The French Revolution And The Rebellions Of 1848

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The political evolution of countries has been brought by radical thinkers who developed ideas that often challenged the governmental structure and policies of their time. These ideas would eventually reach large numbers of people, and they would often highlight governmental issues present. Consequently, the masses would become dissatisfied with their current place in society and they would revolt. War, political turbulence, and shifting powers would mark these times. While they would sometimes have an overall positive effect on society, they so often had as much of a negative impact on society as they did a positive one. In Europe, the French Revolution and the Rebellions of 1848 had such great impacts on their countries and neighboring countries…show more content…
The French Revolution began with the momentum gained from the desire to overthrow the incompetent, corrupt King Louis XVI and eliminate the power of the nobility in the First and Second Estates over the Third Estate, which consisted of 98% of the French population. During this time, Enlightenment philosophy was becoming increasingly prevalent, and it placed value on equality amongst all men. In effect, the Third Estate found fault in the regime in which they were given significantly fewer rights than the nobility. In the wake of the French Revolution, the bourgeoisie strived to get rid of the absolutist rule that they perceived as problematic, and they ultimately wanted to turn France into a republic. At the forefront of their agenda was writing France a new constitution to establish the rights of the bourgeoisie and put a government built around Enlightenment values into effect. As the revolution progressed, the goals of the revolutionaries diverged with the many separate political groups formed. Two of the most prominent of these groups were the Jacobins and the Girondins. The Jacobins were more radical than the Girondins, though both groups were quite radical, and the Jacobins opposed many of the Girondin proposals, such as equal rights for blacks and going to war with Austria. Eventually, the revolution evolved completely as the Jacobins became the…show more content…
However, none of them lasted as long as the French Revolution, or were of the French Revolution’s magnitude. The Rebellions of 1848 coincided with the rise of liberalism and socialism, and many of the rebellions were tied to liberalism or socialism similarly to how the French Revolution was tied to Enlightenment ideas. For instance, one of the of the goals of the rebellion in France was putting democratic socialism into practice. Democratic socialists supported better workers’ rights and conditions and freedom of the press. Since this rebellion took place during industrialization, after Napoleonic rule, and nearly 60 years after the French Revolution, the two are nearly incomparable in terms of their goals, but both revolutions were in support of the freedom and power of the middle class, something that had constantly been gained and lost over and over again in France. The revolutionaries in the German states had different issues at the forefront of their agenda. They were still focusing on the liberation of peasants and the unification of Germany under the German language, achieved through the Frankfurt Parliament. The German rebellion was led by liberals who wanted independence, and liberalism thus played a big part in this

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