Browse Items (37 total)

November 1790

Born in Ireland, Edmund Burke (1729–97) immediately opposed the French Revolution, warning his countrymen against the dangerous abstractions of the French. He argued the case for tradition, continuity, and gradual reform based on practical…

1791

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) played a vital role in mobilizing American support for their own independence, and he leapt to support the French revolutionaries when Edmund Burke attacked. Elected deputy to the French National Convention in 1793, Paine…

October 12, 1791

The magnitude of the insurrection quickly became clear as alarmed observers related that considerable armies were being raised to fight the rebels. It is noteworthy that such reports even to northern U.S. newspapers expressed little sympathy for the…

1792

The English writer Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97) argued against both Burke and Rousseau, defending the notion of natural rights, particularly rights for women, such as equal education. She insisted that women could not become virtuous, even as…

May 16, 1792

Blame now falls, at least according to the author of this letter, on the "blood–thirsty aristocracy," which has created dissensions among the French. The author also expresses alarm at the thought of the revolt spreading to other islands in the…

September 3, 1792

A British diplomat in Paris here describes, in dispatches back to London, the goings–on in Paris in early September, in light of news of advances by the Duke of Brunswick’s Prussian forces toward the capital. This diplomat was naturally most…

December 12, 1792

Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson on Benjamin Franklin, was a supporter of Jefferson’s Republican Party. His sympathetically summarized the situation in France during the period when Louis XVI was put on trial and executed. He defended the actions of…

January 3, 1793

Although deeply sympathetic to the French in general and the revolutionary cause in particular, Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) deplored the excesses of violence that took place even before the implementation of the Reign of Terror. Still, he believed…

July 17, 1793

Many American cities met the emergency needs of an influx of white refugees who fled the uprising.

December 4, 1793

Free blacks and mulattos also fled the uprising. Mulattos could own slaves and plantations, and many of them did. Free blacks often manned the militias used to hunt down runaway slaves. Like the white settlers, both groups therefore had reason to…
Output Formats

atom, dcmes-xml, json, omeka-xml, rss2