justice gratuitously and shall be salaried by the state. 3. The judges shall be elected by the justiciable. 4. They shall be elected for six years; at the expiration of this term a new election shall take place, in which the same judges may be re-elected. ... 12. They shall not make regulations, but they shall have recourse to the legislative body, whenever they think necessary, either to interpret a law or to make a new one. 13. The judicial functions are distinct and shall always remain separate from the administrative functions. The judges, under penalty of forfeiture, shall not disturb in any manner whatsoever the operations of the administrative bodies, nor cite before them the administrators on account of their function. 14. In every civil or criminal matter, the pleadings, testimony, and decisions shall be public, and every citizen shall have the right to defend his own case, either verbally or in writing.

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15. Trial by jury shall occur in criminal matters; the examination shall be made publicly and shall have the publicity which shall be determined. 16. A privilege in matters of jurisdiction is abolished; all citizens, without distinction, shall plead in the same form and before the same judges in the same cases. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

{ 13. Decree for the Maintenance of Public Order (June 21, 1791) Fear of the mob motivated successive French revolutionary governments to issue decrees such as the one reproduced below, which called for public calm at times of crisis.

The National Assembly declares to the citizens of Paris and to all the inhabitants of the kingdom, that the same firmness which it has exhibited in the midst of all the difficulties that have attended its labours will control its deliberations upon the occasion of carrying away the king and the royal family. It notifies all citizens that the maintenance of the constitution and the safety of the empire have never more imperatively demanded good order and public tranquillity; that the National Assembly has taken the most energetic measures to follow the traces of those who have made themselves guilty of carrying away the king and the royal family; that, without interrupting its sittings, it will employ every means in order that the public interest may not suffer from that event; that all citizens ought to reply entirely upon it for the arrangements which the safety of the kingdom my demand; and that everything which may excite trouble, alarm individuals, or menace property, would be all the more culpable since thereby liberty and the constitution might be compromised. It orders that the citizens of Paris hold themselves in readiness to act for the maintenance of public order and the defense of the fatherland, in accordance with the orders which will be given them in conformity with the decrees of the National Assembly. It orders the department administrators and the municipal officers to cause the present decree to be promulgated immediately and to look with care to the public tranquillity. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

{ 14. Decree Upon the Oath of Allegiance (June 22, 1791) Amid growing fear of invasion by the royalist armies beyond the Rhine, the French revolutionary government called upon its troops to swear to defend their homeland from the forces of counterrevolution.

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The National Assembly decrees as follows: 1. That the oath ordered on 11 and 13 June, the present month, shall be taken in the following form: “I swear to employ the arms placed in my hands for the defence of the fatherland and to maintain against all its enemies within and without the constitution decreed by the National Assembly; to perish rather than to suffer the invasion of French territory by foreign troops, and to obey only the orders which shall be given in consequence of the decrees of the National Assembly.” 2. That commissioners, taken from within the body of the assembly, shall be sent into the frontier departments in order to receive there the above-mentioned oath, a record of which shall be drawn up, and to concert there with the administrative bodies and the commanders of the troops and measures which they think suitable for the maintenance of public order and the security of the state, and to make for that purpose all the necessary requisitions. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

{ 15. The King’s Acceptance of the Constitution (September 13, 1791) By accepting the constitution of 1791, King Louis XVI formally acknowledged the existence of constraints upon his rule.

Gentlemen: I have examined attentively the constitutional act which you have presented to me for my acceptance; I accept it and shall cause it to be executed. This declaration might have sufficed at another time; today I owe it to the interests of the nation, I owe it to myself, to make known my reasons. Let everyone recall the moment at which I went away from Paris: the constitution was on the point of completion; nevertheless the authority of the laws seemed to become enfeebled every day. Opinion, far from becoming fixed, was subdividing into a multitude of parties. The most extreme opinions alone seemed to obtain favour, the license of the press was at the highest pitch, no authority was respected. I could no longer recognize the mark of the general will in the laws which I saw everywhere without force and without execution. At that time, I am bound to declare, if you had presented the constitution to me, I should not have believed that the interest of the people (the constant and sole rule of my conduct) would permit me to accept it. I ha only one feeling, I formed only one project: I wished to isolate myself from all he parties and to know what was truly the will of the nation. The considerations which were controlling me no longer remain today; since then the inconveniences and evils of which I was complaining have impressed you as they did me; you have manifested a desire to re-establish order, you have directed your attention to the lack of discipline in the army, you have recognized the necessity of repressing the abuses of the press. The revision of your work has put in the

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number of the regulative laws several articles which had been presented to me as constitutional. You have established legal forms for the revision of those which you have placed in the constitution. Finally, the opinions of the people is to me no longer doubtful; I have seen it manifested both in their adhesion to your work and their attachment to the maintenance of the monarchical government. I accept ten the constitution. I take the engagement to maintain it within, to defend it against attacks from without, and to cause it to be executed by all the means which it places in my power. I declare that, instructed by the adhesion which the great majority of the people give to the constitution, I renounce the co-operation which I had claimed in that work; and that, being responsible only to the nation, no other, when I renounce it, has the right to complain thereof. I should be lacking in sincerity, however, if I said that I perceived in the means of execution an administration, all the energy which may be necessary in order to give motion to and to preserve unity in all parts of so vast an empire; but since opinions at present at divided upon these matters, I consent that experience alone remain judge therein. When I shall have loyalty caused to operate all the means which have been left to me, no reproach can be aimed at me, and the nation, whose interests alone ought to serve as rule, will explain itself by the means which the constitution has reserved to it. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

{ 16. Brunswick Manifesto (July 25, 1792) While the manifesto issued by the Duke of Brunswick, the allied commander-inchief, was intended to protect Louis XVI and his family from harm at the hands of the French populace, it proved spectacularly counterproductive, for it turned public opinion against the notion of restoring Bourbon rule in France and galvanized resistance to the invading Austro-Prussian army.

Their Majesties, the Emperor and the King of Prussia, having committed to me the command of the united armies which they have causes to assemble on the frontiers of France, I have wished to announced to the inhabitants of this kingdom, the motives have determined the measures of the two sovereigns and the intentions which guide them. After having arbitrarily suppressed the rights and possessions of the German princes in Alsace and Lorraine, disturbed and overthrown good order and legitimate government in the interior exercised against the sacred person of the king and his august family outrages and brutalities which are still carried on and renewed day by day those who have usurped the reins of the administration have at last completed their work by declaring an unjust war against His Majesty the Emperor and by attacking his provinces situated in the Low Countries. Some of the possessions of the Germanic Empire have been enveloped in this oppression, and several others have only escaped the same danger by yielding to the imperious threats of the dominant party and of its emissaries.

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His Majesty the King of Prussia, united with his Imperial Majesty by the bonds of a strict defensive alliance and himself the preponderant member of the Germanic body, could not excuse himself from marching to the help of his ally and his costate; and it is under this double relationship that he takes up the defense of this monarch and of Germany. To these great interests is added another aim equally important and very dear to the hearts of the two sovereigns; it is to put an end to the anarchy in the interior of France, to stop the attacks carried on against the throne and the altar, to re-establish the legal power, to restore to the king the security and liberty of which he is deprived, and to put him in a position to exercise the legitimate authority which is his due. Convinced that the sound part of the French nation abhors the excesses of a faction which dominates it, and that the greatest number of the inhabitants look forward with impatience to the moment of relief to declare themselves openly against the odious enterprises of their oppressors, His Majesty the Emperor and His Majesty the King of Prussia, call upon them and invite them to return without delay to the ways of reason, justice, order and peace. It is in accordance with these views, that I, the undersigned, the General, commanding in chief the two armies, declare: 1. That, drawn into the present war by irresistible circumstances, the two allied courts propose to themselves no other aim than the welfare of France and have no intention of enriching themselves by conquests; 2. That they do not intend to meddle with the internal government of France, but that they merely wish to deliver the king, the queen and the royal family from their captivity, and to procure for His Most Christian Majesty the necessary security that he may make without danger or hindrance the conventions which he shall judge suitable and may work for the welfare of his subjects, according to his promises and as far as it shall depend on him; 3. That the combined armies will protect the towns, boroughs and villages and the persons and goods of those who shall submit to the king and who shall co-operate in the immediate re-establishment of order and of the police in the whole of France. 4. That the national guard will be called upon to watch provisionally over the peace of the towns and country districts, the security of the persons and goods of all Frenchmen, until the arrival of the troops of their Imperial and Royal Majesties, or until otherwise ordered, under pain of being personally responsible; that on the contrary, those of the national guard who shall fight against the troops of the two allied courts, an who shall be taken with arms in their hands, will be treated as enemies and punished as rebels to their king and as disturbers of the public peace; 5. That the generals, officers, under officers and troops of the French line are likewise summoned to return to their former fidelity and to submit themselves at once to the king, their legitimate sovereign; 6. That the members of the departments, of the districts and municipalities shall likewise answer with their heads and their goods for all offences. Fires, murders, pillaging, and acts of violence, which they shall allow to be committed, or which they have not manifestly exerted themselves to prevent within their territory; that they shall likewise be required to continue their functions provisionally, until His Most Christian Majesty, being once more at liberty, may have provided for them subsequently or until it shall have been otherwise ordained in his name in the meantime; 7. That the inhabitants of the towns, boroughs and villages who may dare to defend themselves against the troops of their Imperial and Royal Majesties and fire on them either in the open country, or through windows, doors and openings of their houses, shall be punished immediately according to the strictness of the law of war, and their houses

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destroyed or burned. On the contrary, all the inhabitants of the said towns, boroughs and villages, who shall submit to their king, opening their doors to the troops of their Majesties, shall at once be placed under their immediate protection; their persons, their property, and their effects shall be under the protection of the laws, and the general security of all and each of them shall be provided for; 8. The city of Paris and all its inhabitants without distinction shall be required to submit at once and without delay to the king, to put tat prince in full and perfect liberty, and to assure him as well as the other royal personages the inviolability and respect which the law of nations and men requires of subjects toward their sovereigns; their Imperial and Royal Majesties declare personally responsible with their lives for all events, to be tried by military law and without hope of pardon, all the members of the National Assembly, of the department, district, municipality and national guard of Paris, the justices of the peace and all others that shall be concerned; their said Majesties also declare on their honor and on their word as Emperor and King, that if the château of the Tuileries be entered by force or attacked, if the least violence or outrage be offered to their Majesties, the king, queen and royal family, if their preservation and their liberty be not immediately provided for, they will exact an exemplary and ever-memorable vengeance, by delivering the city of Paris over to a military execution and to complete ruin, and the rebels guilty of these outrages to the punishments they shall have deserved. Their Imperial and Royal Majesties, on the contrary, promise the inhabitants of Paris to employ their good offices with his Most Christian Majesty to obtain pardon for their misdeeds and errors, and to take the most vigorous measures to assure their lives and property, if they obey promptly and exactly all the above mentioned order.

Finally, their Majesties being able to recognize as laws in France only those which shall emanate from the king, in the enjoyment of a perfect liberty, protest beforehand against the authenticity of any declarations which may be made in the name of His Most Christian Majesty, so long as his sacred person, that of the queen, and those of the royal family shall not be really in security, for the effecting of which they Imperial and Royal Majesties beg His Most Christian Majesty to appoint the city in his kingdom nearest the frontiers, to which he would prefer to retire with the queen and his family under good and sufficient escort, which will be furnished him for this purpose, so that his most Christian Majesty may in all security summon such ministers and councillors as he may see fit, hold such meeting as he deems best, provide for the re-establishment of good order and regulate the administration of his kingdom. Finally, I declare and bind myself, moreover, in my own private name and in my above capacity, to cause the troops entrusted to my command to observe a good and exact discipline, promising to treat with kindness and moderation all well intentioned subjects who show themselves peaceful and submissive, and only to use force against those who shall make themselves guilty of resistance and ill-will. It is for these reasons that I call upon and exhort all the inhabitants of the kingdom in the strongest and most urgent manner not to oppose the march and the operations of the troops which I command, but rather to grant them everywhere a free passage and with every good will to aid and assist as circumstances shall require. Charles-William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Lunebourg Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

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17. Decree for Suspending the King (August 10, 1792) By this decree, France formally became a republic, placed the king under arrest, and set the stage for an increasingly radical turn in the fortunes of the French Revolution.

The National Assembly, considering that the dangers of the fatherland have reached their heights; That it is for the legislative body the most sacred of duties to employ all means to save it; That it is impossible to find efficacious ones, unless they shall occupy themselves with removing the source of its evils; Considering that these evils spring principally from the misgivings which the conduct of the head of the executive power has inspired, in a war undertaken in his name against the constitution and the national independence; That these misgivings have provoked from different parts of the kingdom a desire tending to the revocation of the authority delegated to Louis XVI; Considering, nevertheless, that the legislative body ought not to wish to aggrandize itself by any usurpation; That in the extraordinary circumstances wherein events unprovided for by any of the laws have placed it, it cannot reconcile what it owes, in its unshaken fidelity to the constitution, with the firm resolve to be buried under the ruins of the temple of liberty rather than to permit it to perish, except by recurring to the sovereignty of the people and by taking at the same time the precautions which are indispensable, in order that this recourse may not be rendered illusory by treasons; decrees as follows: 1. The French people are invited to form a national convention; the extraordinary commission shall present tomorrow a proposal to indicate the method and the time of this convention. 2. The head of the executive power is provisionally suspended from his functions until the national convention has pronounced upon the measures which it believes ought to be adopted in order to assure the sovereignty of the people and the reign of liberty and equality. 3. The extraordinary commission shall present within a day a method for organizing a new ministry; the ministers actually in service shall continue provisionally the exercise of their functions. 4. The extraordinary commission shall present, likewise, within the day, a proposal for a decree upon the selection of a governor for the prince royal. 5. The payment of the civil list shall continue suspended until the decision of the national convention. The extraordinary commission shall present, without twenty-four hours, a proposal for a decree upon the stipend to be granted to the king during the suspension. 6. The registers of the civil list shall be deposited in the office of the National Assembly, after having been numbered and attested by two commissioners of the assembly, who shall repair for that purpose to the intendant of the civil list. 7. The king and his family shall reside within the precincts of the legislative body until quiet may be re-established in Paris. 8. The department shall give orders to cause to be prepared for them within the day a lodging at the Luxembourg [Palace], where they shall be put under the custody of the citizens and the law.

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9. Every public functionary, every soldier, under-officer, officer, of whatever grade he may be, and general of an army, who, in these days of alarm shall abandon his post, is declared infamous and traitorous to the fatherland. 10. The department and the municipality of Paris shall cause the present decree to be immediately and solemnly proclaimed. 11. It shall be sent by extraordinary couriers to the eighty-three departments, which shall be required to cause it to reach the municipalities of their jurisdiction within twentyfour hours, in order to be proclaimed with the same solemnity. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

{ 18. Decree for the Levée en Masse (August 23, 1793) In response to the French Republic’s desperate need for manpower on an unprecedented scale, the Convention decreed the levée en masse, or mass conscription, which laid claim to the services of a large section of the population, above all men fit to fight. 1. From this moment until that in which the enemy shall have been driven from the soil of the Republic, all Frenchmen are in permanent requisition for the service of the armies. 2. The young men shall go to battle; the married men shall forge arms and transport provisions; the women shall make tents and clothing and shall serve in the hospitals; the children shall turn old linen into lint; the aged shall betake themselves to the public places in order to arouse the courage of the warriors and preach the hatred of kings and the unity of the Republic. 3. The national buildings shall be converted into barracks, the public places into workshops for arms, the soil of the cellars shall be washed in order to extract therefrom the saltpetre. 4. The arms of the regulation calibre shall be reserved exclusively for those who shall march against the enemy; the service of the interior shall be performed with hunting pieces and side arms. 5. The saddle horses are put in requisition to complete the cavalry corps; the draughthorses, other than those employed in agriculture, shall convey the artillery and the provisions. 6. The Committee of Public Safety is charged to take all the necessary measures to et up without delay an extraordinary manufacture of arms of every sort which corresponds with the ardor and energy of the French people. It is, accordingly, authorized to form all the establishments, factories, workshops and mills which shall be deemed necessary for the carrying on of these works, as well as to put in requisition, within the extent of the Republic, the artists and workingmen who can contribute to their success. For this purpose there shall be put at the disposal of the Minister of War a sum of thirty millions, to be taken out of the four hundred ninety-eight million two hundred thousand livres in assignats which are in reserve in the fund of the three keys. The central establishment of this extraordinary manufacture shall be fixed at Paris. 7. The representatives of the people sent out for the execution of the present law shall have the same authority in their respective districts, acting in concert with the

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Committee of Public Safety; they are invested with the unlimited powers assigned to the representatives of the people and the armies. 8. Nobody can get himself replaced in the service for which he shall have been requisitioned. The public functionaries shall remain at their posts. 9. The levy shall be general. The unmarried citizens and widowers without children, from eighteen to twenty-five years, shall march first; they shall assemble without delay at the head-town of their districts, where they shall practice every day at the manual of arms while awaiting the hour of departure. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

{ 19. Law of Suspects (September 17, 1793) During the course of the Reign of Terror, the Committee of Public Safety grew increasing paranoid, issuing decrees and passing laws that made a mockery of the rights guaranteed under the constitution of 1791. The Law of Suspects is one example of French revolutionary fervor gone awry. 1. Immediately after the publication of the present decree all the suspect-persons who are in the territory of the Republic and who are still at liberty shall be placed under arrest. 2. These are accounted suspect-persons: 1st, those who by their conduct, their connections, their remarks, or their writings show themselves the partisans of tyranny or federalism and the enemies of liberty; 2d, those who cannot, in the manner prescribed by the decree of March 21st last, justify their means of existence and the performance of their civic duties; 3d, those who have been refused certificates of civism; 4th, public functionaries suspended or removed from their functions by the National Convention or its commissioners and not reinstated, especially those who have been or shall be removed in virtue of the decree of August 14th last; 5th, those of the former nobles, all the husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons or daughters, brothers, or sisters, and agent of the émigrés who have not constantly manifested their attachment to the revolution; 6th, those who have emigrated from France in the interval from 1 July 1789, to the publication of the decree of 30 March-8 April 1792, although they may have returned to France within the period fixed by that decree or earlier. 3. The committees of surveillance established according to the decree of 21 March last, or those which have been substituted for them, either by the orders of the representatives of the people sent with the armies and into the departments, or in virtue of special decrees of the National Convention, are charged to prepare, each in its district, the list of suspect-persons, to issue warrants of arrest against them, and to cause seals to be put upon their papers. The commanders of the public force to whom these warrants shall be delivered shall be required to put them into execution immediately, under penalty of removal. 4. The members of the committee without being seven in number and an absolute majority of votes cannot order the arrest of any person. 5. The persons arrested as suspects shall be first conveyed to the jail of the place of their imprisonment: in default of jails, they shall be kept from view in their respective dwellings.

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6. Within eight days following they shall be transferred to the national building, which the administrations of the department, immediately after the receipt of the present decree, shall be required to designate and to cause to be prepared for that purpose. 7. The prisoners can cause to be transferred to these buildings the movables which are of absolute necessity to them; they shall remain there under guard until the peace. 8. The expenses of custody shall be at the charge of the prisoners and shall be divided among them equally; this custody shall be confided preferably to the fathers of families and the parents of the citizens who are upon or shall go to the frontiers. The salary for it is fixed for each man of the guard at the value of a day and a half of labor. 9. The committees of surveillance shall send without delay to the committee of general security of the National Convention the list of the persons whom they shall have caused to be arrested, with the reasons for their arrest and the papers which shall have been seized with them as suspect-persons. 10. The civil and criminal tribunals can, if there is need, cause to be arrested and sent into the above mentioned jails persons accused of offences in respect of whom it may have been declared that there was no ground for accusation, or who may have been acquitted of the accusations brought against them. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

{ 20. Decree Upon Religious Toleration (December 8, 1793; 18 Frimaire, Year II) While the French National Convention attempted to establish a new form of state religion to replace Roman Catholicism, all such measures failed. The following decree guaranteed all citizens the right to express their faith freely. 1. All violence and measures in constraint of liberty of worship are forbidden. 2. The surveillance of the constituted authorities and the action of the public force shall confine themselves in this matter, each or what concerns it, to measures of police and public safety. 3. The National Convention, by preceding provisions, does not mean to derogate in any manner from the laws or precautions of public safety against the refractory or turbulent priests, or against all those who may attempt to take advantage of the pretext of religion to compromise the cause of liberty; no more does it intend to disapprove of what has been done up to this day in virtue of the orders of the representatives of the people, nor to furnish or for diminishing the free text for disturbing patriotism or for diminishing the free scope of the public spirit. The Convention invites all good citizens, in the name of the fatherland, to abstain from all disputes that are theological or foreign to the great interests of the French people, in order to co-operate by all methods in the triumph of the Republic and the ruin of all its enemies. Ministre de l’instruction publique, ed. Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France. Documents de la période révolutionnaire. 28 vols. Paris: Impr. Nationale, 1889.

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About the Editor and Contributors

Editor GREGORY FREMONT-BARNES holds a doctorate in Modern History from the University of Oxford, where he studied under the distinguished military historians Sir Michael Howard, Regius Professor of Modern History, and Robert O’Neill, Chichele Professor of the History of War. After leaving Oxford he lived briefly in London before moving to Japan, where he spent eight years as a university lecturer in European and American history. He is the author of numerous books, including The French Revolutionary Wars; The Peninsular War, 1807-1814; The Fall of the French Empire, 1813-1815; The Boer War, 1899-1902; Trafalgar 1805: Nelson’s Crowning Victory; Nelson’s Sailors; The Wars of the Barbary Pirates: To the Shores of Tripoli, the Rise of the U.S. Navy and Marines; and The Indian Mutiny, 1857-58. He is editor of the three-volume Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, as well as co-editor of the five-volume Encyclopedia of the American Revolutionary War. He lives near Oxford with his wife and two sons. Contributors Joseph Adamczyk Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Robert J. Alderson Georgia Perimeter College Rockdale/Newton Campus Conyers, Georgia Charles Allan East Tennessee State University Johnson City, Tennessee Margaret Cook Andersen University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa Melanie A. Bailey South Dakota State University Brookings, South Dakota

Lee Baker University of Cincinnati Raymond Walters College Cincinnati, Ohio Jakub Basista Institute of History Jagiellonian University Krakow, Poland Natalie Bayer Rice University Houston, Texas Richard Bowler Salisbury University Salisbury, Maryland

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About the Editor and Contributors

Richard Boyd University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison, Wisconsin

James L. Erwin Independent Scholar Des Moines, Iowa

William E. Burns Howard University Washington, DC

Russell Fowler Legal Aid of East Tennessee Chattanooga, Tennessee

Cenap Cakmak Rutgers University–Newark Newark, New Jersey

Gregory Fremont-Barnes Oxford, Oxfordshire, England

James T. Carroll Iona College New Rochelle, New York Roger Chapman Palm Beach Atlantic University Palm Beach, Florida William L. Chew III Vrije Universiteit Brussels Brussels, Belgium Justin Corfield Geelong Grammar School Corio, Victoria, Australia William S. Cormack University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario, Canada Rory T. Cornish Winthrop University Rock Hill, South Carolina Malcolm Crook Keele University Keele, Staffordshire, England Laura Cruz Western Carolina University Cullowhee, North Carolina Michael T. Davis University of Tasmania Burnie, Tasmania, Australia Boris DeWeil University of Northern British Columbia Prince George, British Columbia, Canada H. T. Dickinson University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, Scotland Raymond Anthony van Diemel Cape Town, South Africa Richard M. Edwards University of Wisconsin–Washington County West Bend, Wisconsin

Linda S. Frey University of Montana Missoula, Montana Marsha L. Frey Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas Gene C. Gerard Tarrant County College Arlington, Texas Michael F. Gretz New School New York, New York Neil M. Heyman San Diego State University San Diego, California Carl Cavanagh Hodge Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences University of British Columbia Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada Arthur Holst Widener University Chester, Pennsylvania James Inglis University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, Scotland Nicholas Katers University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Milwaukee, Wisconsin Roy Koepp PhD candidate, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Lincoln, Nebraska Christian Kuhn Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamburg, Germany Christine LaHue Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio

About the Editor and Contributors

Tom Lansford University of Mississippi University, Mississippi Robert Lee Gilder Lehrman Collection New York Historical Society New York, New York

Isabel Perez-Molina Centre d’Estudis Duoda University of Barcelona Barcelona, Spain Barbara Bennett Peterson Oregon State University Corvalis, Oregon

L. L. Lominé University of Winchester Winchester, England

Kirsten E. Phimister University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, Scotland

Eric Martone Kennedy High School Department of Social Studies Waterbury, Connecticut

Michael Rapport University of Stirling Stirling, Scotland

Laura Mason University of Georgia Athens, Georgia Terry M. Mays The Citadel Charleston, South Carolina

Brian W. Refford Lehigh University Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Benjamin Reilly Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Peter R. McGuire Elkin, North Carolina

Brodie Richards University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario, Canada

James R. McIntyre Moraine Valley Community College Palos Hills, Illinois

Annette Richardson University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Rini Bhattacharya Mehta University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana Urbana, Illinois

Jeff Shantz Wilfrid Laurier University–Brantford Brantford, Ontario, Canada

Alexander Mikaberidze Fellow, Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution Florida State University Tallahassee, Florida Patit Paban Mishra Sambalpur University Sambalpur, India Nicole Mitchell Georgia College and State University Milledgeville, Georgia Ian Morley Chinese University of Hong Kong Hong Kong, China J. Patrick Mullins Saginaw Valley State University University Center, Michigan Michaela Mudure Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Jonathan Spangler University of Gloucestershire Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England Mark G. Spencer Brock University St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada Robert N. Stacy Leominster, Massachusetts Adam C. Stanley University of Wisconsin–Platteville Platteville, Wisconsin Leonard A. Steverson South Georgia College Douglas, Georgia Stephen Stewart Dumbarton, Scotland Richard Taws University College London London, England

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About the Editor and Contributors

Guy-David Toubiana The Citadel Charleston, South Carolina Jitendra Uttam Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi, India Andrew J. Waskey Dalton State College Dalton, Georgia Rowland Weston University of Waikato Tauranga, New Zealand

Leigh Whaley Acadia University Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada Charles H. Wilson III Gainesville State College Gainesville, Georgia Brett F. Woods American Public University Charles Town, West Virginia Jonathan Wright Hartlepool, County Durham, England

INDEX

Abolitionists, 1–2, 419, 679–80. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade; Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery Abolition of the Catholic Cult, 3. See also French Revolution; Religion Abolition of the Monarchy (France), 3– 4, 255 The Abridgement of the History of England (Burke), 96 L’Accusateur Public, 4. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; French Revolution Actes des Apôtres (Acts of the Apostles) (Peltier), 569 Act of Union (Britain/Ireland), 89, 302, 354 Adams, Abigail, 8, 371, 771 Adams, John, 5–10, 25, 26, 83, 86, 146, 167, 169, 170, 186, 188, 321, 368, 371, 436, 462, 494, 550, 555, 578, 673, 674, 687, 720, 731, 759, 771 Adams, Samuel, 10–12, 83, 139, 167, 170, 324–25, 410, 461, 465, 600, 686, 687, 733. See also Adams, Abigail; Adams, John; Committees of Correspondence; Continental Congress; Tea Act Addington, Henry, 302, 416, 580 Address to Protestant Dissenters on the Approaching Election pamphlet (Priestley), 597 Address to the German Nations (Fichte), 239 Administration of Justice Act, 12–13, 130–35, 325, 461, 687 Administration of the Colonies (Pownall), 592 The Adventures of Caleb Williams (Godwin), 311

Africa, impact of revolutionary thought on, 13–15, 679. See also Abolitionists; Haitian Revolution; Slavery and the Slave Trade Age of Enlightenment. See Enlightenment Age of Reason, 583 Agrarian Justice (Paine), 553 Ailly, Peter d’, 292 Aix-la-Chapelle conference, 474 Alamance Creek, Battle of, 727 An Alarm to the Legislature of the Province of New York (Seabury), 666 Albania, and slavery, 679 Albany Plan of Union (1754), 15–16, 22, 166, 262, 264–65 Albuera, Battle of, 660 Aldama, Juan, 336 Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’, 215–16, 220, 445, 560, 573 Alexander I (Tsar of Russia), 16–20, 377, 382, 474, 499, 709–10, 744 Alexeievna, Elisabeth, 17 Ali, Haider, 350 Alien and Sedition Acts, 8, 146, 378 Allende, Ignacio, 336, 476 Alliance, Treaty of, 7 Amendments, to U.S. constitution, 74, 192 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 550 American Board of Commissioners of the Customs, 82–83 The American Crisis essays (Paine), 551 American Independence: The Glory and Interest of Great Britain (Cartwright), 113 American Philosophical Society, 264, 683

840

Index

American Revolution, 1, 12, 20–27, 82, 86, 107, 112, 117, 164, 185, 189, 197, 203, 206, 226, 262, 268, 352, 380, 389, 401, 435, 514, 516, 535, 551, 554, 565, 568, 596, 600, 609, 616, 682, 687, 691, 724, 725, 741, 745, 757, 778, 781 American Revolutionary War, 27–33, 28–29, 29–30, 30–31, 31–32, 32–33, 48, 64, 95, 98, 147, 163, 171, 188, 190, 200, 247, 251, 301, 314, 366, 368, 389, 392, 400, 418, 428, 437, 467, 487, 493, 514, 517, 537, 539, 551, 579, 596, 614, 674, 682, 689, 726, 745, 763, 768, 782. See also Lexington and Concord, Actions at Ames, Nathaniel, 22 Amherst, Jeffrey, 291 L’Ami du Peuple (Marat), 449, 450, 541 Amiens, Treaty of, 162, 249, 499 Amis de la Constitution, Société des, 33–35, 296, 315–16, 483, 589. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; French Revolution; Political Clubs (France) Les amours du Chevalier Faublas (Louvet de Couvray), 433 Anarchists, 35–36 Ancien régime, 36–40, 48, 55, 63, 65, 103, 106, 121, 157, 162, 192, 229, 282, 296, 313, 398, 408, 412, 444, 465, 496, 533, 539, 562, 576, 589, 598, 602, 670, 717, 739. See also Papacy Ancients, Council of, 198, 281, 390 André, John, 684 Angel of Terror. See Saint-Just, Louis Antoine Léon Florelle de Anglicanism, 292 Anglo-Dutch War, 206 Annales politiques, civiles et littéraires du XVIIIe siècle play (Linquet/Mallet), 445 Annals of the French Revolution (Bertrand de Moleville), 70 Annapolis Convention, 211 Anti-clericalism, 40–41, 143, 316, 329, 619, 729 Anti-Federalists, 233, 235, 236, 322, 333, 401, 435, 555, 732 Anti-Jacobin, 41. See also Religion Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine, 42 Anti-Machiave (Frederick II), 269 Antislavery groups, 1, 2, 13–14 Antoine-Louis-Claude, comte Destutt de Tracy, 349 Antoinette, Marie. See Marie Antoinette, Queen of France

Aperçu de la situation en France et des moyens de concilier la liberté publique avec l’autorité royale (Mirabeau), 483 Apostolic Chamber, 582 An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (Burke), 98 Aquinas, Thomas, 191 Les arbres de la liberté, 42–43 Archenholtz, J. W. von, 602 Archery; A Poem (Ogden), 544 An Argument on Behalf of the Catholics of Ireland (Tone), 684, 721 Armed Neutrality, League of, 305 Armenia, and slavery, 679 Army of the Three Guarantees, 477 Arnauld, Antoine, 367 Arnold, Benedict, 28, 110, 185, 436, 519, 684 Articles of Association, 687 Articles of Confederation, 12, 43–46, 110, 144, 146, 151–52, 155, 171, 197, 202, 234, 325, 345, 370, 401, 440, 459, 538, 549, 566, 614, 669, 731, 747, 769, 793–99 Artois, Charles Philippe de Bourbon, Comte d’, 46–48, 108, 214, 427, 448, 730 Assembly of Notables, 48–49, 71, 204, 231, 387, 422, 454, 546. See also Parlements (France) Assembly of the Clergy of France, 293 Assembly of the Known and Verifiable Representatives of the French Nation, 49–50 Association of Friends of National Insurrection (Poland), 584 Association of Friends of the Governing Constitution (Poland), 584 Association of the Friends of the People, 50–51, 248, 491, 764 Association of the Sons of Liberty, 787–89 Astell, Mary, 222 Atheism, 237 Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (Fichte), 239 Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy (Kant), 379 Auchmuty, Samuel, 84 August, Karly, 312 Augustinian theology, 367 Augustin I (Mexican emperor), 477 Augustus III, 492 Auspicious Night, 547 Austerlitz, Battle of, 260 Austria, 51–52, 71, 127, 158, 161, 214, 238, 248, 251, 282, 387, 390, 471, 498, 508, 533, 560, 567, 580, 581, 583, 591, 619,

Index

743, 744, 764. See also Francis II (Emperor of Austria); War of the Austrian Succession Autel de la Patrie, 52–53 Avis au François (Pétion), 572 Aymerich, Melchior, 396 Aztecs, 675 Babeuf, François-Noel, 55–66, 62, 227, 244, 414, 415, 591, 715. See also Conspiracy of Equals; Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Jacobins Bacon, Francis, 372 Bailén, Battle of, 660 Bailly, Jean Sylvain, 714 Bailyn, Bernard, 554–55 Bakunin, Mikhail, 36 Bamberger Zeitung newspaper (ed. Hegel), 330 Bank of England, 323 Barère de Vieuzac, Bertrand, 57–59, 134, 594, 618. See also Reign of Terror Barnave, Antoine Pierre, 33, 59, 157, 205, 238, 362, 389, 403, 589, 590. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Haitian Revolution; Louis XVI (King of France); Reign of Terror; Varennes, Flight to Barras, Paul-François Nicolas, Vicomte de, 60–63, 202, 244, 740 Barré, Isaac, 64, 688 Bas, Philippe Le, 657 Bastille, 47, 103, 148, 179, 190, 213–14, 248, 253, 288, 334, 377, 388, 415, 430, 443, 456, 506, 518, 542, 602, 661, 751; fall of, 65–67; storming of, 7, 196 Batavian Republic, 67, 206, 207 Bavaria, Kingdom of, 261 Beauharnais, Joséphine de. See Josephine, Empress of France Beaumont, Francisco Javier de Lizana y, 476 Beccaria, Cesare, 218, 221 Belgium, 59, 61, 67, 68, 106, 127, 206, 214, 255, 260, 280, 282, 387, 457, 469, 474, 520, 580, 591, 598, 668, 672, 744, 760; Danton’s mission to, 182 Belgrano, Manuel, 660 Benedict XIV (Pope), 559–60, 582 Bentham, Jeremy, 218 Beresford, Marshal, 501 Berlinische Monatsschrift (Nicolai), 603 Bernadotte, Karl, 695 Bertier de Sauvigny, Louis-Benige-Francois, 66, 69

Bertrand de Moleville, Antoine François, Marquis de, 70. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary Le Bien Informé (De Bonneville), 491 Billaud-Varenne, Jacques Nicholas, 34, 70–72, 134, 594, 618, 717 Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom ( Jefferson), 372 Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge ( Jefferson), 371 Bill of Rights (England), 73, 155, 425, 735 Bill of Rights Society, 400 Bill of Rights (U.S.), 72–74, 191, 442, 459, 735, 747. See also Federalist Papers Biographie moderne ou dictionnaire des hommes qui se sont fait un nom en Europe, depuis 1789 (Michaud), 479 Bird, Rachel, 769 Blackstone, William, 24, 74–75, 235, 352, 555, 564, 732 Bland, Richard, 23, 75–76 Blücher, Gebhard von, 760 Bohemia, 260 Boissy d’Anglas, François Antoine de, Comte, 61–62, 76–77, 159, 594 Bolívar, Simón, 77–81, 394, 396, 661 Bolívarian Revolution, 80–81 Bonald, Louis Gabriel Ambroise, Vicomte de, 81–82 Bonaparte, Jérôme, 63, 79 Bonaparte, Joseph, 335, 393, 475, 495, 692 Bonaparte, Lucien, 174 Bonaparte, Napoleon. See Napoleon I Bonaparte, Pauline, 288 Bonapartists, 730 The Book of the New Moral World (Owen), 548 Bordeaux Jacobin Club, 297, 743 Boston Massacre, 6, 11–12, 301, 313, 324, 434, 550, 610 Boston Port Act, 64, 84–85, 131, 140, 324, 459, 461, 687, 712. See also Continental Congress, Second Boston Tea Party, 6, 12, 25, 64, 85–86, 130, 167, 291, 301, 324, 459, 461, 464, 536, 555, 568, 687, 712, 757 Bourbon dynasty, 105, 125, 192, 202, 204, 245, 250, 254, 258–59, 293, 414, 470, 474, 495, 561, 569, 695, 737 Bourgeoisie, of France, 252 Bourges, Pragmatic Sanction of, 293 Boves, José Tomás, 395 Boyaca, Battle of, 395–396 Braddock, Edward, 756

841

842

Index

Brandywine, Battle of, 386, 758 Braschi, Giovanni Angelo. See Pius VI (Pope) Brazil, 392, 668, 678 Breed’s Hill military fortification, 292 Breton Club, 99, 361, 390 Briefe aus Paris zur Zeit der Revolution geschrieben (Campe), 601–2 Brienne, Etienne Charles de, 205 Brissot de Warville, Jean-Pierre, 1, 86–88, 88, 175, 184, 196, 306, 317, 362, 363, 403, 469, 572, 617, 669, 743. See also Abolitionists; Abolition of the Monarchy (France); Brissotins; Girondins; The Mountain; Newspapers (French); Slavery and the Slave Trade Brissotins, 88, 306, 404. See also Jacobins; Political Clubs (France) Bristol Speeches (Burke), 96 Britain, 6, 12, 22, 25, 37, 41, 49, 64, 88–93, 113, 114, 154, 162, 166, 168, 185, 214, 243, 261–62, 356, 446, 468, 508, 520, 532, 534, 544, 546, 551, 554, 558, 564, 578, 579, 596, 600, 614, 616, 680, 687, 690, 699, 709, 724, 727, 729, 731, 744, 746, 755, 760, 783. See also American Revolution; English Militia Act; Fox, Charles James; French Revolutionary Wars; Rockingham, Watson-Wentworth; Tories The British Lions Rous’d, or Acts of the British Worthies, a Poem in Nine Books (Ogden), 543 British West Indies, 520 Brumaire, Coup d’Etat de, 77, 93–94, 104, 161, 174, 199, 202, 244, 256, 282, 414, 415, 470, 490, 591 Brune, Guillaume, 765 Brunswick Manifesto, 456, 808–10 Bull, William, 94–95 Bunker Hill, Battle of, 292, 462, 544 Buonarroti, Filippo, 56 Burdett, Francis, 113 Burgoyne, John, 28, 29, 305 Burke, Edmund, 6, 7, 41, 42, 86, 95–98, 247, 248, 552, 579, 596, 602, 604, 764. See also Jacobins Burr, Aaron, 323–24, 371, 614 Butler, John, 98–99 Buzot, François Nicolas Léonard, 99–100, 306, 572. See also French Revolution; National Assembly (France)

Cabinet Cyclopedia (Mackintosh), 440 Cadoudal, Georges, 101–2. See also Thermidorian Reaction; Vendéan rebellion Cadwallader, Lambert, 682 Cahiers de doléances, 102, 242, 775. See also First Estate; Second Estate Calas Case, 212 Calendar, French Revolutionary, 103, 510, 617 Calonne, Charles Alexander de, 48, 205, 423, 429, 454 Calvin, John, 444 Calvinism, 367, 444 Cambacérès, Jean-Jacques-Régis de, 104–5, 125, 162. See also Amis de la Constitution, Société des Cambon, Pierre-Joseph, 105–7, 183. See also Brissotins; Émigrés; Girondins; Jacobins; Reign of Terror; Thermidorian Reaction Camden, Battle of, 578 Campaigns, in the south (American Revolutionary War), 31–32 Campbell, Lord William, 107 Camp de Jalès, Conspiracy of the, 107–8 Campe, Joachim Heinrich, 601–2 Campo Formio, Treaty of, 123, 199, 260, 285 Camus, Armand Gaston, 109–10. See also Tennis Court Oath Canada, 28, 98, 109–10, 112, 131, 140, 185, 241, 291, 428, 437, 610, 668, 720; American campaign for invasion of, 185. See also Continental Congress, Second Candide (Voltaire), 15, 574, 753 A Candid Examination of the Mutual Claims of Great Britain and the Colonies with a Plan of Accommodation on Constitutional Principles (Galloway), 294 Carabobo, Battle of, 80, 396 Carleton, Guy, 306 Carlisle Peace Commission, 536, 684 Carnot, Lazare, 63, 110–12, 134, 510, 594. See also French Revolutionary Wars Carr, Dabney, 140 Carrera, José Miguel, 394 Carrier, Jean-Baptiste, 112, 624. See also Reign of Terror; Thermidorian Reaction; Vendéan rebellion Carroll, Charles, 110, 112–13. See also Signers of the Declaration of Independence Carroll, John, 110 Cartwright, John, 92, 113–14, 780

Index

The Case of Ireland Justly Stated pamphlet (Molyneux), 352 The Case of the Officers of Excise pamphlet (Paine), 550 Castlereagh, Viscount, 417 Catherine II (the Great), Empress of Russia, 16, 114–15, 198, 223, 305, 374, 381, 406, 493, 584, 585, 586, 587, 607, 750. See also Poland, Partitions of; Pugachev Rebellion; Russia Catholic cult, abolition of, 3 Catholic Defenders, 241, 353 Catholic Emancipation Act, 354, 355 Catholicism, 3, 213, 561–62, 690 Catholic League, 230 Catholic National Guard, 108 Catholic Relief Act, 353, 721 Cato Street conspiracy, 694 Censorship Edict (Williams), 603 Cercle Social publishing group, 308 Chabot, François, 183, 232 Chacaburo, Battle of, 395 The Chains of Slavery (Marat), 448 Chalmers, James, 555 Chamber of Deputies, 433 Chambers of Peers and Deputies, 258 Champs de Mars, Massacre, 238 Le Chapelier, Isaac-René-Guy, 116, 399–400 Chapelier’s Law, 116, 150 The Characteristics of the Present Age (Fichte), 239 Charles (Archduke), 284 Charles, Francis Joseph. See Francis II (Emperor of Austria) Charles II (Great Britain), 37, 420, 722, 763 Charles III (King), 487, 690 Charles IV (Great Britain), 691 Charles IX ou la Saint-Barthélmy (Chénier), 119 Charlestown Powder Alarm, 292 Charles X. See Artois, Charles Philippe de Bourbon, Comte d’ Charlotte, Marie Thérèse, 453 Charlotte Town Resolves, 468 Charpentier, Antoinette-Gabrielle, 179 Charter of 1814 (Charte Constitutionnelle), 258 Charter of the Forest, 75 Chase, Samuel, 110, 116–17, 549. See also Committees of Correspondence; Signers of the Declaration of Independence

Chateubriand, François-Rene de, 215 Chatham, Pitt, William (the Elder), Earl of, 64, 117–18, 217, 247, 535. See also Pitt, William (the Younger); Townshend Acts Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard, 118–19, 329, 777. See also French Revolution Cheap Repository Tracts pamphlet (Moore), 42 Chénier, Marie-Joseph-Blaise, 119–20. See also Jacobins Chiaramonti, Luigi Barnaba Gregorio. See Pius VII (Pope) China, 675, 679 Chonan, Jean, 120–21 Chouans, 122, 214, 255, 282, 619. See also La Chounnerie; French Revolution La Chounnerie, 120–21. See also Chouans; Vendéan rebellion Christianity, 41, 118, 196, 221, 331, 445, 553, 619, 730, 784 Christophe, Henri, 337 Chuquisaca Audencia proclamation, 393 Church, Benjamin, 122. See also Committees of Correspondence; Loyalists Church of England, 139, 436 Circular Letter, of Massachusetts, 461 Circular Letter of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, 461, 789–90 Cisalpine Republic, 122–23, 161, 244. See also Austria; French Revolutionary Wars Citizen, 123, 159. See also American Revolution; French Revolution Citizenship, 81, 123–24, 205, 295, 320, 365, 512, 568, 598, 673, 774 Citoyennes Républicaines Révolutionnaires (Revolutionary Republican Women), 405 Civic oaths, 124. See also Civil Constitution of the Clergy; Constitutions, French Revolutionary; National Guard Civil Code, 36, 104, 125–27, 162, 241, 258, 496, 498 Civil Constitution of the Clergy, 3, 40, 108, 121, 127, 150, 162, 199, 253–54, 315, 403, 423, 561, 582, 729, 739. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary Civil List, 184 Civil War Amendments (U.S. Constitution), 735 Civil War (England), 745 Civil War (United States), 735 Clarke, Jonas, 410 Class barriers, vs. social mobility (Franklin), 267

843

844

Index

Claude, Florimond, 455 Clement XI (Pope), 367 Clement XIII (Pope), 559–60, 560 Clement XIV (Pope), 559–60, 560 Clinton, George (Cato), 233, 234, 305 Clinton, Henry, 30, 782 Cloots, Jean-Baptiste, 329 Club des Impartiaux. See Impartiaux, Club des Club Massiac, 319 Clubs. See Political Clubs (France) Clymer, George, 673, 674 Coachman of Europe, 474 Cobbett, William, 114, 128–29 Cochrane, Thomas, 395, 661 Cockades, 129. See also Symbols (American Revolutionary); Symbols (French Revolutionary) Code Napoléon. See Civil Code Code of Civil Procedure, 125, 258 Code of Criminal Procedure, 125 Code of Laws, 771 Coercive Acts, 25, 86, 130–32, 140, 167, 291, 301, 324, 410, 435, 465, 518, 536, 544, 596, 609, 686, 699, 700, 712, 757. See also Administration of Justice Act; Boston Port Act; Boston Tea Party; Massachusetts Government Act; Quebec Act Coldstream Guards (Germany), 211 Collot d’Herbois, Jean Marie, 132, 134, 618, 717. See also Jacobins; Representatives on Mission; Thermidorian Reaction Collot d’Herbois, Jean Marie, 180–81 Columbus, Christopher, 366 Combination Acts, 132–33 Commentaries on the Laws of England (Blackstone), 24, 75 Commerce, Treaty of, 7 Commercial Code, 125, 258 Commission of Orange, 544, 545 Committee for Postponed Matters, 669 Committee of General Security, 717 Committee of Public Safety, 57, 61, 70, 72, 94, 104, 106, 108, 111, 119, 132, 133–37, 159, 175, 182, 183, 283, 317, 318, 328, 330, 334, 355, 364, 397, 413, 414, 434, 469, 508, 545, 547, 594, 597, 613, 616, 617, 653, 656, 657, 663, 711, 714, 717. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Directory; Fête de l’Etre Suprême; French Revolutionary Wars; Jacobins; Patrie en Danger (the nation in danger);

Revolutionary Committees of the French Revolution; Thermidorians Committee of Secret Correspondence (Continental Congress), 122, 137–38. See also American Revolutionary War Committee of Twelve, 309, 326 Committee on the Constitution, 672 Committees of Correspondence, 138–41, 461, 687. See also Non-Importation Acts Common law, 75, 378 Common Sense pamphlet (Paine), 141–42, 170, 186, 301, 545, 551, 555 The Commonwealth in Danger (Cartwright), 113 Commune of Paris, 72, 103, 118, 327 Compagnie de Jésus ou du Soleil, 142 Comte rendu (Louis XVI), 428 Conciliatory Resolution, 325 A Concise Narrative of All the Actions, in Which the British Forces Were Engaged, during the Present War, on the Continent of Europe (Ogden), 544 Concord, Battle of. See Lexington and Concord, Actions at Concordat, 3, 41, 104, 127, 143, 162, 257, 316, 496, 583, 709, 729 Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de, 349, 671 Condorcet, Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de, 88, 143–44, 218, 317, 445, 573, 775 The Conduct of Understanding (Locke), 421 Confederation of Bar (Poland), 587 Confederation of Targowica, 584 Confederation of the Rhine, 258, 260–61 Congress of Vienna. See Vienna, Congress of Congress (U.S.), 74, 144–46. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade Connecticut, 98, 131, 146–47, 167, 460, 520, 666, 669, 677, 726, 727, 731. See also American Revolution; American Revolutionary War; Constitutions, American State; Continental Association; Continental Congress, First; Continental Congress, Second; New England Restraining Act; Sons of Liberty; Trumbull, Jonathan; Tryon, William Connecticut Compromise, 153, 732 Connolly, John, 147 Considerations on the Bank of North America (Wilson), 769 Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur of Rome and Its Decline (Montesquieu), 485

Index

Considerations on the Nature and Extent of the Legislative Authority of the British Parliament (Wilson), 769 Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes (Dulany), 24, 203 Considérations sur le gouvernment de la Pologne (Rousseau), 587 Conspiracy of Equals, 56, 198–99, 227, 281 Conspiracy of the Camp de Jalès, 107–8 Conspiracy of the Egaux, 62 Conspiration de l’Etranger. See Etranger, Conspiration de l’ Constance, Council of, 293 Constant, Benjamin, 695 Constituent Assembly, 34, 58, 71, 99, 148–51, 179, 189, 205, 238, 253, 317, 389, 412, 465, 489, 514, 541, 561, 743, 775; presidency of Du Pont de Nemours, 204. See also October Days Constitution, United States. See United States Constitution Constitutional Convention (U.S.), 6, 113, 144, 147, 151–53, 197, 233, 262, 266–67, 368, 440, 459, 519, 578, 614, 669, 689, 759, 769 The Constitution of a Perfect Commonwealth pamphlet (Spence), 694 Constitution of the Year III (Constitution de l’An III), 62, 77 La Constitution pamphlet (Marat), 449 Constitutions, American State, 154–55 Constitutions, French Revolutionary, 156–61 Consulate, 63, 94, 104, 109, 120, 161–63, 256, 282, 389, 390, 398, 414, 507, 715 Continental Army, 27, 85, 147, 163–64, 170, 189, 190, 325, 333, 402, 434, 462, 614, 699, 726, 755, 758, 772, 782 Continental Association, 164–66, 268, 294, 520, 534, 669, 674, 700 Continental Congress, First, 6, 13, 76, 132, 140, 144, 166–69, 213, 268, 369, 402, 418, 462, 518, 520, 534, 549, 550, 555, 687, 746, 757. See also Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress Continental Congress, Second, 27, 76, 110, 137, 170–71, 185, 188, 200, 202, 262, 266, 304, 322, 324, 333, 382, 383, 401, 402, 410, 418, 434, 469, 487, 518, 544, 550, 600, 614, 674–75, 699, 746, 757. See also American Revolution; Northwest Continental System (of Napoleon), 19, 359, 498, 502–3, 692

The Controversy between Great Britain and Her Colonies Reviewed (Dickinson), 197 Convention Act (Ireland), 353, 685 Convention of Alkamaar, 286 Convention of Cintra, 500 Convention on Human Rights, 194 Convention to Châlons, 595 Conversations of German Immigrants (Goethe), 602 Conway Cabal, 434, 758 Copley Medal, 264 Corbin, Margaret, 773 Corday d’Armont, Marie Anne Charlotte, 171–72 Cordeliers Club, 34, 71, 103, 118, 119, 173, 179, 288, 363, 385, 738, 776, 777. See also Political Clubs (France); Republicanism; Sans-culottes Corfu, 260 Corinne ou l’Italie (Staël), 695 Coriscan revolt, 557 Corn Law, 302–3 Cornwallis, Charles, 29, 32, 305, 387, 458, 519, 689, 747, 782, 783 Council of Ancients, 198, 281, 390, 415 Council of Constance, 293 Council of Five Hundred, 104, 109, 120, 173–74, 198, 256, 281, 414, 434, 471, 672, 711, 715. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary Council of Public Instruction, 82 Council of Revision, 144 Council of Safety, 107, 211 Council of Trent, 367 Coup d’Etat de Brumaire. See Brumaire, Coup d’Etat de Coup of 9 Thermidor, 61–62 Cours des aides (courts of taxation), 230 Couthon, Georges Auguste, 134, 175, 317, 365, 711, 717. See also French Revolution; Jacobins; Reign of Terror; Representatives on Mission Couvent des Cordeliers, 451 Crèvecoeur, Michel-Guillaume Jean de, 175–76 Criminal Code, 125, 258 Critical Journal of Philosophy (Hegel & Schelling), 330 Critique, Critique of Judgment (Kant), 380 Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 380 Croatia, 260 Cuba, 678, 680

845

846

Index

Cult of Reason, 237 Cult of Supreme Being, 237, 329, 511 Cum Occasione (Innocent X), 367 Currency Act, 138–39, 176–77, 301, 696, 785–86 Custis, Daniel Parker, 757 Cvetwertynska, Maria (Princess), 17 Czartoryski, Adam, 584 Daily Advertiser (New York), 233 Dandridge, Dorothea, 333 Danton, Georges-Jacques, 71, 88, 94, 134, 151, 173, 179–84, 196, 232, 246, 280, 328, 330, 334, 365, 404, 449–450, 507, 619, 656, 669 Daughters of Liberty, 772 David, Jacques-Louis, 120, 172, 185, 237, 451, 511, 568 Deane, Silas, 167, 400, 551 Death of Marat (David), 185 Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, 790–93 Declaration of Human Rights (U.N.), 74, 680 Declaration of Independence, 6, 12, 23, 124, 137, 142, 154, 156, 167, 171, 185–88, 197, 201, 213, 225, 266, 304, 310, 325, 338, 368, 370, 386, 401, 417, 459, 463, 514, 518, 549, 550, 601, 609, 616, 669, 698, 746–47, 757, 768, 774 Declaration of Pillnitz, 254, 406 Declaration of Rights and Grievances, 169, 698, 735 Declaration of Rights (Virginia), 73, 459 Declaration of Saint-Ouen, 433 Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, 170, 188–89 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, 40, 74, 116, 124, 148–49, 151, 156, 189–94, 253, 296, 387, 389, 412, 429, 483, 509, 514, 541, 601, 613, 672, 747, 802–4. See also Amis de la Constitution, Société des; Constitutions, French Revolutionary; French Revolutionary Wars; Haitian Revolution; Philosophes; Republicanism; Slavery and the Slave Trade; Tennis Court Oath; Women (French) Declaration of the Rights of Women, 191, 776 Declaratory Act, 64, 118, 194–95, 301, 351, 697, 786–87 Declaratory Act, of Ireland, 243, 314 Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance (Paine), 553

Decree Abolishing Hereditary Nobility and Titles, 804–5 Decree for Reorganizing the Judicial System, 805–6 Decree for Suspending the King, 811–12 Decree for the Levée en Masse, 812–13 Decree for the Maintenance of Public Order, 806 Decree on the Church, 804 Decree Upon Religious Toleration, 814 Decree Upon the Oath of Allegiance, 806–7 A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America (Adams), 6–7 Defense of the French Emigrants (LallyTollendal), 389 Le Défenseur de la Constitution, 195. See also Newspapers (French) Defoe, Daniel, 554 Deism, 219, 372, 511, 574, 636, 750, 784 Delgrès, Louis, 296 De l’organisation d’un état monarchique (On the Organization of a Monarchical State) pamphlet (Salaville), 557 Delphine (Staël), 695 Democracy in American (Tocqueville), 720, 721 Denmark, 288, 436, 676 De Pauw, Linda Grant, 772 Deputies, Chamber of, 433 Dernières vues de politique et de finance (Necker), 518 A Description of Manchester (Ogden), 544 Description of Spensonia pamphlet (Spence), 694 Desèze, Raymond, 444 Desmoulins, Camille, 65, 173, 183, 195–97, 245, 246, 288, 307, 334, 362, 541, 557, 655, 776 Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 320, 337, 723 Diamond Necklace Affair, 429, 454 Dickinson, John, 698 Dickinson, Jonathan, 23, 25, 138, 167, 197, 544. See also Continental Congress, First; Continental Congress, Second Diderot, Denis, 115, 197–98, 213, 215–16, 218, 220, 372, 560, 573, 575, 659 The Difference between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy (Hegel & Schelling), 330 Directory, 55, 62–63, 93–94, 111, 120, 160–61, 198–200, 202, 244, 256, 281–82, 359, 376, 388, 470, 492, 496, 591, 595, 597, 620, 670, 709, 715, 717, 722, 740. See also Boissy d’Anglas, François Antoine

Index

de, Comte; Cisalpine Republic; Constitutions, French Revolutionary; French Revolutionary Wars; Jacobins; Political Clubs (France) The Disaster of Lisbon (Voltaire), 752 Discourse on the Love of Our Country (Price), 596 Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Rousseau), 220, 226 A Discourse on the Study of Law of Nature and Nations (Mackintosh), 439 Discourses Concerning Government (Sidney), 420 Discourses on Davila (Adams), 7 Dissenters’ Relief Bill, 768 Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (Fox), 6 Dissertation on the First Principles of Government (Paine), 553 Dissertation on the Profess of Ethical Philosophy (Mackintosh), 440 Dix années d ‘exil (Staël), 695 Dobson, Thomas, 26 Dominican Republic, 337 Dominus ac Redemptor papal brief, 560 Dover, Treaty of, 420 Drayton, William Henry, 200–201. See also American Revolutionary War Dred Scott v. Sanford Supreme Court decision, 735 Drennan, William, 684, 685 Dreyfus Affair, 143 Duane, James, 167. See also Continental Congress, First; Continental Congress, Second Ducos, Pierre-Roger, 94, 202, 241. See also Consulate Duer, William, 202–3. See also Constitutions, American State Duff, James, 660 Dulaney, Daniel, Jr., 203 Dumouriez, Charles, 88, 403, 587, 737 Dundas, Henry, 354, 581 Dunlap, John, 310 Dunmore, Earl of. See Murray, John, Earl of Dunmore Du Pont de Nemours, Pierre Samuel, 204, 576 Duport, Adrien Jean Francois, 204–5, 389, 403, 590. See also Assembly of Notables Du Roy, Jean-Michel, 594 Dutch Antilles, 678

Dutch Revolutions, 205–9, 520 Duverney, Joseph Pâris, 750 Dyer, Eliphalet, 209–10 East India Company, 536, 711–12, 726 Ecclesiastical Committee, 390 Eden, Sir Robert, 211–12. See also American Revolution; Carroll, Charles; Dulaney, Daniel, Jr.; Paca, William Edenton Ladie’s Tea Party, 772 Edgar (Chénier), 119 Edict of Nantes, 212, 313, 421 Edict of Toleration, 582 Edict of Versailles, 212–13. See also Religion Education Act (France), 67 Egalité, Philippe. See Orléans, Louis Philippe Joseph, Duc d’ Eglantine, Fabre d’, 232 Egoism, 237 Electoral College (U.S.), 7, 146 Eléments d’idéologie (Tracy), 349 The Elements of Newton’s Philosophies (Voltaire), 751 Elizabeth I (Virgin Queen), 745 Ellery, William, 213 Ellis, Henry, 778 Eloge de Jean-Baptiste Colbert (Necker), 517 Eloge de Suger (Hérault de Séchelles), 334 Emanuel, or; Paradise Regained: An Epic Poem (Ogden), 544 Embargo Act, 371 Émigrés, 142, 213–15, 282, 397, 409, 444, 447, 450, 471, 496, 602, 711, 739, 743 Emile (Rousseau), 574 Enclosure Acts, 302 Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (Hegel), 330 L’Encyclopédie (Diderot and d’Alembert), 197, 215–16, 220, 372, 574–75, 659, 727. See also Anti-clericalism; Slavery and the Slave Trade Engels, Friedrich, 55 Enghien, Louis-Antoine-Henri de BourbonCondé, Duc d’, 216–17. See also Cadoudal, Georges; Émigrés D’Enghien, duc, 18 England’s Aegis (Cartwright), 113 The English Constitution Produced and Illustrated (Cartwright), 114 English Letters (Voltaire), 751 English Militia Act, 217–18 Enlightened despotism, 691

847

848

Index

Enlightenment, 13, 23, 37, 78, 114, 149, 181, 207, 215, 218–23, 235, 266, 296, 318, 356, 381, 405, 415, 422, 479, 498, 507, 510, 513, 558, 559, 566, 572, 573, 601, 618, 667, 681, 690, 727, 742, 768, 773, 774. See also Condorcet, MarieJean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de; Diderot, Denis; Franklin, Benjamin; Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von; Hume, David; Jefferson, Thomas; Kant, Immanuel; Locke, John; Montesquieu, CharlesLouis de Secondat, Baron de le Brede et de; Philosophes; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques; Smith, Adam; Voltaire An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Hume), 343 An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (Godwin), 34 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Hume), 343 Enragés, 405, 663 Epinay, Louise d’, 222 An Epistle on Poetical Composition (Ogden), 543 Epitome of the Age of Louis XIV (Voltaire), 752 Equality, 49, 56, 102, 116, 126, 162, 190, 198, 224–28, 253, 296, 412. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade Equals, Conspiracy of, 198–99, 227, 281 Erfurt Conference, 709 Esprit de la Révolution et de la constitution de France (Saint-Just), 655 Essai sur la législation et le commerce des grains (Necker), 517 Essai sur le despotisme (Mirabeau), 481 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke), 190, 422 Essay on General History and on the Customs and the Character of Nations (Voltaire), 753 Essay on Man (Pope), 766 An Essay on Priveleges (Sieyès), 671 Essay on the Application of the Analysis of Probability to Decisions Made on a Pluralitly of Votes (Condorcet), 143 An Essay on the First Principles of Government, and on the Nature of Political, Civil and Religious Liberty (Priestley), 597 An Essay on the Trade of the Northern Colonies (Hopkins), 339 Essay on Woman (Wilkes), 766, 767 Essay on Women (Thomas), 222 Essays (Hume), 26 Estates-General, 33, 37, 48, 49, 58, 66, 87, 99, 102, 104, 106, 124, 148, 175, 189, 204,

228–31, 242, 307, 315, 319, 361, 372, 387, 389, 409, 414, 423, 430, 454, 455, 465, 482, 505, 520, 533, 546, 589, 597, 613, 670, 712–13, 714 Ethocratie (Holbach), 338 L’Etranger, Conspiration de, 231–32 Europe, 13–14, 37, 78, 194, 356, 422, 498 European Messenger (ed. Karamzin), 382 Eutaw Springs, Battle of, 241 Exposé de la conduite de Mounier dans l’Assemblée nationale et des motifs de son retour en Dauphiné (Mounier), 489 Eylau, Battle of, 18 Falklands Islands, 392 Le fanatisme des philosophes (Linguet), 415 Far East, 679 The Farmer Refuted (Seabury), 666 Farmer’s Letters (Seabury), 438, 666 Faust (Goethe), 312 Feast of Reason, 136, 717 Feathers Tavern petition, 779 Federalist Papers, 23, 26, 153, 233–36, 322, 368, 440, 486, 720, 769–70. See also AntiFederalists Federalist Party (U.S.), 8, 9, 10, 383, 442, 759 Femmes, soyez soumises à vos maris! (Women, Be Submissive to Your Spouses!) pamphlet (Voltaire), 557 Fénelon, François de, 411 Ferdinand VI, 495 Ferdinand VII, 335, 393, 476, 583, 660, 692–93 Fernandez, Manuel Felix, 477 Fersen, Axel, 429 Festival of Reason, 119 Fête de l’Etre Suprême, 237–38, 244. See also Jacobins; Symbols (French Revolutionary) Feuillants, 34–35, 151, 205, 238, 362, 387, 390, 400, 404, 590. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary Feuille villageoise (Rabaut de Saint Etienne), 613 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 238–39, 312, 602 Fiefs, 239–40, 482. See also Physiocrats Fielding, Henry, 533 Fifth Coalition (France), 261, 502 Filmer, Robert, 420 Finland, 695 First Coalition (France), 255, 282–85, 509, 580 First Consul, 93, 102, 104, 109, 161, 217, 240–41, 256, 496. See also Jacobins

Index

First Continental Congress. See Continental Congress, First First Estate, 102, 189, 192, 230, 241–42, 250, 456, 709, 713. See also Second Estate; Third Estate The First Program for a System of German Idealism (Hegel & Schelling), 330 First Vatican Council, 730 Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, 242–43. See also Society of United Irishmen Fitzwilliam, Earl, 315 Fleetwood (Godwin), 311 Fleury, André, 484 Flood, Henry, 243–44, 314, 352 For and Against (Voltaire), 751 Forster, Georg, 602–3 Fouché, Joseph, 61, 132, 244–45, 280, 624 Founding Fathers (U.S.), 151, 225, 226, 419 Fountainebleau, Edict of, 212 Fouquier-Tinville, Antoine Quentin, 245–46. See also L’Accusateur Public Fourth Coalition, 499–500 Fourth of August Decrees, 800–802 Four Years Parliament, 584 Fox, Charles James, 6, 70, 98, 242, 246–49, 565, 579, 764, 780. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade; Tories Fox, Henry, 247 Fox Club, 249 France, 86, 106, 116, 138, 249–59, 356, 361, 368, 409, 452, 469, 496, 504, 505, 508, 514, 546, 547, 551, 558, 562–63, 580, 617, 668, 676, 714, 717, 719, 724, 727, 738, 742, 750, 764, 767, 769. See also Calendar, French Revolutionary; Constitutions, French Revolutionary; The Mountain Francia, José Gaspar Rodriguez de, 392, 394 Francis II (Emperor of Austria), 259–61, 499 Franco-American Alliance, 261–62. See also American Revolution Frankenstein (Wollstonecraft), 311, 770 Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzigen (Goethe), 311 Franklin, Benjamin, 6, 16, 22, 110, 130, 138, 151, 166, 185, 188, 213, 218, 261, 262–67, 268, 321, 325, 368, 400, 436, 447, 448, 550, 555, 595, 597, 611, 673, 674, 731, 768. See also Abolitionists; American Revolutionary War; Constitutions, American State; Equality; France; Franco-American Alliance; Franklin, William; Loyalists; Newspapers (American); Revolutionary Committees of the French Revolution; Signers of the Declaration

of Independence; Slavery and the Slave Trade Franklin, William, 268, 436–37. See also American Revolution; American Revolutionary War; Loyalists Fraternity, 190 Frederick II (Prussia), 18, 158, 198, 223, 268–70, 406, 446, 500, 533, 559, 576, 750 Frederick William III (King of Austria), 744 Free Corps (Utrecht), 207 Freeman’s Journal, 352 Freemasons, 381, 413 French and Indian War, 5, 11, 131, 189, 291, 418, 435, 609, 610, 756, 757 French Revolution, 1, 3, 16, 33, 36, 38, 40, 41, 46, 55, 57, 64, 65, 70, 78–797, 86, 91, 102, 104, 106, 107, 112, 124, 143, 156, 179, 189, 195, 214, 244, 245, 270–82, 318, 322, 326, 330, 334, 359, 361, 380, 389, 409, 430, 443, 446, 452, 466, 479, 488, 495, 496, 505, 511, 514, 534, 540, 541, 560–61, 565, 580, 582, 583, 589, 592, 597, 599, 601, 616, 654, 659, 669, 684, 691, 714, 730, 739, 742, 774, 780. See also Calendar, French Revolutionary; Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Directory; The Mountain; Reign of Terror French Revolutionary Wars, 67, 254, 282–88, 320, 357, 403, 499, 547, 759. See also Carnot, Lazare; Consulate; Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de; Representatives on Mission French Royal Academy, 448 Fréron, Louis-Stanislas, 288–89. See also The Mountain Friedland, Battle of, 18 Friends of the Law, Society of, 469 Frondes, 230, 563 Fructidor, coup d’etat of, 244, 470 Fugitive Slave Act, 378 A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress, from the Calumnies of Their Enemies: In Answer to a Letter under the Signature of A. W. Farmer (Hamilton), 666 Gage, Thomas, 27, 85, 131, 140, 169, 189, 291–92, 324, 410, 457, 464, 687, 699. See also Tea Act Gageure imprévue play (Mallet), 445 Galiani, Ferdinando, 576 Galileo, 446 Gallicanism, 292–93, 582, 729, 750, 751. See also Papacy; Religion

849

850

Index

Galloway, Joseph, 167, 293–94. See also Albany Plan of Union (1754); Loyalists Garibay, Pedro de, 476 Garrison, William Lloyd, 2 La Gazette, French newspaper, 528 Genet, Edmond Charles Edouard, 294–95, 759 Gens de couleur, 295–97, 316, 319, 320, 723 Gensonné, Armand, 88, 297–98, 317. See also Civil Constitution of the Clergy; French Revolutionary Wars; Girondins; Jacobins; The Mountain; Political Clubs (France) Geoffrin, Madame, 659 George III (King of England), 47, 83, 90, 117, 131, 168, 170, 185, 189, 247, 304, 355, 370, 436, 535, 544, 559, 579, 610, 688, 699, 722, 763, 764. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade George I (of Hanover), 268–69 Georgia, 32, 167, 303–4, 436, 687, 698, 778 Germain, Lord George, 304–6, 536 Germantown, Battle of, 758 Germany, 15, 211, 239, 304, 387, 497, 503–4, 543, 591, 601–6, 695, 737, 741, 745. See also Prussia and Germany, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on Gerry, Elbridge, 151, 153, 673, 674, 731 Gerson, John, 292 Gettysburg Address, 188 Gibbon, Edward, 218, 659 Girondin-Montagnard split, 307, 308, 309 Girondins, 34, 63, 86, 88, 100, 112, 118, 151, 171, 181, 182, 202, 238, 246, 255, 280, 306–9, 326, 334, 355, 362, 409, 430, 431, 451, 613, 617, 656, 668, 711, 743, 744. See also Jacobins; Sans-culottes Glorious Revolution, 25, 88, 166, 425 Goddard, Mary Katherine, 310. See also Newspapers (American) Goddard, William, 310 Godwin, William, 34, 42, 310–11 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 218, 311–13, 513, 533, 602. See also Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich; Kant, Immanuel Golden Hill, Riot at, 313. See also American Revolution; Townshend Acts Gordon Riots (London), 97, 302, 536 Gorham, Nathaniel, 325 Gouges, Olympe de, 191, 776 Du gouvernement et des lois de la Pologne (Malby), 587

Grammar of the English Language (Cobbett), 128 Grande Armée, 258 Grande bourgeoise, 179 La Grande Chambre, 313–14 Grand Incendiary. See Adams, Samuel Grand Sanhedrin (of Rabbis), 256 Grattan, Henry, 243, 314–15, 352, 354. See also Tories Great Bridge, Battle of, 747 Great Britain. See Britain Great Compromise, 145, 153, 419, 732 Great Fear, 205 Great Powers, 357, 499 Great Reform Act (1832), 249 Great Terror, 620 Great Yarmouth, 724 Greece, and slavery, 675–76, 679 Greene, Nathanael, 551 Greenville, Lord, 416, 581 Greenville, Treaty of, 539, 571 Grégoire, Henri, 315–16. See also Religion; Slavery and the Slave Trade Grenville, George, 516, 535, 696 The Grievances of the American Colonies Candidly Examined (Hopkins), 339 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant), 380 Guadeloupe, 295, 316. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade Guadet, Marguerite-Elie, 88, 297, 316–17, 743, 744. See also Brissotins; Jacobins; Parlements (France) Guanajuato, 336, 477 Guillotin, Joseph-Ignace, 317–18, 713 Guillotine, 112, 172, 184, 245, 318, 318, 398, 431, 443, 444, 483, 594, 617, 663 Hague, Treaty of, 67, 183 Haitian Revolution, 257, 296, 297, 319–20, 723. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade Hamilton, Alexander, 8, 24, 26, 69, 73, 119, 145, 153, 203, 235, 321–24, 370, 372, 383, 486, 666, 731, 732, 759, 769. See also American Revolution; American Revolutionary War; Federalist Papers Hampshire County Rebellion, 463 Hancock, John, 170, 211, 324–26, 410, 463, 674–75, 731. See also Lexington and Concord, Actions at Hanriot, François, 326. See also Committee of Public Safety; Jacobins

Index

Hapsburg Empire, 259, 261, 285, 415, 690 Hardenberg, Karl von, 474, 744 Hardy, Thomas, 423, 424 Harrington, James, 485 Harrison, Benjamin, 138 Hart, Nancy, 773 Hauranne, Jean Duvergier de, 367 Hawkesbury, Lord, 416 Hays, John Casper, 772 Heath, William, 411 Hébert, Jacques René, 72, 119, 132, 173, 183, 326–28, 365, 619, 656, 663. See also Newspapers (French) Hébertistes, 173, 183, 231, 328–30, 656, 663, 777. See also Cordeliers Club; French Revolutionary Wars Hebrews, 675 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 15, 330–31, 602, 604. See also Kant, Immanuel Hell-Fire Club, 766 Helvetius, Claude-Adrien, 196, 671, 751 The Henriad (Voltaire), 751 Henri VIII (Chénier), 119 Henry, Patrick, 76, 167, 169, 331–33, 401, 731, 733, 747, 749. See also Lexington and Concord, Actions at Henry IV, 230, 293 Hérault de Séchelles, Marie Jean, 134, 333–34, 618. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; The Mountain; Parlements (France) d’Herbois, Collot, 34, 72 Herder, Johann Gothfried von, 311, 513 Hertz, Henriette, 602 Hesse, Carla, 444 Hibernian Journal, 352 Hidalgo, Manuel, 392 Hidalgo y Costilla, Miguel, 335–36, 476. See also Mexican Revolution High Court, at Orléans, 409 Hippolyte Charles, 376 Hispaniola, 319, 336–37, 678, 723. See also Haitian Revolution; Slavery and the Slave Trade Histoire des quinze semaines ou le dernier règne de Bonaparte (Michaud), 479 Histoire du siècle d’Alexandre le Grand (Linguet), 415 Historical and Political Reflections on the Rise and Progress of the American Rebellion (Galloway), 294 Historie de l ’anarchie en Pologne (Rulhière), 587

The History of Charles XII (Voltaire), 751 History of England (Hume), 25, 343 History of England (Mackintosh), 440 History of Fifteen Weeks, or the Last Reign of Bonaparte (Michaud), 479 History of the Air (Boyle), 421 History of the Commonwealth of England: From Its Commencement, to the Restoration of Charles the Second (Godwin), 311 History of the Protestant Reformation (Cobbett), 129 The History of the Province of New York (Smith), 683 History of the Reign of James II (Fox), 246 History of the Russian Empire under Peter the Great (Voltaire), 754 Hobbes, Thomas, 79, 218, 219, 235, 412, 419 Hogendorp, Gijsbert Karel van, 520 Hohenlinden, Battle of, 260 Holbach, Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron d’, 220, 337–38, 575 Hölderin, Friedrich, 330, 602 Holland, 474, 591, 676, 679, 744. See also Netherlands, United Kingdom of Holy Alliance, 474 Holy Roman Empire, 38, 260, 406, 452, 495, 532, 582 Hondschoote, Battle of, 620 Hopkins, Stephen, 338–39. See also Albany Plan of Union (1754); Continental Congress, First; Continental Congress, Second; Pamphlets (American); Signers of the Declaration of Independence Hopkinson, Francis, 339–40. See also American Revolutionary War; Signers of the Declaration of Independence; Symbols (American Revolutionary) Hostages, Law of. See Law of Hostages Hôtel des Invalides, 340–41 Hôtel de Ville de Paris, 66, 69, 341, 542, 775 House of Assembly, 668 House of Burgesses (Virginia), 140, 382, 518, 696, 745, 757 House of Commons (Britain), 88, 89, 90, 91, 92–93, 129, 243, 249, 354, 537, 565, 579, 592, 724, 766, 768 House of Commons (Ireland), 314, 351 House of Lords (Britain), 88, 89, 354, 565, 766 House of Orange, 206, 208 House of Peers, 399

851

852

Index

House of Representatives (U.S.), 73–74, 145, 153, 234, 267, 341–43, 614, 732 Howe, William, 28, 29, 30, 85, 292, 305, 757 Hubertusburg, Peace of, 270 Huguenots, 212 Hugues. Victor, 296 Humboldt, Alexander von, 79 Hume, David, 25–26, 218, 222, 235, 343–44, 513, 559, 575, 659, 733 Hundred Days With the Restoration, 107, 204, 355, 387, 470, 495, 562, 695, 762 Hundred Years’ War, 230 Huntington, Samuel, 345 Hutchinson, Thomas, 12, 16, 83, 85, 292, 345–47, 400, 461, 592, 712. See also Boston Tea Party Hymn to Humanity (Hölderin), 602 Iberian Peninsula, 302 Idéalogues, 199, 349 Iguala, Plan of, 477 Impartiaux, Club des, 349, 350. See also Political Clubs (France) Imperial Crypt, 261 Inalienable rights, 223 Incas, 675 Independent Journal (New York), 233 Independent Reflector newspaper, 418, 554, 683 India, 97, 247, 251, 285, 350–51, 579, 675, 679. See also Jacobins India Bill, 248 Industrial Revolution, 90 De l’influence attribuée aux philosophes, aux francs-mason et aux illuminés sur la Révolution française (Mounier), 490 Inglis, Charles, 555 Innocent X (Pope), 367 Inquest (Filmer), 420 Inquiry in the Character and Tendency of the American Anti-Slavery Societies ( Jay), 2 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Smith), 26, 204, 681 An Inquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies pamphlet (Bland), 23 Inquisition, Tribunal of, 335 Insurrection Act (Ireland), 686 International Court of Justice, 680 Intolerable Acts, 687. See also Coercive Acts; Massachusetts Government Act Les Invalides. See Hôtel des Invalides Ireland, 64, 242, 302, 351–55, 536, 553, 566, 580, 699. See also Britain; French

Revolutionary Wars; Insurrection Act (Ireland); Society of United Irishmen Irish Declaratory Act, 243, 314 Iroquois Confederacy, 16, 539 Irvine, William, 772 Isnard, Henri Maximin, 355, 624. See also Jacobins; Sans-culottes Italian Journey (Goethe), 312 Italy, 4, 123, 214, 356–59, 471, 498, 532, 558, 591, 668, 690, 737, 740. See also Concordat; Pius VII (Pope); Pius VI (Pope) Iturrigaray, José de, 475, 476 Ivan the Terrible (Tsar), 382 Jackson, Andrew, 720 Jackson, William, 685 Jacobin Club (France), 34, 99, 132, 180, 205, 309, 390, 403, 483, 566, 572, 589–90, 591, 655, 717 Jacobin Republic, 238 Jacobins, 41, 56, 94, 99, 103, 119, 123, 142, 144, 151, 171, 173, 202, 244, 255, 328, 334, 355, 358, 361–66, 385, 387, 398, 403, 413, 451, 466, 483, 496, 509, 546, 557, 581, 584, 589, 593, 597, 603, 656, 663, 711, 777. See also Anti-Jacobin; Constitutions, French Revolutionary; The Mountain; Political Clubs (France) Jacques I (Haitian Emperor), 337 Jamaica, 320, 366–67, 678, 724. See also Haitian Revolution; Slavery and the Slave Trade James II, 420 Janissaries, 547 Jansen, Cornelius, 367, 415 Jansenism, 315, 367, 560, 729. See also Gallicanism; Religion Jaucort, Louis de, 220 Jay, John, 2, 6, 138, 153, 167, 188, 368, 486. See also Articles of Confederation; Federalist Papers Jay Treaty, 7, 322 Jeanbon Saint-André, André, 135, 369, 618. See also Jacobins Jefferson, Thomas, 6, 7, 23, 26, 73, 138, 140, 145, 185, 188, 190, 204, 218, 225, 322, 323, 325, 333, 369–73, 387, 401, 421, 442, 459, 519, 553, 554, 568, 745, 759. See also Federalist Papers; Slavery and the Slave Trade Jervis, John, 287 Jeunesse dorée (guilded youth) militia, 594

Index

Jews/Judaism, 186, 256, 315, 446, 547, 562, 742, 745 Jiménez, Mariano, 336 John of Jandun, 292 Joseph, Louis Philippe, 205 Joseph II (Austria), Holy Roman Emperor, 158, 223, 259, 260, 374, 405, 4115, 456, 533, 560–61, 582, 750. See also L’Encyclopédie (Diderot and d’Alembert) Josephine, Empress of France, 62, 374–76 Journal-affi che, L’Ami des Citoyens, journal fraternel (Tallien), 711 Journal de la République Française (Marat), 451 Journal de Paris, 434 Le Journal de Paris French newspaper, 528 Journal des Etats-Géneraux (Mirabeau), 482 Journal des Libres newspaper, 591 Journal historique et politique de Genève, 446 Journées, 377, 663 Judiciary Act (1789), 567 Julie (Rousseau), 574 July Monarchy, 710 July Revolution, 68, 730 Juries, 378 Kant, Immanuel, 218, 222, 379–81, 444, 513, 602. See also Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Karamzin, Nikolai Mikhailovich, 381–82 Karr, Alphonse, 557 Keith, WIlliam, 263 Kellerman, François, 737 Kemble, Margaret, 292 Kentucky, 382. See also Murray, John Kheraskov, M., 381 King, Rufus, 151, 383, 731. See also American Revolution; American Revolutionary War; Northwest Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, 495 Kingdom of Württemberg, 261 King’s Acceptance of the Constitution, 807–8 Kollataj, Hugo, 584, 587 Kosciuszko, Thaddeus, 758 Lacomb, Claire, 385, 405, 777. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de, 32, 48–49, 149, 156, 190, 195, 321–22, 362, 385–88, 389, 428, 512, 519, 540, 542, 572, 667, 758, 775 Laibach conference, 474

Lally-Tollendal, Trophime-Gérard, Marquis de, 389 Lamennais, Robert de, 729 Lameth, Alexandre, comte de, 205, 389–390, 403, 589. See also Jacobins; Varennes, Flight to La Mettrie, Julien Offroy de, 573 Land Plan (Spence), 694 Lanjuinais, Jean Denis, Comte de, 390. See also Brumaire, Coup d’Etat de; Cahiers de Doléances; Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Consulate; First Consul; French Revolution; Jacobins; Parlements (France) La Lanterne, 388 Lartigue, Jeanne de, 484 Latin American Revolutions, 392–96. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade Launay, Bernard-René de, 65, 66 Laurens, Henry, 325 Law of Frimaire, 617 Law of Hostages, 396 Law of 22 Prairial, 61, 136–37, 246, 397, 397–398, 620, 711, 775. See also FouquierTinville, Antoine Quentin; Law of Suspects Law of Suspects, 364, 397, 470, 509, 617, 777, 813–14 Law of the Maximum, 281 Laws of New York from the Year 1691 to 1751 (Smith), 683 League of Armed Neutrality, 305 League of Nations, 680 Lebrun, Charles-Francois, Duc de Plaisance, 162, 398–99 Le Chapelier, Isaac, 33 Leclerc, Jean-Théophile, 385, 405 Lectures on the Philosophy of History (Hegel), 15 Lee, Arthur, 6, 138, 400–401. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade; United States Constitution Lee, Charles, 30, 140 Lee, Richard Henry, 140, 167, 169, 186, 401–2, 518, 733. See also Boston Port Act; Slavery and the Slave Trade Legion of Honor (France), 162, 202, 470 Legislative Assembly (France), 70, 86, 106, 111, 158, 175, 180, 181, 195, 202, 296, 297, 317, 334, 355, 363, 398, 402–4, 430, 471, 487, 508, 509, 567, 590, 655, 663, 668. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary

853

854

Index

Legislative Corps, 256 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 753 Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (Goethe), 311 Lenz, J. M., 381 Léon, Pauline, 385, 404–5, 776, 777 Leopold II (Emperor), 254, 374, 405–6, 469 Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau, Louis Michel, 406–7. See also The Mountain Les arbres de la liberté, 42–43 Lescynski, Stanislas, 288 Lèse-Nation, Crime de, 408. See also Cahiers de doléances Lespinasse, Julie de, 575, 659 Lessart, Claude Antoine de Valdec de, 408–9 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 218 Letter Addressed to the Addressers of the Late Proclamation (Paine), 552 Letter Concerning Toleration (Locke), 23, 421 Letters Concerning the English Nation (Voltaire), 751 Letters concerning the Present State of Poland (Murray), 492 Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies pamphlet (Dickinson), 197 Letters from an American Farmer (Crèvecoeur), 175, 176 Letters of a Russian Traveler (Karamzin), 381 Letters on a Regicide Peace (Mackintosh), 42, 98, 439 Letters to the Economists on Their Political and Moral System (Sieyès), 671 Des Lettres de Cachet (Mirabeau), 65, 101, 480, 481 Lettres sur l’histoire primitive de la Grèce (Rabaut de Saint Etienne), 613 Levée en masse, 255, 283, 409–10, 510, 567, 587 Leviathan (Hobbes), 219, 419 Levin, Rahel, 602 Lewis and Clark expedition, 371 Lexington and Concord, Actions at, 20, 85, 169, 170, 185, 189, 303, 383, 410–11, 468, 544, 746. See also Suffolk Resolves Libel Act, 249 Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité), 186–87, 190, 227, 253, 350, 411–13. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Cordeliers Club; Political Clubs (France) Life of the Earl of Stafford (Lally-Tollendal), 389 Ligurian Republic, 398

Lincoln, Abraham, 2, 188, 732 Lindet, Jean-Baptiste Robert, 134, 135, 413–14, 618 Lindet, Robert-Thomas, 414–15. See also Jacobins; The Mountain Lines of Torres Vedras, 501 Linguet, Simon-Nicolas Henri, 415. See also French Revolution Liniers, Santiago, 393 Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of, 416–17, 564 Livingston, Philip, 417–418 Livingston, Robert, 185, 188 Livingston, William, 418–19, 554, 683. See also Livingston, Philip; Loyalists; Newspapers (American); Paterson, William; Slavery and the Slave Trade; Smith, William (1727-1803); United States Constitution Locke, John, 22–23, 42, 79, 157, 186, 218, 219, 223, 225, 235, 338, 349, 372, 419–22, 555, 596, 597, 671, 672, 733, 751 Les lois civiles (Pétion), 572 Loménie de Brienne, Etienne Charles, 422–423, 481–82, 563 London Corresponding Society (LCS), 423–25, 694 London Revolution Society, 33–34, 424–25. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade Long Island, Battle of, 28, 757 Lord Proprietors of Carolina Colony, 420 Louis XIII (King of France), 212 Louis XIV (King of France), 37, 249–50, 250, 711 Louis XV (King of France), 250–51, 453 Louis XVI (King of France), 4, 34, 41, 46, 48, 61, 65, 70, 71, 88, 99, 103, 110, 118, 150, 157, 173, 175, 179, 189, 204, 212, 258, 283, 308, 317, 350, 362, 390, 413, 426–31, 443, 444, 446, 471, 481, 487, 491, 505, 508, 540, 541, 558, 561, 563, 569, 572, 590, 597, 617, 655, 663, 669, 672, 691, 713, 738, 741, 743. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary Louise, Elizabeth Wilhelmina, 260 Louis XVII (King of France), 61, 260, 431–32 Louis XVIII (King of France), 46, 59, 63, 70, 204, 245, 258, 389, 427, 428, 431, 432–33, 447, 465, 504, 730, 760. See also Brumaire, Coup d’Etat de Louisiana Purchase, 204, 371, 488 Louvet de Couvray, Jean-Baptiste, 34, 308, 433–34. See also Constitutions, French

Index

Revolutionary; Girondins; Newspapers (French) Lovell, James, 138, 434 Lowndes, Rawlins, 435. See also Constitutions, American State Loyal Foresters, 147 Loyalists, 85, 97, 110, 154, 435–38, 614, 683, 684, 773, 779 Loyal Nine, 697 Ludwig, Mary, 772 Lundy, Benjamin, 1–2 Lunéville, Treaty of, 123, 260, 287, 359 Luttrell, Henry, 767 Luxembourg, 474, 744 Lyon, Matthew, 567 Macaulay, Catharine, 222 Mackintosh, Sir James, 439–40. See also Latin American Revolutions; Whigs Madison, James, 23, 26, 72, 73, 145, 151, 153, 322, 422, 440–42, 459, 486, 566, 614, 720, 731, 734, 745, 769. See also Federalist Papers; Republicanism Magna Carta, 73, 75, 166, 735 Maillard, Stanislas Marie, 442–43, 542 Maimorte, 443 Maipú, Battle of, 661 Maistre, Joseph de, 445 Malby, Gabriel, 587 Malesherbes, Chrétien Guillaume de Lamoignon de, 444. See also Parlements (France) Mallet du Pan, Jacque, 70, 444–47 Malouet, Pierre Victor, 447 Mansfield, Earl of. See Murray, David, Earl of Mansfield Marat, Jean-Paul, 171, 179, 298, 309, 317, 448–51, 541, 590, 617, 668, 719, 744. See also The Mountain Marbury vs. Madison Supreme Court decision, 567 Marengo, Battle of, 123, 260 Margarot, Maurice, 424 Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman (Wollstonecraft), 770 Maria Louisa (Archduchess), of Spain, 259 Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, 172, 182, 226, 246, 254, 260, 405, 406, 427, 428, 432, 446, 452–57, 508, 517, 542, 617, 663, 743. See also First Estate; Second Estate; Tennis Court Oath Marmont, Marshall, 501

Marra, Giovanni, 448 Marronage, practice of, 319 Marsilius of Padua, 292 Martin, Josiah, 457–58, 538 Martineau, Pierre, 484 Martineauand, Madeleine Françoise, 727 Marx, Karl, 55, 62 Maryland, 113, 152, 197, 211, 458, 520, 549, 683, 731. See also American Revolutionary War; Carroll, Charles; Committees of Correspondence; Constitutions, American State; Galloway, Joseph; Paca, William Maryland Journal, 310 Mason, George, 73, 151, 186, 459, 731, 734–35, 747. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade Massachusetts, 72, 85, 139, 263, 291, 324, 383, 410, 434, 459–63, 493, 520, 536, 550, 592, 669, 677, 696, 731, 734, 746, 749, 757. See also Adams, Abigail; Chase, Samuel; Church, Benjamin; Circular Letter, of Massachusetts; Constitutions, American State; Continental Association; Continental Congress, First; Continental Congress, Second; King, Rufus; Loyalists; Navigation Acts; Non-Importation Acts; Proclamation of 1763; Quincy, Josiah; Sons of Liberty; Whigs Massachusetts Government Act, 13, 130, 140, 291, 324, 464–65, 687. See also Committees of Correspondence Massacres. See Boston Massacre; Champs de Mars, Massacre; Peterloo Massacre; September Massacres Maury, Jean-Sifrin, 465 Maximum, 100, 397, 466, 509, 593, 619, 778 Mayans, 675 McKean, Thomas, 466–67. See also Continental Congress, First; Continental Congress, Second; Signers of the Declaration of Independence McKinly, John, 467–68 Mecklenburgh Declaration, 468–69. See also Declaration of Independence; Virginia Resolves Mémoires acadédemiques, ou nouvelles découvertes sur la lumière (Marat), 448 Mémoires historiques (Mallet), 445, 446 Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia (Laramzin), 382 Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women (Godwin), 311

855

856

Index

Memorial Addressed to the Sovereigns of America (Pownall), 592 Memorial Addressed to the Sovereigns of Europe (Pownall), 592 Mercure Britannique, 447 Méricourt, Anne-Josèphe Théroigne de, 469, 776 Merlin, Philippe-Antoine, Comte, 470 Merlin “de Thionville,” Antoine Christophe, 471 Mesopotamia, 675 Mestizos, 475 Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (Kant), 380 Metternich, Klemens von, 261, 471–74, 744 Mexican Revolution, 475–78. See also Latin American Revolutions Mexico, 335, 392, 393, 475, 678, 680 Michaud, Joseph Francois, 479 Middle Ages, 443, 530 Middleton, Arthur, 200 Ministry of All the Talents, 416 Mirabeau, Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de, 40, 101, 143, 151, 205, 362, 389, 408, 465, 479–83, 507, 557, 576, 589, 667, 671 Missouri Compromise, 1 Modern Biography, or a Dictionary of Men Who Have Made Their Name in Europe since 1789 (Michaud), 479 A Modest Inquiry into the Nature and Necessity of Paper Currency pamphlet (Franklin), 263 Molasses Act, 516 Moleville, Bertrand de, 184 Molyneux, William, 352 Momoro, Antoine-François, 411 Le Moniteur Patriote (Marat), 449 Moniteur periodical (Cloots), 329 Le Moniteur Universel, French newspaper, 528, 613 Monmouth, Battle of, 386 Monroe, James, 383 Montagnards. See The Mountain Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de le Brede et de, 23, 157, 190, 218, 223, 235, 307, 442, 483–87, 533, 555, 586, 618, 659, 732 Montgomery, Richard, 28, 110, 185 Montmorin de Saint-Hérem, Armand Marc, comte de, 409, 487 Moore, Rebecca, 437 Moore, William, 437 Moore’s Creek Bridge, Battle of, 458

Moral and Political Magazine (London Corresponding Society), 424 La morale universelle (Holbach), 338 Moreau, Jean, 102 Morelos y Pavon, Jose Maria, 477 Morillo, Pablo, 395 Morris, Governeur, 383, 487–88, 731. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade Morris, Margaret Hill, 773 Morris, Robert, 138, 401, 488, 769 Moscow Journal (Karamzin), 381 Motte, Jeanne de la, 429 Moultrie, William, 200 Mounier, Jean Joseph, 488–90, 713, See also Cahiers de doléances The Mountain, 112, 175, 255–56, 281, 288, 306, 308, 309, 317, 413, 490–91, 546, 572, 743. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Danton, Georges-Jacques; French Revolutionary Wars; Hébert, Jacques René; Hébertistes; Jacobins Muhammed, and slavery, 676 Muir, Thomas, 491–92. See also Whigs Mûnster, Treaty of, 68 Murat, Joachim, 474, 495, 692 Murray, David, Earl of Mansfield, 492–93. See also Franco-American Alliance; French Revolutionary Wars; Poland, partitions of Murray, James, 693 Murray, John, Earl of Dunmore, 140, 493, 747 Murray, Judith Sargent, 493–94 Muslims, 547, 676 Nancy mutiny, 180 Nantes, Edict of, 212, 313 Naples, Kingdom of, 256, 260, 281, 474, 495, 557, 566, 744 Napoleon Crossing the Saint Bernard Pass (David), 185 Napoleon I, 3, 4, 8, 10, 18–19, 42, 47, 59, 67, 72, 91, 93, 102, 111, 125–27, 136, 143, 161, 204, 297, 355, 374–76, 398, 414, 447, 465, 475, 496–99, 557, 558, 561, 569, 582, 591, 597–98, 659, 670, 672, 709, 724, 739, 740, 765. See also First Consul; Slavery and the Slave Trade Napoleonic Code, 36, 125–27 Napoleonic Wars, 16, 91, 93, 261, 287, 302, 359, 395, 410, 475, 499–505, 568, 605, 693, 744, 760; French campaign, 504;

Index

German campaign, 503–4; naval operations, 502; Peninsular War, 500–501; Russian campaign, 502–3; War of Fifth Coalition, 502; Waterloo campaign, 504–5 Napoleon II, 261 Natalia the Boyar’s Daughter (Karamzin), 381 National Assembly (France), 3, 4, 40, 49, 71, 86, 101, 106, 116, 148, 175, 231, 242, 252, 282, 319, 350, 389, 398, 408, 415, 425, 443, 450, 456, 470, 479, 505–7, 512, 558, 567, 590, 613, 655, 668, 672, 709, 713, 738. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; First Estate; Second Estate National Constituent Assembly. See Constituent Assembly National Convention (France), 57, 70, 72, 88, 99, 103, 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 119, 120, 132, 142, 173, 182, 202, 232, 244, 306, 326, 334, 355, 361, 397, 409, 413, 414, 434, 470, 508–11, 545, 546, 572, 592, 613, 617, 653, 663, 669, 672, 714, 723, 739, 743. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Guillotine National Guard, 61, 100, 107, 149, 173, 326, 388, 411, 511–12, 542, 592, 654, 738, 740, 775. See also Bastille; Cockades Nationalism, 41, 267, 512–16, 686, 722, 729 Native Americans, 16, 226, 304, 539, 600, 677, 773, 778 Natural Law (Voltaire), 752 Natural rights, 191 Navigation Acts, 324, 516 Necker, Jacques, 47, 49, 65, 69, 71, 242, 252, 408, 423, 428, 429, 445, 447, 450, 453, 506, 517–18 Necker, Suzanne, 575, 659 Neilson, Samuel, 684 Nelson, Horatio, 499 Nelson, Thomas, Jr., 518–19 Netherlands, United Kingdom of, 37, 68, 104, 107, 127, 138, 208, 251, 262, 356, 398, 474, 519–20, 574, 576, 680, 690, 744. See also Dutch Revolutions New Eloise (Rousseau), 220 New England Courant newspaper, 263 New England Restraining Act, 459, 520. See also Non-Importation Acts; Quincy, Josiah A New Explanation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Knowledge (Kant), 380 New Hampshire, 167, 520, 521, 698. See also American Revolution; American

Revolutionary War; Boston Port Act; Constitutions, American State New Jersey, 28–29, 140, 188, 418, 520, 521–22, 566, 592, 666, 698, 731, 758, 770, 772. See also American Revolution; Constitutions, American State; Continental Association; Continental Congress, Second; Loyalists; Stockton, Richard New Jersey Gazette, 419 New Jersey Plan, 152 Newspapers (American), 22, 168, 215, 223, 527–28, 772 Newspapers (French), 195, 196, 327, 528–30 Newton, Isaac, 372 The New View of Society (Owen), 548 New World, 366, 679 New York, 28–29, 72, 139, 146, 167, 201, 233, 303, 368, 383, 417, 436, 461, 520, 522–27, 552, 592, 609, 616, 666, 669, 683, 698, 724, 731, 734, 759, 773, 781, 783. See also American Revolution; Constitutions, American State; Continental Congress, Second New York Journal (New York), 233 New York Packet, 233 Ney, Marshal, 761, 765 Nicolai, Christoph Friederich, 602, 603 Nicolas, Jean, 618 Nile, Battle of, 282 Nobility, 38–40, 47, 55, 57, 73, 104, 108, 150, 190, 205, 214, 231, 250, 329, 389, 413, 429, 443, 453, 465, 482, 530–34, 546, 563, 607, 666, 670, 719, 739 Noblesse de robe, 204 Non-Importation Acts, 534–35. See also Boston Port Act; Boston Tea Party; Stamp Act Congress North, Frederick North, Lord, 64, 90, 247, 304, 325, 493, 535–37, 564, 579, 592, 763, 783 North Briton (Wilkes), 767 North Carolina, 457, 468, 537–38, 698, 727, 770. See also American Revolutionary War; Charlotte Town Resolves; Constitutions, American State; Continental Congress, First; Continental Congress, Second; Loyalists; Mecklenburgh Declaration Northwest, 538–39, 600 Northwest Ordinance, 171, 383, 539 Norway, 474, 744 Notables, 539–40. See also Assembly of Notables

857

858

Index

Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention (Madison), 732 Notes on the State of Virginia ( Jefferson), 371 La nouvelle Heloïse (Rousseau), 575 Nouvelles observations sur les Etats-Généraux de France (Mournier), 489 Nouvelles Ordinaires de Divers Endroits French newspaper, 528 Nugent, Thomas, 23 Oath of the Horatii (David), 185, 566 “Observations on the Act of Parliament, commonly called the Boston Port Bill, with Thoughts on Civil Society and Standing Armies” (Quincy), 611 Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (Kant), 379 Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution (Price), 596 Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty (Price), 596 Oceana (Harrington), 486 O’Connor, Arthur, 241, 249 October Days, 253, 450, 469, 512, 541–43, 738, 775. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Pamphlets (French); Women (French) O’Donoju, Juan de, 477 Offrande à la Patrie pamphlet (Marat), 449 Ogden, David, 699 Ogden, James, 543–44. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade Ogden, William, 544 Ogé, Vincent, 319–20 Ogilvie, William, 242, 243 O’Higgins, Bernardo, 394, 660 Ohio Company of Associates, 539 Old Northwest. See Northwest The Old Regime and the Revolution (Tocqueville), 721 Old Revolution Club, 425 Olive Branch Petition, 189, 544–45, 600, 699 Oliver. Andrew, 697 On Crimes and Punishments (Beccaria), 221 On Divorce (Bonald), 82 One Penny Worth of Pig’s Meat: Lessons for the Swinish Multitude (Spence), 694 The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God (Kant), 380 On the Crucifixion and Resurrection (Ogden), 543

“On the Equality of the Sexes” essay (Judith Murray), 494 On the Export and Import of Grains (Du Pont de Nemours), 204 “On the Freedom of the Press” essay (Hume), 25 On the Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application in France (Tocqueville), 720 On the Social Contract, Principles of Political Right (Rousseau), 227 L’opinion de M. de Cazalès sur le renvoi des ministres, prononcée dans la séance de l ’Assemblée nationale de 19 octobre 1790 (The Opinion of Mr. de Cazalès about Firing Ministers, Delivered at the Meeting of the National Assembly on October 19, 1790) pamphlet (Salaville), 557 Oporto, Battle of, 501 Orateur du Peuple newsheet, 288 Organt poem (Saint-Just), 653 Orléans, Louis Philippe Joseph, Duc d’, 65, 87, 112, 180, 250, 429, 455, 543, 545–46, 751 Osborn, Charles, 2 Osborn, Danvers, 592 Otis, James, 22, 321, 696 Ottoman Empire, Impact of Revolutionary Thought on, 256, 260, 546–47, 580, 679, 741 Owen, David Dale (son), 548 Owen, Robert Dale (son), 548 Owen, Robert (father), 547–48 Paca, William, 549 Paine, Robert Treat, 83, 167, 550–51 Paine, Thomas, 41, 42, 92, 97, 128, 141–42, 148, 170, 186, 242, 301, 321, 492, 550–53, 602, 684. See also Continental Congress, Second Pamphlets (American), 22, 252, 321, 400, 554–55, 611. See also Federalist Papers Pamphlets (French), 556–57 Panckoucke, Charles-Joseph, 446 Paoli, Pasquale, 557–59 Papacy, 3, 40–41, 124, 127, 143, 162, 356, 474, 559–62, 582, 583, 729. See also Calendar, French Revolutionary Paris, Peace of, 302 Paris, Treaty of, 21, 171, 204, 266, 438, 504, 758, 783 Paris Commune, 72, 103, 118, 181, 309, 663, 668, 714–15, 743

Index

Parker, John, 410 Parlements (France), 38, 71, 204, 230, 250, 415, 423, 443, 482, 532, 539, 562–63, 765 Parliament (Great Britain), 12, 25, 37, 64, 82, 85, 89, 113, 117, 128, 130, 140, 166, 197, 305, 520, 521, 530, 534, 535, 563–65, 579, 600, 610, 687, 699, 725, 746, 749, 763, 783 Parthenopean Republic (Naples, Italy), 359, 566. See also French Revolutionary Wars Pascal, Blaise, 367, 751 Paterson, William, 145, 151, 566–67, 731. See also American Revolutionary War; Constitutions, American State; Jefferson, Thomas; United States Constitution Paterson Plan, 419 Patriarchia (Filmer), 420 Patrie en danger (the nation in danger), 567. See also French Revolution; French Revolutionary Wars; Reign of Terror Patriote Français periodical (Cloots), 329 Patriotic Billy. See Smith, William (1728–1793) Patriotism, 568 Patriot Revolution, 207, 242, 243 Paul, Marie Joseph, 190 Paul I (Tsar of Russia), 17–18 Pauperism report (Locke), 421 Peace of Amiens, 162 Peace of Hubertusburg, 270 Peace of Paris (1783), 302, 691 Peace of Sistova, 406 Peers, House of, 399 Peltier, Jean-Gabriel, 215, 568–69 Penal Code, 125 Peninsulaires, 475, 476, 477 Peninsular War, 500–501 Penn, John, 147 Pennsylvania, 147, 154–55, 167, 170, 197, 200, 266, 268, 382, 436, 520, 539, 544, 552, 569–71, 616, 669, 731, 758, 768. See also Constitutions, American State; Slavery and the Slave Trade Pennsylvania Chronicle, 310 Pennsylvania Magazine, 551 The People’s Barriers against Influence and Corruption (Cartwright), 113 Perceval, Spencer, 302, 416 Père Duchesne newspaper, 326, 327 The Persian Letters (Montesquieu), 484 Peter III (Tsar), of Russia, 269, 607 Peterloo Massacre, 303 Peter Porcupine. See Cobbett, William

Peters, Thomas, 15 Pétion de Villeneuve, Jérôme, 35, 99, 306, 572, 589. See also French Revolution; Girondins; Jacobins Petty, William, Earl of Shelburne, 64, 247, 302, 400, 579 Phenomenology of Mind (Hegel), 604 The Phenomenology of the Spirit (Hegel), 330 Philadelphia Gazette newspaper, 263 Philadelphia Zeitung newspaper, 263 Philippe Egalité. See Orléans, Louis Philippe Joseph, Duc d’ Philippe II (France), 250 Philippe IV (France), 229 Les Philippiques (The Philippics) pamphlet (Lagrange-Chancel), 556 Philosophes, 33, 36, 157, 179, 196, 213, 221–22, 372, 413, 422, 533, 558, 573–75, 577, 671, 727. See also American Philosophical Society; L’Encyclopédie (Diderot and d’Alembert); Enlightenment; Locke, John; Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de le Brede et de; Physiocrats; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques; Voltaire Philosophical and Political History of the Establishments and Trade of Europeans in the Two Indies (Diderot/Raynal), 198 Philosophical Dictionary (Voltaire), 754 A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (Burke), 96 A Philosophical Essay on Man (Marat), 448 Philosophical Letters (Voltaire), 220 The Philosophy of History (Voltaire), 754 Philosophy of Nature (Hegel), 330 The Philosophy of Spirit (Hegel), 330 Physiocrats, 221–22, 479, 517, 576–77, 727 Pichegru, Jean-Charles, 102 Pillnitz, Declaration of, 254, 406 Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth, 151, 577–78, 731. See also American Revolutionary War; Slavery and the Slave Trade Pinckney, Thomas, 578 Pitcher, Molly, 772 Pitt, William (the Elder). See Chatham, Pitt, William (the Elder), Earl of Pitt, William (the Younger), 42, 64, 90, 91, 217, 244, 247, 302, 416, 425, 446, 493, 537, 564, 579–82, 697, 722, 763, 766, 768, 779 Pius VI (Pope), 465, 559, 560–61, 582. See also Gallicanism; Pius VII (Pope) Pius VII (Pope), 143, 162, 253–54, 376, 465, 559, 561–62, 582–83, 729

859

860

Index

Pius IX (Pope), 730 Place, Francis, 114 The Plain, 583, 624. See also Jacobins Plan de legislation criminelle pamphlet (Marat), 449 Plan of Iguala, 478 Plenary Court (France), 230 Poem, Moral, Philosophical and Religious, in Which Is Considered the Nature of Man (Ogden), 543 Poem of the League (Voltaire), 751 A Poem on the Museum, at Athrington, Belonging to Ashton Levee (Ogden), 543 Poland, 532; constitution of, 115, 585–86; impact of revolutionary thought on, 583–84; partitions of, 115, 269, 270, 584–85; revolts of, 586–89 Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 583 Polish-Saxon Question, 474 Political Clubs (France), 33–35, 34, 62, 589–91. See also Girondins Political Justice (Godwin), 311 Political Register (Cobbett), 128 The Politician (London Corresponding Society), 424 La politique naturelle (Holbach), 338 Pontiac’s Rebellion, 539 Poor Law Amendment, 129 Poor Liza (Karamzin), 381 Poor Richard’s Almanac (Franklin), 263 Popham, Home, 393 Portugal, and slavery, 676 Potemkin, Grigory, 115 Potocki, Ignacy, 584 Du pouvoir exécutif dans le grands Etats (Necker), 518 Powers, separation of, 190 Pownall, Thomas, 591–92. See also Adams, Samuel; Albany Plan of Union (1754); American Revolution; Boston Port Act; Latin American Revolutions Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, 293 Pragmatism, vs. ideology, 267 Prairial insurrection, 198, 256, 281, 592–95. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Council of Five Hundred; Hébertistes; Law of 22 Prairial; Legislative Assembly (France) Prescott, Samuel, 410 Pressburg, Treaty of, 499 Preston, Thomas, 83, 84 Price, Richard, 41, 42, 595–96

Priestley, Joseph, 42, 595, 596–97 Prieur de la Marne, 134–35, 597–98. See also National Assembly (France) Prieur-Duvernois, Claude-Antoine, 134 Primary assemblies, 598 Principles of Polity (Pownall), 592 Privileges, 47, 48–49, 102, 127, 171, 191, 250, 390, 412, 445, 453, 478, 530, 540, 577, 586, 587, 598–99 Privy Council (Ireland), 265, 314, 351, 353, 416 A Problem (Cartwright), 114 Proclamation Line (Great Britain), 22 Proclamation of 1763, 21–22, 301, 539, 600, 610, 757 Proclamation of Rebellion, 536 Prohibitory Act (1776), 301, 600–601 Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (Kant), 380 Proli, Pierre, 232 Property, inviolability of, 253 Proposed Book (The American Book of Prayer) liturgy (Smith), 683 Protestant Ascendancy (Ireland), 353 Protestants, 253, 331, 562, 742, 779 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 36 Providence Gazette, 310, 339 Provincial Congress, 689 Provincialism, vs. nationalism, 267 Provincial Letters (Pascal), 367 Prussia, 127, 158, 207, 214, 248, 251, 254, 508, 567, 576, 619, 744; and Germany, impact of revolutionary thought on, 601–6 Puerto Rico, 678, 680 Pugachev, Yemelyan, 115, 650 Pugachev Rebellion, 607, 649 Puisaye, Joseph de, 121 Puritans, of New England, 733 Pyramids, Battle of, 285 Quakers, 1, 154, 338 Quartering Act, 130, 131, 291, 301, 313, 324, 461–62, 609, 687 Quasi-War, 8, 9, 578 Quebec Act, 110, 131, 324, 610 Queen’s Secret Society, 453 Quesnay, François, 479, 576, 577, 671, 727 Quesnel, Pasquier, 367 Qu’est-ce que le Tiers Etat? (What Is the Third Estate?) pamphlet (Sieyès), 557, 670 Questions on the Encyclopedia (Voltaire), 754

Index

Quincy, Josiah, 83, 610–11. See also Boston Port Act; Coercive Acts; Navigation Acts; Whigs Quincy, Samuel, 83, 550 Rabaut de Saint Etienne, Jean Paul, 613. See also French Revolution; Jacobins; Reign of Terror Raimond, Julien, 296 Ramsay, David, 24, 325 Randolph, Edmund, 151, 614, 731 Randolph, Peyton, 167, 170, 615. See also Adams, John; American Revolution; Boston Port Act; Boston Tea Party; Committees of Correspondence; Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms; Declaratory Act; Randolph, Edmund; Virginia Resolves Rankin, William, 616. See also Continental Congress, Second; Loyalists Rapp, George, 548 Rapport sur les crimes imputés à Louis Capet, 413 Rastatt, Treaty of, 495 The Real Rights of Man pamphlet (Spence), 694 Reason, Cult of, 237 Rebellion, Proclamation of, 536 Récherches physiques sur l’electricité (Marat), 448 Reed, George, 673, 674 Reeves, John, 416 Reflections on the Revolution in France and on the Proceedings of Certain Societies in London (Burke), 97, 124, 248, 439, 552, 596, 602, 604, 764 Regency Act, 315 Regency Crisis, 248 Regnier, Jacques, 215 Regulator grievances, 727 Reign of Terror, 3, 9, 41, 55, 70, 86, 119, 124, 135, 142, 151, 174, 196, 199, 214, 221, 245, 256, 280–81, 309, 316, 318, 326, 331, 361, 376, 385, 397, 409, 412, 443, 466, 497, 507, 508, 545, 590, 616–21, 653, 659, 663, 670, 709, 714, 719, 738 Religion, 75, 143, 162, 192, 209, 218–19, 596, 621–23, 653, 735. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Ultramontanism Religious Edict (Williams), 603 Religious Freedom: Bill for Establishing, 372; Statute for ( Jefferson), 333 Rennes, Parliament of, 251 Renunciation Act (1783), 314

Réponse au Mémoire de M. l’abbé Morellet: sur la Compagnie des Indes (Necker), 517 Réponse aux alarmes des bons citoyens (Mirabeau), 482 Report on the Subject of Manufacturers (Hamilton), 322 Representatives on mission, 72, 132, 135, 142, 255, 364, 508, 623–25. See also Girondins; Jacobins; The Mountain Republicanism, 18, 24, 188, 198, 235, 238, 403, 451, 482, 514, 555, 568, 625–27, 686, 722, 733. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Hamilton, Alexander; Jacobins; Jefferson, Thomas; Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité); Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de le Brede et de; Paine, Robert Treat; Robespierre, Maximilien; Society of Revolutionary Republican Women; United States Constitution Republic of Virtue, 364 Resolution Not to Import, 168 The Restorer of Society to Its Natural State pamphlet (Spence), 694 Revenue Act, 627–28 Revere, Paul, 27, 83, 168, 169, 325, 628–29, 687, 700. See also Boston Port Act; Lexington and Concord, Actions at; Tea Act A Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals (Price), 595 The Revolution, an Epic Poem (Ogden), 543–44 Revolutionary Committees of the French Revolution, 629–30. See also Committee of Public Safety Revolutionary Republican Women (Citoyennes Républicaines Révolutionnaires), 405, 664 Revolutionary tribunals, 106, 112, 119, 182, 246, 255, 355, 364, 397–98, 451, 508, 545, 620, 630–31, 711, 717 De la Révolution française (Necker), 518 Les Révolutions de France et de Brabant newspaper (Danton), 196 Revolution Settlement (1688-1689), 91 Rhine, Confederation of, 258, 260–61 Rhode Island, 213, 338, 520, 631–32, 666, 731, 749 Rigaud, André, 296 Rights: inalienable, 186–87, 191, 223; natural, 191 Rights of Man (Paine), 97, 423, 439, 552, 602, 684

861

862

Index

The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (Otis), 22, 24 Rillet, Hélène, 444 Riqueti, Gabriel, 408 Riqueti, Victor, 479 Rivington, James, 632–33. See also Newspapers (American) Robespierre, Maximilien, 35, 55, 59, 61, 72, 87, 94, 99, 103, 104, 106, 111, 112, 119, 124, 132, 134, 183, 195, 244, 246, 255, 281, 283, 309, 326, 334, 361, 403, 411, 414, 470, 471, 483, 496, 507, 509, 511, 545, 572, 589, 590–91, 617, 619, 633–38, 653, 663, 668–69, 670, 710, 711, 714, 717, 742. See also Guillotine Rochambeau, comte de, 758 La Rochejaquelein, Henri du Vergier, Comte de, 391–392 Rockingham, Watson-Wentworth, Charles, Marquess of, 96, 195, 247, 638, 697, 763 Rodney, Caesar, 467 Rogers, Deborah Read, 263 Rohan, Cardinal de, 454 le Roi Soleil (the Sun King). See Louis XIV (King of France) Roland, Jean-Marie, 181, 297, 434, 669, 777 Roland, Marie-Jeanne Philipon, 88, 99, 638–39. See also Girondins; Jacobins; Newspapers (French) Roland de la Platière, Jean Marie, 88, 403, 640–41. See also Jacobins; Roland, MarieJeanne Philipon Rolandins, 88 Roman Catholicism, 143, 253, 256, 420, 429, 477, 536, 574, 610, 729, 779 Romanov dynasty (Russia), 382 Romans, and slavery, 675–76 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 23, 36, 78, 86, 124, 157, 190–91, 216, 218, 220, 221, 223, 226, 307, 338, 433, 481, 486, 513, 533, 558, 573, 575, 587, 601, 618, 641–44, 672, 752, 754, 775. See also Jacobins Roux, Jacques, 663–64 Royal Literary Fund, 215 Royal Society, 264, 420 Royer-Collard, Pierre-Paul, 644–45 Rule of Law, 645–47 Rulhière, Claude, 587 Rural Code, 125 Rush, Benjamin, 23, 551, 555, 647–49, 699, 774 Russell, Thomas, 684

Russia, 19, 115, 214, 251, 381, 382, 502–3, 532, 581, 584, 649–51, 695, 715 Russo-Turkish War, 270 Rutledge, Edward, 651 Rutledge, John, 95, 652. See also Constitutions, American State Rye House Plot, 420 Sackville, George, 304 Sacre de Joséphine (David), 185 Sade, Marquis de, 101 Saint-Antoine, Faubourg, 388 Saint-Domingue, military expedition, 296, 320, 367, 415, 724 Saint-Just, Louis Antoine Léon Florelle de, 135, 175, 183, 365, 617, 653–57, 711, 717. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; Republicanism Saint-Simon, Claude Henri de, 657–58 Saint-Simonism, 657–58 Salaville, Jean-Baptiste, 557 Salons, 517, 602, 658–59 Samuel, Pierre, 204 San Ildefonso, Treaty of, 287 San Lorenzo, Treaty of (Thomas Pinckney’s Treaty), 759 San Marrtin, José de, 394, 659–61 Sans Culotte and Jacobine, an Hudibrastic Poem (Ogden), 544 Sans-culottes, 118, 181, 198, 255, 256, 326, 328, 363, 364, 404, 405, 450, 509, 590, 593, 594, 617, 656, 661–64, 715, 776, 777. See also Girondins; Women (French) Sanson, Deborah, 773 Sans-Souci Palace, 269, 270 Sauvigny, Bertier de, 388 Savil Act, 97 Saxe-Coburg, Prince, 283 Say, Jean-Baptist, 349 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, 330, 602 Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von, 312, 602, 664–65. See also Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich; Kant, Immanuel Schimmelpennick, Rutger Jan, 207 Schmidt, Tobias, 318 Schönbrunn, Treaty of, 261 The Science of Knowledge (Fichte), 239 The Science of Logic (Hegel), 330 Scotland, 222, 681, 699 Scott, John Morin, 418, 683

Index

Seabury, Samuel, 666. See also American Revolution; Continental Congress, Second; Loyalists Second Coalition (France), 123, 256, 260, 282–85 Second Continental Congress, 382, 383, 401, 402, 418, 434 Second Estate, 102, 189, 192, 205, 231, 250, 389, 456, 482, 489, 666–67, 713. See also First Estate; Third Estate Second Restoration, 105, 433 Second Treatise of Civil Government (Locke), 22, 225, 422 Sedenham, Thomas, 420 Seditious Meetings Act, 425 Senate, 77, 104, 111, 145, 157, 160, 162, 256, 383, 418, 440, 614, 667–68, 732 La Sentinelle newspaper, 434 Separation of powers, 190 September Massacres, 72, 88, 171, 181, 254 –55, 306, 326, 334, 377, 404, 443, 456, 487, 663, 668–69, 743. See also French Revolutionary Wars; Girondins; The Mountain A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (Astell), 222 Seven Years War, 15–16, 21, 22, 117, 131, 218, 251, 261, 269, 295, 301, 304, 322, 324, 428, 453, 460, 516, 539, 579, 600, 690, 696, 724, 756 Shays, Daniel, 463 Shay’s Rebellion, 46, 235, 325, 463, 521, 550 Sheridan, Charles Francis, 352, 764 Sherman, Roger, 147, 151, 167, 185, 669–70, 673, 674. See also American Revolution; Constitutions, American State; Continental Congress, Second; Signers of the Declaration of Independence Shirley, William, 550 “Short Hints toward a Scheme for Uniting the Northern Colonies” proposal (Franklin & Hutchinson), 16 Shurtliff, Robert, 773 Sicily, 495 Sidney, Algernon, 420 Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph, Abbé, 151, 157, 190, 231, 241, 242, 252, 482, 506, 557, 589, 669, 670–73, 709, 717–18, 719. See also Brumaire, Coup d’Etat de; Constitutions, French Revolutionary; The Mountain; Prussia and Germany, impact of revolutionary thought on Signers of the Declaration of Independence, 673–75

Simon, Antoine, 431 Sinking Fund, 579 Sistova, Peace of, 406 Six Acts (1819), 303 Sketch for a History of the Progress of the Human Mind (Condorcet), 144 Slavery Abolition Act, 766 Slavery and the Slave Trade, 1, 2, 13–14, 153, 187, 188, 267, 447, 675–80, 766. See also Amis de la Constitution, Société des; Antislavery groups; Gens de couleur; Haitian Revolution; Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery (Geneva) Smith, Abigail, 5, 371, 771, 774 Smith, Adam, 96, 218, 222, 349, 446, 513, 592, 681–82 Smith, Francis, 410 Smith, Melancton (Federal Farmer), 233, 733 Smith, William (1727–1803), 418, 437, 682–83. See also Loyalists Smith, William (1728–1793), 683–84. See also American Revolution; Constitutions, American State; Livingston, Philip The Snare Broken pamphlet (Mayhew), 23 The Social Contract (Rousseau), 190–91, 220, 221, 558, 573 Social mobility, vs. class barriers (Franklin), 267 Société des Amis de la Constitution. See Amis de la Constitution, Société des Société Fraternelle, 777 Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, 267 Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 1 Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (Church of England), 683 Society of Friends of the Monarchical Constitution, 350 Society of Jesus, 560, 562 Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, 385, 777 Society of Supporters of the Bill of Rights, 767 Society of the Friends of the Law, 469 Society of United Irishmen, 241, 243, 315, 353, 354, 491, 684–86, 721, 722 Solemn League and Covenant, 686–87 Some Considerations of the Consequences of Lowering of Interest, and Raising the Value of the Money (Locke), 421

863

864

Index

Sons of Liberty, 6, 43, 85, 213, 266, 313, 324, 521, 534, 536, 683, 687–88, 697, 726 Sonthonax, Léger-Féicité, 320 Sophism, 422, 679–80 The Sorrows of Young Werther (Goethe), 312 South Carolina, 30, 94, 107, 167, 200, 520, 535, 577, 689, 778. See also American Revolution; Articles of Confederation; Constitutions, American State; Continental Congress, Second; Declaration of Independence; Pinckney, Charles Cotesworth; Pinckney, Thomas; Rutledge, John Sovereign Chamber of the Clergy (Paris), 670–71 Spa Fields riots, 694 Spain, 30, 31, 41, 104, 261, 335, 356, 368, 474, 475, 500, 532, 580, 583, 659–61, 668, 676, 690–93, 724, 744. See also Latin American Revolutions Special Tribunals (of Napoleon I), 497 Speech on Reconciliation with America (Burke), 97 Spence, Thomas, 93, 693–94 Spensonian Philanthropists, 694 The Spirit of the Laws (Montesquieu), 23, 219, 485–86 St. Leon (Godwin), 311 Staël, Anna-Louise Germaine Necker, Madame de, 222, 517, 694–95. See also Émigrés; Jacobins; Rousseau, JeanJacques; Salons Stamp Act, 6, 11, 22, 24, 25, 64, 83, 85, 96, 118, 139, 194, 195, 203, 265, 268, 301, 303, 324, 401, 435, 459, 460–61, 464, 534, 549, 555, 596, 682, 688, 696, 696–97, 712, 746, 749, 779, 783. See also Newspapers (American) Stamp Act Congress, 16, 139, 144, 146, 166, 303, 418, 435, 461, 467, 521, 538, 697, 697–98, 746 A State of the Rights of the Colonists pamphlet (Samuel Adams), 23 Statute for Religious Freedom ( Jefferson), 333 Steuben, Friederich von, 387, 758 Stockton, Richard, 698–99 Stoddert, Benjamin, 9–10 Stoicism, 679–80 Story, Joseph, 720 Sucre, Antonio José de, 396 Suez Canal, 658 Suffolk County Convention, 700

Suffolk Resolves, 168, 699–700. See also Continental Congress, Second Suffrage (American), 700–702 Suffrage (French), 702–4 Sugar Act (1764), 22, 324, 339, 460, 696, 698, 704, 757. See also American Revolution Sullivan, John, 167, 386 Sultan, Tipu, 350–51, 589 A Summary View of the Rights of British America pamphlet ( Jefferson), 369, 554 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery (Geneva), 680 Supreme Being, Cult of, 237, 329, 510–11 Supreme Court (United States), 74, 117, 146, 155, 378, 467, 566, 567, 704–6, 733, 768 Supreme Executive Council, of Pennsylvania, 266 Sur l’administration de M. Necker (Necker), 518 Sur la litérature considéré dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales (Staël), 695 Surveillance Committee (Paris Commune), 669 Suspects, Law of. See Law of Suspects Suvorov, Alexander, 286 Sweden, 474, 581, 680, 695 Swift, Jonathan, 554 Swift, Zephaniah, 24 Swiss Guard, 430 Switzerland, 574, 591, 737 Syllabus Errorum (Pope Pius IX), 41 “The Syllabus of Errors” (Pius IX), 730 Symbols (American Revolutionary), 707 Symbols (French Revolutionary), 707–8 Syria, 547 Système social (Holbach), 338 A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut (Swift), 24 Tableau (Quesnay), 577 Taille (personal tax), 230 Take Your Choice (Cartwright), 114 Talleyrand-Périgord, Charles Maurice de, 8, 40, 63, 94, 157, 204, 217, 241, 258, 474, 709–10, 744 Tallien, Jean Lambert, 710–11, 714, 717. See also The Mountain; Thermidorian Reaction Tandy, James Napper, 352, 722 Tappan, Lewis, 2 Targowica, Confederation of, 584

Index

Taxation, 6, 56, 97, 102, 126, 192, 225, 229– 30, 230, 250, 257. See also Cours des aides (courts of taxation); Taille (personal tax) Tea Act, 131, 211, 324, 351, 711–12. See also Continental Congress, Second; Gage, Thomas Tecumseh, 539 Temple of Reason, 119, 327 Tennis Court Oath, 65, 106, 124, 204, 231, 315, 390, 489, 506, 572, 712–14, 800. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary; First Estate; Second Estate The Terror. See Reign of Terror Terwagne, Anne Josèphe, 776 Textor, Katherine Elisabeth, 311 Thelwall, John, 424 Théorie des lois civiles (Linguet), 415 Theory of Colors (Goethe), 312 The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Smith), 26, 681 Thermidorian Reaction, 62, 72, 104, 134, 142, 159, 202, 244, 256, 281, 326, 355, 361, 365, 414–15, 451, 466, 470, 509, 592, 597, 617, 620, 653, 714–15. See also Brumaire, Coup d’Etat de; Calendar, French Revolutionary Thermidorians, 61, 591, 654, 664, 714, 716–17, 739, 777–78 Things as They Are (Godwin), 311 Third Coalition, 499, 581 Third Estate, 47, 49–50, 58, 65, 99, 102, 106, 108, 124, 189, 205, 230, 242, 250, 252, 350, 390, 413, 414, 455, 482, 489, 506–7, 533, 546, 563, 613, 713, 714, 717–19. See also First Estate; Second Estate Third Letter for Toleration (Locke), 421 Third Reich, 312 Thomas, Antoine-Léonard, 222 Thomas Pinckney’s Treaty (Treaty of San Lorenzo), 759 Thornton, Matthew, 674 Thoughts on Government (Adams), 554 Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (Burke), 96 Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (Wollstonecraft), 770 Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces (Kant), 379 Three Guarantees, Army of, 477 Tilsit, Treaty of, 19, 502 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 645, 719–21 Tolentino, Battle of, 495 Tone, Theobald Wolfe, 684, 685, 721–22

Tonnelier, Louis Auguste le, 214 Tooke, John Horne, 249 Tories, 83, 86, 96, 419, 435, 565, 581, 722–23, 769. See also Britain Totalitarianism, 56, 616 To the Citizens of the United States essay (Paine), 553 Toussaint l’Ouverture, 296, 320, 337, 723–24. See also French Revolution; Slavery and the Slave Trade Le tout est-il plus grand que la partie? (Is the: Whole Greater than Its Parts?) pamphlet (Salaville), 557 Townshend, Charles, 724. See also Coercive Acts Townshend Acts, 6, 11, 22, 82, 83, 85, 197, 291, 301, 324, 461, 464, 518, 534, 535, 555, 688, 712, 724, 725–26, 747, 757, 771. See also Boston Port Act; Boston Tea Party; Committee of Secret Correspondence (Continental Congress); Stamp Act; Stamp Act Congress Tracts on the Property Laws (Burke), 96 Tracy, Destutt de, 349 Trafalgar, Battle of, 691 Traité de l’administration de la France (Necker), 517 The Transition from the Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science to Physics (Kant), 380 A Treatise of Human Nature (Hume), 343 Treatise on Political Economy (Say), 199, 349 Treatise on Tolerance (Voltaire), 574 Treaty of Campo Formio, 260 Trelawney Maroons, 366 Trent, Council of, 367 Tribunal of the Inquisition, 335 Tribunate, 256 Le tribun du peuple (The People’s Tribune), 55, 56 Tronchet, François-Denis, 125, 444 Troppau conference, 474 Trumbull, Jonathan, 726. See also American Revolution; Constitutions, American State Tryon, William, 457, 726–27. See also American Revolutionary War Turgot, Anne-Robert-Jacques, 213, 220, 252, 427, 444, 453, 480, 517, 557, 576, 659, 671, 727–28, 742. See also Ancien régime; Louis XVI (King of France) Twelve, Commission of, 182, 309, 617 22 Prairial, Law of. See Law of 22 Prairial

865

866

Index

Two Acts (of 1795), 424 Two Treatises of Government (Locke), 190, 219, 421 Ulster Volunteers (Ireland), 244 Ultramontanism, 292, 729–30. See also Abolition of the Catholic Cult; Anticlericalism; Religion Ultras, 47, 433, 730, 754 Unitarians, 597 United Empire Loyalists, 438 United Irishmen. See Society of United Irishmen United Kingdom of the Netherlands. See Netherlands, United Kingdom of United Provinces of the Low Countries, 68 United States Congress. See Congress (U.S.) United States Constitution, 6, 12, 72, 74, 113, 124, 144, 147, 151, 192, 193, 201, 223, 262, 322, 325, 370, 383, 422, 438, 447, 458, 467, 609, 731–36. See also Constitutional Convention (U.S.); Constitutions, American State; Federalist Papers; Slavery and the Slave Trade Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 680 Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (Kant), 379 Vadier, Marc-Guillaume, 594 Valmy, Battle of, 255, 282, 737. See also French Revolutionary Wars Varennes, Flight to, 34, 71, 99, 150, 238, 254, 307, 387, 430, 450, 487, 572, 711, 738. See also Abolition of the Monarchy (France); Émigrés; French Revolution; Marie Antoinette, Queen of France Vendéan Rebellion, 41, 134, 136, 284, 510, 597, 617, 738–39. See also Chouans; La Chounnerie; French Revolutionary Wars; La Roche-jaquelein, Henri du Vergier, Comte de Vendémiaire, Rising of, 281, 739–40. See also French Revolution; Thermidorian Reaction Venezuela, 680 Ventôse Decrees, 619, 656 Vergennes, Gravier, Charles, Comte de, 261, 446, 487, 741. See also American Revolutionary War; Franco-American Alliance Vergniaud, Pierre-Victurnien, 88, 297, 306, 317, 742–44. See also Jacobins; Parlements (France); Reign of Terror

Verona conference, 474 Versailles, Treaty of, 204, 452 Vienna, Congress of, 19, 68, 206, 208, 261, 359, 473, 474, 519, 562, 693, 710, 744–45, 760 Le Vieux Cordelier (Desmoulins), 776 View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution (Wollstonecraft), 770 Villiers, Joseph Coulon de, 756 Vimeur, Jean Baptiste Donatien de, 387 A Vindication of Natural Society (Burke), 95 A Vindication of the Rights of Men (Wollstonecraft), 770 A Vindication of the Rights of Women (Wollstonecraft), 776 Vindictiae Gallicae: A Defence of the French Revolution and Its English Admirers (Mackintosh), 439 Virginia, 7, 31, 32, 72, 73, 131, 140, 154, 234, 382, 400, 436, 458, 459, 518, 520, 539, 616, 677, 696, 698, 734, 745–48, 747, 755, 757, 782. See also Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms; Declaratory Act; Slavery and the Slave Trade Virginia Capes, Battle of, 782 Virginia Plan (Madison), 144, 152, 440, 566, 769 Virginia Resolves, 696, 698, 746, 749–50 Virginia Stamp Act resolutions, 24 Virtue, Republic of, 364 Vitam impendre Vero (Marat), 449 The Vocation of Man (Fichte), 239 Voltaire, François Marie, 15, 23, 36, 42, 65, 71, 78, 115, 157, 196, 213, 216, 218, 220, 269, 288, 389, 422, 443, 445, 558, 559, 573, 574, 576, 618, 750–54, 775 Vues sur les moyens d’exécution dont les représentants de la France pourront disposer en 1789 pamphlet (Sieyès), 671 War Commission of Saxe-Weimar, 312 War of 1812, 488, 539, 578 War of Fifth Coalition, 502 War of the Austrian Succession, 269, 304 War of the Oranges, 660 War of the Spanish Succession, 68, 250 Warren, Joseph, 410 Washington, George, 7, 27, 29, 30, 31, 85, 117, 151, 163, 170, 189, 190, 200, 213, 291, 322, 325, 333, 368, 386, 402, 419, 458, 459, 488, 494, 549, 551, 567, 577, 578, 683, 684, 699, 726, 731, 755–60, 770, 782

Index

Waterloo, Battle of, 59, 259, 399, 416, 433, 504–5, 598, 695, 760–62 Watson-Wentworth, Charles, 64, 760. See also Rockingham, Watson-Wentworth, Charles, Marquess of Wattignies, Battle of, 620 Wealth of Nations. See An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Smith) Weimar Republic, 312 Wellesley, Arthur, 501 Westmoreland Association, 401 West’s Almanack, 310 What Is Property? (Proudhon), 36 What Is the Third Estate? pamphlet (Sieyès), 506, 671, 717 Whigs, 25, 41, 90, 91, 96, 131, 248, 315, 354, 410, 565, 581, 699, 721, 762–65, 780. See also French Revolutionary Wars; Slavery and the Slave Trade; Tories Whipping Post Club, 11 Whiskey Rebellion, 567, 571, 759 Whitelocke, John, 393 White Plains protest, 666 White Terror, 47, 142, 288, 433, 620, 765 Wilberforce, William, 1, 579, 766 Wilkes, John, 92, 118, 247, 400, 535, 694, 766–68. See also American Revolution William I (King of Netherlands), 68, 208, 519 William of Occam, 292 William of Orange, 420 Williams, Frederick, 603 Williams, Gwyn, 662–63 William V (King of Netherlands), 207 Wilson, James, 24–25, 26, 186, 673, 674, 731, 768–70. See also Committees of Correspondence; Constitutions, American State

Witherspoon, John, 26 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 42, 92, 222, 311, 770, 776 Women, 26, 119, 179, 191, 253, 405, 494. See also Astell, Mary; Citoyennes Républicaines Révolutionnaires (Revolutionary Republican Women); Declaration of the Rights of Women; Epinay, Louise d’; Femmes, soyez soumises à vos maris! (Women, Be Submissive to Your Spouses!) pamphlet (Voltaire); Macaulay, Catharine; Murray, Judith Sargent; Society of Revolutionary Republican Women; Staël, Anna-Louise Germaine Necker, Madame de; Suffrage (American); Suffrage (French); Wollstonecraft, Mary Women (America), 771–74. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade; Women (French) Women (French), 774–78. See also Constitutions, French Revolutionary Wooler, Thomas, 114 World War II, 13 Wright, James, 778–79 Württemberg, Kingdom of, 261 Wyvill, Christopher, 779–80. See also Slavery and the Slave Trade XYZ Affair, 8, 578, 709 Yates, Abraham, 73, 234, 781 Yates, Robert (Brutus), 233 Yeomancy, 353 Yorktown, Siege of, 6, 32–33, 262, 321, 428, 467, 519, 537, 616, 747, 758, 782–83 Young, Arthur, 590 Young, Thomas, 139, 783–84 Young Hegelians, 331

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