The American and French Revolutions were both fundamentally based on the Enlightenment ideas. The main ideas that they followed were by John Locke. His ideas inspired the Americans and the French to have a revolution. In these revolutions, the Americans had success and the French failed. The success that the Americans experienced wad due to the protection of rights they had. These rights are "Life, Liberty and Property." In America a constitution was put together that provided for a stable government and also a representative government. In France failure was caused by chaos, terror, fear and war. The French were unsuccessful because they failed to create a democratic government. In the end they were left with a dictator. …show more content…

When America was controlled by Great Britain, they were separated by an ocean. Because of this, the American people were already used to governing themselves. This put America in a great state of unity when they wanted to rebel from Britain. This is a reason why the American government succeeded. The French, on the other hand, were not used to governing themselves because they were a monarchy for a very long time. There was no ocean separating the monarchy from the French - France was fighting within itself. This war was like a civil war because it was the French verses the French. France also did not receive any help from any other countries in Europe. Other European powers did not want to help because they did not want any revolutions in their own countries. The kings wanted to keep their power, and they did not want their countries to get any ideas about do the same thing (Ziegler 216 - 223, 234 - 236). The Americans had a tradition of government that they followed. They followed the ideas that the British had with their parliament. "A Governor has no power either to reprove them or remove them; and indeed it were to little purpose to tell them, he is displeased with them, when he cannot displace them, Thus by little and little, the People have got the whole administration into their Hands, and the Crown is by various Laws