THE IMPACT OF THE REVOLUTION

ABROAD (1796-1815)
THE UNITED STATES

Today we tend to think of a "special relationship" between

the United States and Britain, forged by a common
language and culture. But in the late-18th century, many
Americans felt a strong connection existed between the
United States and France. It had been the French, after all,
who had helped the Americans fight for their independence
(admittedly in the hope of dealing a blow to Britain's
position in North America). The American Revolution had,
in turn, inspired the French reformers and revolutionaries.
The famed French general, Marquis de Lafayette, for
example, had fought for American independence and,
because of his experiences in America, had become an
early supporter of the French Revolution. (He even named
his son George Washington Lafayette). When the French
Revolution erupted, many Americans celebrated it as a
continuation of their own struggle for liberty.
However, as we have seen, the French and American
revolutions differed in fundamental ways. Though many
Americans fought and died in the military struggle against
the British, they never resorted to mass political violence.
The French Revolution, on the other hand, was bathed in
domestic bloodshed. The Reign of Terror alienated many
Americans, as did other radical movements, such as the
"de-Christianization" campaign. Yet some Americans
retained hope that the French would find more moderate
means for carrying out their revolution.
Eventually, as the French Revolution sought to spread its
ideology by military conquest, dissension over European
affairs polarized American politics and contributed to the

formation of political parties. American opinion was

bitterly divided over whether to support the French or the
British. Ever since the war for independence, Americans
had adopted a policy of neutrality with regard to European
military conflicts. In his Farewell Address of 1796,
President George Washington advised the young nation to
shun foreign entanglements. But such disengagement
proved difficult in the era of prolonged warfare that
followed on the heels of the French Revolution. Not even
the Atlantic Ocean could shield the American Republic
from the upheaval in Europe. (Do you see elements of
Washington's address that have come to define American
foreign policy?)
Two main parties formed:
The Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton,
supported a strong centralized government, the
development of commercial and economic interests,
and the British cause. They abhorred the violence of
the Terror in France and feared the excesses of the
Revolution. They favored the cultivation of America's
strong cultural and commercial ties to England.
The Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson and James
Madison, favored small government and an
egalitarian society of "yeoman farmers." They feared
centralized power and perceived the French
revolutionaries as fellow defenders of liberty. They
demanded that the United States support the French
against the wealthy and corrupt British.
Time and again, trade considerations and commercial
interests would compel Americans to become involved in
European affairs. When war in Europe originally broke out,
however, Washington's policy of neutrality prevailed for a
time. He had prohibited the French from seeking arms and
support in the United States, a policy that enraged those
mindful of France's aid to the American Revolution only a
few years prior. Washington also kept the United States at
peace with England, despite England's provocative

interference with American shipping. France and England

had each imposed a trade boycott on the other, which also
affected neutral countries. Thus, any attempts by the
Americans to continue their lucrative trade with the
Continent or with their major trading partner, England,
would run afoul of, respectively, either England or France.
(Why do you think George Washington urged neutrality
on the young United States? To what extent has the
United States heeded his advice?)
Several developments after 1794 led the United States to
the brink of war with France:
After Britain expanded its blockade of France to
include the Caribbean and commandeered several
hundred American merchant ships, the United States
capitulated, signing the Jay Treaty (negotiated by the
first chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay) in
November 1794, which granted the British nearly as
much control over American shipping as they had
exercised over the 13 colonies. Although the U.S. had
been forced, by their naval weakness, into signing the
treaty, the French nevertheless regarded this as an
American betrayal.
Tensions rose further due to the XYZ Affair in 1797.
The French, inspired by military victories and angered
by recent American behavior, renounced their old
peace treaty with the United States and began seizing
American merchant ships. When the Americans sent
an emissary to Paris to negotiate, the French
demanded a huge bribe through an anonymous
intermediary known only as "XYZ." The Americans
refused, and instead prepared for war. "Millions for
defense, but not one cent for tribute" was the battle
cry.
By the summer of 1798, French and American ships were
engaging in undeclared warfare on the high seas. In
response, Congress created a navy and expanded the army.
And yet, even though President John Adams was a

Federalist and some members of his party advocated war,

he sought peace with the French, which he attained in
1800.
The tension with France had domestic consequences,
however. In order to silence their Republican opponents,
the Federalists used the anti-French hysteria to pass the
Alien and Sedition Acts. The Acts, in effect from 1798 to
1801, tightened voting eligibility requirements for recent
immigrants (who tended to vote Republican) and attempted
to censor the press and public speech. The Federalists made
a determined effort to discredit their Republican opponents
as American Jacobins who threatened to bring a Reign of
Terror to the United States. The political atmosphere was
toxic. Though attempts to muzzle free speech generally
failed, the Acts brought the country to the brink of civil
war.
The Federalists' efforts backfired. Republicans successfully
portrayed them as tyrants attempting to silence free
political debate. The election of 1800 brought a
Republican, Thomas Jefferson, into the White House for
the first time. Jefferson, who fancied himself a son of the
Enlightenment, favored a pro-French foreign policy. The
maintenance of peace with France earned the young
American Republic a substantial reward - the territory of
Louisiana, a gigantic expanse of land, controlled by
France, which included present-day Louisiana, Missouri,
Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Dakotas,
Iowa, Minnesota, and parts of Montana, Wyoming, and
Colorado. For some time, Americans had nervously
envisioned a French empire to their west, but Napoleon's
interests remained in Europe. In 1803, Napoleon sold the
entirety of the Louisiana territory to the United States for
the paltry sum of 15,000,000 dollars. In one bold step (of
dubious constitutionality), Thomas Jefferson doubled the
size of the United States. Napoleon would later take credit
for making the United States a substantial power.
But peace did not last. Under Jefferson and his Republican
successor, President James Madison, the United States

increasingly came into conflict with Britain, a country

Republicans despised for its supposed corruption. When
war between France and Britain broke out again in 1803,
the British resumed their policy of boarding American
ships and impressing (i.e., forcibly drafting) sailors they
claimed had deserted. American outrage over this policy
was only heightened when, in 1807, the British fired on the
American warship Chesapeake. Still resisting calls for war,
Jefferson in 1808 imposed an embargo on American
shipping, which prevented all U.S. ships from leaving for
foreign ports. This tactic of "peaceable coercion," however,
only caused American merchants great harm and enraged
the commerce-oriented Federalist party. The embargo, an
utter failure, was lifted in 1809.
By 1812, the United States had had enough. The "war
party" in Congress saw an opportunity to gain control of
Britain's Canadian territory, and in June of 1812, the United
States declared war on Britain. But American hopes were
quickly dashed. The War of 1812 did not unfold as the
anticipated march of American conquest. Four attempted
invasions of Canada failed, and an American army was
badly defeated at Detroit. The victory over Napoleon in
1814 freed up veteran British troops, who overwhelmed the
poorly trained Americans. In the summer of 1814, a British
expedition landed, marched on Washington, and burned the
Capitol and the White House to the ground. Horrified
Federalists began to consider breaking up the young Union
and forming a Northern Confederacy. Fortunately for the
Americans, the British were too exhausted by the previous
two decades of war to capitalize on this victory. America
achieved a status quo ante bellum peace in December of
1814 with the Treaty of Ghent.
Peace had returned to America, and would remain for
several decades, but the young nation's entanglement in the
Napoleonic wars had deeply influenced domestic politics.
The party system had sprung up, at least in part, because of
the split between pro-British and pro-French policies. The
United States had fought and survived its first foreign war,

and the Louisiana Purchase had set America on the road to

Manifest Destiny.

REFORM IN FRANCE'S SATELLITE STATES

As already discussed, an expansionist France established a

ring of satellite states, first in the form of republics, and
later as kingdoms. The most important of these states were:
the Austrian Netherlands (later Belgium), the
Netherlands, the western and southern German states
(Baden, Bavaria, Hesse-Darmstadt, Westphalia, and
Wurttemberg) and the Italian states. Prussia was
pressured into alliance with France, while Austria was
forced to accept peace on disadvantageous terms. Both
eventually lost territory, and the remaining German states
were reorganized into the Confederation of the Rhine under
the French aegis. Poland became nominally independent as
the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, but was in actuality
dependent on French power. In 1807, under the terms of the
Treaty of Tilsit, Russia joined the Continental System. In
1808, Spain was occupied and Napoleon installed his
brother Jerome on the Spanish throne.
EXPLORE THE FRENCH QUEST FOR EUROPEAN
HEGEMONY
Napoleon's empire was a spectacular but short-lived
creation. As a political entity, it lasted only a few years on
the map and collapsed under the weight of Napoleon's
blunders in Russia. But the effects of the French Empire
within the nations it dominated (if only briefly) would
prove long lasting, surviving, in many cases, to this day.
Napoleon was a conquering egomaniac, and he certainly
had a monarchical streak. But he remained a son of the
Revolution, and always maintained considerable dedication
to the reforming and modernizing ideals of 1789. French
military presence, as well as the appeal of revolutionary
ideas, played an essential role in initiating and securing

reform in the satellite states. Popular republican factions

also favored reform.
Long-standing dissatisfaction with absolutism manifested
itself in "Jacobin" enthusiasm within the middle and lowermiddle classes throughout Europe, who initially supported
the republican governments established in the satellites.
Eventually, however, nationalist sentiments would
undermine widespread support of the French, as would the
harsh realities of supporting French military occupation.
But local Jacobin opinion throughout the continent was
crucial to the advancements of reforms. (What features of
the French Revolution, and of Napoleon's campaigns,
would have attracted European reformist opinion? What
features would have offended such an opinion?)
The enlightened bureaucrats of the satellite states initiated
modernizing reforms, which outlasted the French Empire
from which they were taken:
Reformers widely adopted the Napoleonic Code or a
similar legal structure, which rationalized and
superseded the various dated legal codes of the old
regimes. This was perhaps the most permanent and
important reform instituted by Napoleon.
Peasants and Jews, two classes of people who for
different reasons had long been subject to legal
discrimination, were emancipated in many parts of
Europe.
European reformers copied the French system of
centralized administration.
Church property was widely secularized.
French-style mass conscriptions were introduced.
In many parts of Europe, a state-controlled public
education system was established.

NATIONALISM AND REFORM IN DEFEATED PRUSSIA

Direct French influence was not always necessary to

prompt reforms in other European states. In Prussia, the
financial hardships of the French occupation and the
obvious superiority of the French systems of mobilization
and administration launched a comprehensive defensive
modernization. The shock of Napoleon's victory at Jena
(1806) over the once proud Prussians stirred Frederick
William III into action. An advisor assured the king that
Prussia needed to do from above what the French had done
from below. A program of reforms was undertaken, which
addressed the important areas of government
administration, the military, the feudal system of labor,
municipal and provincial government, and education. The
leaders of the Prussian reforms were Baron Heinrich Karl
von Stein (1757-1831) and Karl August von Hardenberg
(1750-1822).
The Prussian reforms exemplify many of the wider reforms
that swept through Europe in the first decade of the 19th
century. For years, absolutist Prussia had been governed by
an ad hoc and often corrupt system in which a clique of
advisors curried favor and influence with the monarchy.
The reformers recognized the need for a modern
administration, and created a cabinet system, in which
ministers were held publicly accountable in the new
departments of war, interior, finance, justice, and foreign
affairs. The Prussian reformers also simplified the tax code
and improved tax collection. As an anticorruption measure,
the reformers separated the judiciary from the executive (or
administrative) functions of government.
The Prussian army, which had been the instrument of
Prussia's rise to great power status under Frederick the
Great, had collapsed in its 1806 confrontation with
Napoleon. Under the leadership of the reforming generals
Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Clausewitz, and Boyen, several
important changes were made:

The largely aristocratic officer corps was partially

opened to bourgeois talent.
A general staff and military colleges were created.
Harsh disciplinary practices were relaxed in favor of
more humane treatment.
A reserve system was created.
The draft was applied more fairly.
The new thinking about the means and ends of modern
warfare was famously captured in Karl von Clausewitz's
On War.
Prussian reforms extended the state and the military; social
reforms were also undertaken. The central plank of these
reforms was the abolition of serfdom, declared in the
famous October Edict of 1807. The Edict freed peasants
from any ties to specific land and abolished the old feudal
obligations that had persisted up until this time (though, in
practice, the Edict encouraged landowners to absorb
peasant holdings with little or no compassion, exposing the
peasantry to the uncertainties of wage labor). The
emancipation of the peasants and the abolition of
restrictions on land sales paved the way for the creation of
a free-market economy in Prussia.
The reformer Stein was particularly dedicated to local selfadministration as a means of cultivating a general spiritual
and civic renewal. To this end, he instituted municipal
reforms, which turned over much of the responsibility for
governing to the towns. Provincial administration was
modernized as well, and plans were proposed for the
creation of an elected national assembly. Such efforts at
constitutional liberalization were deeply controversial,
however, and provoked opposition from conservatives.
The reformers agreed that a strong state required
responsible citizens, not coerced subjects. This, in turn,
required an enlightened and modern educational system.

For the first time, the state took full responsibility for all
levels of schooling, establishing and supervising primary
and secondary schools (Gymnasia) and accrediting all
teachers. The German statesman and minister of education
Wilhelm von Humboldt initiated changes in the university
system, including the founding of the University of Berlin
in 1810. Within several decades, Prussian universities were
the envy of the world.
But perhaps the most important development in early-19thcentury Prussia was the rise of German nationalism. The
French Revolution had supposedly been based, like so
many revolutions, on universal principles that would
transcend national identity. But even within France itself
the Revolution had triggered outpourings of parochial
nationalist fervor. Within those nations conquered by the
French, nationalism found even more fertile soil. Nowhere
was this truer than in Prussia and the other German states.
The humiliation of defeat, harsh reparation settlements, and
Napoleon's exploitation of his satellite states led German
thinkers (such as Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich
Hlderlin, and Ernst Mortiz Arndt), journalists, and
students to demand German national unity in the face of the
invader. Fichte was a particularly important nationalist
thinker who rallied Germans to unity and national greatness
in his famous Addresses to the German Nation (18071808).
Authors began to uncover (or invent) a common German
history, literature, folklore, and culture. Ironically,
Napoleon's territorial consolidations within the fragmented
German states helped to trigger the outpouring of German
nationalism. So too did the new "Romantic movement,"
which rejected the cold, universalist rationalism of the
Enlightenment in favor of an attachment to the past and to
nature. In 1807, a nationalistic young German student
(aptly named Stabb) attempted to assassinate Napoleon
with a knife. In 1813-14, many German patriots answered
the call to join the "War of Liberation" against Napoleon.
Indeed, this war to expel the French occupiers from
German soil became idealized as the first political event

that united Germans in a common cause. Thus, in

Germany, the Napoleonic era witnessed not only territorial
consolidation and political reform, but also the birth of a
modern nationalism that looked forward to the formation of
a unified German state. (Do you think that nationalism is
inconsistent with the principles of the Enlightenment? To
what extent did nationalism dominate politics in the 20th
century?)

ENGLAND

Among the great powers of Europe, only England escaped

a Napoleonic invasion. But the wars against France
polarized politics in Britain much as it had in America. The
previously broad-based movement for Parliamentary
reform now broke apart.
Among a minority of intellectuals and artisans, the French
Revolution inspired hope and admiration. Among the
English radicals were such luminaries as the philosopher
Thomas Goodwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, an advocate of
women's rights. The English radicals rallied around
Thomas Paine's Rights of Man (1791), which he wrote in
response to Burke's polemical blasts against the
Revolution. In this text, Paine predicted that monarchy and
aristocracy would be abolished in Europe within seven
years. Paine's book sold a phenomenal 200,000 copies and
provoked an effort by the government to suppress seditious
writings in 1792. Reformers agitated for sweeping
democratic reforms and for social and economic rights, but
their association with the French Revolution was to prove
unpopular. Burke labeled the radicals the "English
Jacobins." Every step the French Revolution took down the
road of violence seemed to vindicate his conservatism and
cast the English radicals in an increasingly unflattering
light.
The majority of English political classes, however, feared
the Jacobin "excesses" of the French Revolution. The
English monarchy already seemed somewhat unstable.

George III had thrown the country into turmoil in 1788

with a bout of "madness" (stories circulated that the mad
George had alighted from his coach and greeted a tree as if
it were the Prussian king!). English politicians were afraid
that the native radical movement would launch an English
Revolution. Particularly after the "Second Revolution" of
1792 in France, the execution of Louis XVI, and the onset
of the Terror, English moderates supported their
government's efforts to suppress domestic radicalism. Even
among the working classes, nationalist sentiments fueled
popular support for "Church and King." Loyalist
organizations formed throughout the kingdom. In 1792,
when radicals gathered to celebrate the fall of the Bastille,
a conservative mob responded with a five-day riot in the
city of Birmingham.
The threat of radicalism initiated a period of conservative
repression that is sometimes overheatedly referred to as
Pitt's Terror, named after Prime Minister William Pitt the
Younger. This English Terror was directed against (not
for) Revolution, and was nowhere near as bloody as its
French counterpart. But during the 1790s, several
repressive laws were passed in the interest of stamping out
radicalism. Publishing was limited, radicals were arrested
and tried, and large outdoor meetings were prohibited. It
was made illegal to speak or write against the English
Constitution (recall the American Alien and Sedition Acts).
A few radicals were even hanged. The Jacobins went
underground, and some radicalism survived, but in general
Pitt's efforts were successful. In the end, however, as the
French Revolution lurched out of control, it became an
increasingly less-inspiring model, and the British
Constitution looked better and better by comparison.
But it was war with France, above all else, that inspired
English nationalism. A war party led by Edmund Burke
demanded that Britain intervene to stamp out the
Revolution on the Continent, but Pitt himself was reluctant
to go to war, having realized that such a move would
undermine his own reform plans for Parliament. But when
the French Revolutionary army occupied Belgium in early

1793, Pitt decided that England could not tolerate such an

act of aggression (or the possibility of the French
domination of Europe, which British policy had
traditionally opposed). Britain joined the First Coalition
(along with Austria and Prussia) against France. (How does
warfare make it easier for political regimes to suppress
political opposition?)

THE CREATION OF HAITI

The effects of the French Revolution were not limited to its

impact on North America and the great powers of Europe.
The French National Assembly had outlawed slavery in
France in 1791, but had left it in place in the French
colonies, which were much more economically dependent
on slave labor. France's Caribbean colonies were
particularly crucial to the nation's economic prosperity, and
in Saint-Domingue (in present-day Haiti) there were only
30,000 white residents living among almost 500,000 slaves.
In the eyes of the Caribbean slaves, the French Revolution
had promised liberty, and when this was denied them in
1791, they revolted. France responded by granting political
rights to freed blacks, which caused outraged white slave
owners to join with France's British enemies. Spain, which
controlled part of the island, offered freedom to the French
slaves if they would fight for Spain against France. A
bloody civil war ensued. In February of 1794, the National
Convention finally abolished slavery altogether. An exslave named Toussaint L'Ouverture had been acting as a
general for the Spanish, but he and his followers joined the
French after the abolition of slavery. Toussaint was
eventually appointed governor of the island, which had
been plunged into ruin by the fighting. In 1801, Toussaint
conquered the Spanish half of the island and declared an
independent nation, called Haiti. In 1802, Napoleon sought
to regain control of the island, and sent an army to
apprehend Toussaint. Toussaint died in a European prison,
but was remembered ever after as a hero of the
abolitionists. His vision of an independent Haiti did not die

with him. In 1803, the Haitians finally defeated the French

and gained their independence. All slaves were liberated,
and their oppressors were either killed or forced to flee.
THE CREATION OF HAITI

The effects of the French Revolution were not limited to its

impact on North America and the great powers of Europe.
The French National Assembly had outlawed slavery in
France in 1791, but had left it in place in the French
colonies, which were much more economically dependent
on slave labor. France's Caribbean colonies were
particularly crucial to the nation's economic prosperity, and
in Saint-Domingue (in present-day Haiti) there were only
30,000 white residents living among almost 500,000 slaves.
In the eyes of the Caribbean slaves, the French Revolution
had promised liberty, and when this was denied them in
1791, they revolted. France responded by granting political
rights to freed blacks, which caused outraged white slave
owners to join with France's British enemies. Spain, which
controlled part of the island, offered freedom to the French
slaves if they would fight for Spain against France. A
bloody civil war ensued. In February of 1794, the National
Convention finally abolished slavery altogether. An exslave named Toussaint L'Ouverture had been acting as a
general for the Spanish, but he and his followers joined the
French after the abolition of slavery. Toussaint was
eventually appointed governor of the island, which had
been plunged into ruin by the fighting. In 1801, Toussaint
conquered the Spanish half of the island and declared an
independent nation, called Haiti. In 1802, Napoleon sought
to regain control of the island, and sent an army to
apprehend Toussaint. Toussaint died in a European prison,
but was remembered ever after as a hero of the
abolitionists. His vision of an independent Haiti did not die
with him. In 1803, the Haitians finally defeated the French
and gained their independence. All slaves were liberated,
and their oppressors were either killed or forced to flee.

THE LIBERATION MOVEMENTS IN SPANISH AMERICA

The American and French Revolutions inspired liberation

movements in the Spanish and Portuguese dominions in
Central and South America as well. Long subjected to
European powers, vast areas of the Americas rose up and
achieved independence within a few short years.
Napoleon's occupation of Spain in 1808 provided the
perfect opportunity for local assemblies (juntas), led by
Creole elites, to declare independence from Spain. The
repressive reaction by the Spanish governors drove the
liberal Creole upper classes into alliance with the restive
mestizo population. The result was rapid-fire succession of
revolutions:
In 1810 and 1815, there were major uprisings in
Mexico, which finally culminated in a declaration of
independence in 1821.
In 1811, Venezuela declared its independence, but was
soon re-occupied by Spanish troops. Simn Bolvar
(1783-1830) led the three-year campaign that finally
liberated the country in 1820.
Between 1819 and 1830, Bolvar was president of
Grand Colombia (later Ecuador, Venezuela, and
Colombia). During this period he led the campaign
that liberated Ecuador.
Between 1811 and 1825, Paraguay, Argentina, Peru,
Bolivia, and Chile achieved their independence.
In 1822, Brazil peacefully declared its separation
from Portugal, and declared itself an empire under
Pedro I.
A Revolution born out of the French monarchy's fiscal
crises had unleashed revolutions around the world.