French Revolution Dbq Analysis

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The 1700’s proved to be a decade of national revolutions. In 1789 the French were beginning a revolution of their own. France was transitioning from a monarchy to a democracy and in doing so, put the United States in its first true foreign relations predicament. The United States, even though recently gained independence from Great Britain through the means of war, maintained great commercial relations with the country, which was a monarchy. Great Britain was opposed to France becoming a democracy. Commercial ties with Great Britain coupled with treaties with France caused great political divide in the United States. Two American political powerhouses, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, represented the political divide. John Adams, who was…show more content…
Thomas Jefferson supported the idea of democracy and the overthrow of the French Monarchy. Coming freshly off a Revolution of their own, many Americans sided with Jefferson. As stated in the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia “Jefferson saw the stirrings of discontent with the established church and state as natural consequences of the example America had set in its state and federal constitutions.” Though as time passed and the French Revolution moved forward, Thomas Jefferson’s stance softened. The political unrest in France also carried implications on the previously signed treaties between the United States and France. Thomas Jefferson, in a move toward neutrality referred to the treaties and the French election, “To elect to continue them is equivalent to the making a new treaty at this time in the same form, that is to say, with a clause of guarantee; but to make a treaty with a clause of guarantee, during a war, is a departure from neutrality, and would make us associates in the war. To renounce or suspend the treaties therefore is a necessary act of neutrality.” Jefferson was letting it be known that the treaty between the two countries was initially signed when France was ruled under a monarchy but the political compass had since been shifted. Between the ideologies of Adams and Jefferson was George
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