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Reforms Under Czar Alexander I: French and American Influences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

George Vernadsky
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Extract

The two great revolutions of the eighteenth century—the American and the French had each in turn and in its own way a profound influence not only on the history of the United States and of France, but directly or indirectly on the history of the whole world.

These two powerful currents had a common source in the French ideological movement before the Revolution. The development of American revolutionary thought was of course more closely linked to the English ideology, but there was much contact and cross influence between the English and the French philosophers. Further, the French political and philosophical literature was directly accessible to Americans without intermediary English works. We have only to mention Montesquieu and his principle of the separation of powers which serves as the basis of the Constitution of the United States. Also, the American Revolution influenced in turn political developments in France. One finds the roots of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen not only in France but in America as well.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , January 1947 , pp. 47 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1947

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References

1 For the texts of the Declarations of Rights, cf. Aulard, A. and Mirkine-Guetzévitch, B., Les Declarations des Droits de l'Homme (Paris, 1929).Google Scholar

2 Mirkine-Guetzévitch, B., “L'influence de la Revolution française sur le development du droit international dans l'Europe Orientale,” Académie de droit international, Recueil des Cours, Tome 22 (Paris, 1929).Google Scholar

3 For a survey of the history of the reign of Alexander I, see Kornilov, A., Modern Russian History (New York, 1924; reprinted 1942), Part IGoogle Scholar; Milioukov, P., Seignobos, Ch. and Eisenmann, L., Histoire de Russie, vol. II (Paris, 1932), Ch. XIVGoogle Scholar. Vernadsky, G., Political and Diplomatic History of Russia (Boston, 1936), Chapters XXII and XXIII.Google Scholar

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9 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Memorial Edition, XI, 103, 106, 291; XII, 395); cf. also Kozlovsky, V. M., “The Emperor Alexander I and Jefferson,” Russkaia Mysl, October, 1910 (in Russian). Kozlovsky studied Jefferson's manuscript in trie archives of the State Department in Washington.Google Scholar

10 Cf. Pilder, H., Die Russisch-amerikanische Handels-Kompanie bis 1825 (Berlin and Liepzig, 1914)Google Scholar; Okun, S. B., The Russo-American Company (in Russian) (Moscow and Leningrad, 1939)Google Scholar; Mazour, A. G., “Dmitry Zavalishin: Dreamer of a Russian-American Empire,” Pacific Historical Review, March, 1936Google Scholar; ibid., “Doctor Yegor Scheffer: Dreamer of a Russian Empire in the Pacific,” Pacific Historical Review, March, 1937Google Scholar; ibid., “Khlebnikov's Memoirs of California,” Pacific Historical Review, Sept., 1940Google Scholar; ibid., “The Prelude to Russia's Departure from America,” Pacific Historical Review, Sept., 1941Google Scholar; Basanoff, V., “Archives of the Russian Church in Alaska in the Library of Congress,” Pacific Historical Review, March, 1933.Google Scholar

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14 The term pravda, which means “truth” in modern Russian, was used by Pestel in the sense it had in old Russian jurisprudence, that of “law.” The Kievan code of laws of the twelfth century is known as Pravda Russkaia—“Lex Russica.”

15 See Vernadsky, G., La Charle Constitutionelle, pp. 50 and 56–61.Google Scholar