I need a comment on the following answer, please agree with what the student sai

Question

I need a comment on the following answer, please agree with what the student said, the comment cant be simply I agree with you. Support the comment with specicfic reasons.

Question:

“the influence of the French Revolution has been far greater than that of its American counterpart.”

Do you agree? In your opinion, which revolution, American or French, has had the greatest influence during the last two centuries and why? Once again, cite specific examples to support your argument.

Answer: I don't completely agree with this statement, it may be due to my patriotic love for our country but I believe the American Revolution was a great model for all. I think one of the greatest points to make is, the American revolution was fought for principles that still live on to this day, the French revolution and its brief democracy trials proved against itself. The American revolution defines our country and its principles and sets a model for others of how are country is run to this day And the American spirit

Explanation / Answer

Short Term: American Revolution

Long Term: French Revolution

"It is obvious that the French Revolution was a vaster and more profound social upheaval, involving more violent conflict between classes, more radical reorganization of government and society, more far-reaching redefinition of marriage, property, and civil law as well as of organs of public authority, more redistribution of wealth and income, more fears on the part of the rich and more demands from the poor, more sensational repercussions in other countries, more crises of counterrevolution, war, and invasion, and more drastic or emergency measures, as in the Reign of Terror. From very early in the French Revolution the American Revolution came to seem very moderate."

— R. R. Palmer

At the end of the American Revolution, you had a country indistinguishable from the one you have today. Only wealthy, male property-owners had the vote, rampant slavery, and for all the secular ambitions of the Republican Deist contingent, America was fundamentally Christian. At the height of the French Revolution you had universal male suffrage, equal rights for Jews, Protestants and men of colour, and of course France became the first country in the world to abolish slavery, without compensation, in an act of law. That happened in 1794. So from the standpoint of democracy, the vision of the French revolution, and that of its radicals has been far more vindicated than that of the Founding Fathers, who, attempts by hip-hop historians notwithstanding, have a permanent asterisk next to them for their blatant hypocrisy.

But then it’s not truly fair to compare the two events.

The French Revolution is more or less what would have happened if America had its Revolution and the American Civil War between North and South at the same time. The Radical Republicans of the American Civil War were more or less the American Jacobin Party, in their modern, centralized vision of a nation state that was free, equal and meritocratic. Lincoln is Mirabeau + Danton, and Thaddeus Stevens of course was regarded by (then) journalist and future Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau himself as the American Robespierre.

Democracy as the world lives it today, as even America lives it, for all the credit people grant to Washington and Jefferson, was first defined by Maximilien Robespierre:

"No one at the time of the Revolution, went as far as Robespierre in stating what were later to be recognized as the essential conditions of the democratic state... Universal franchise, equality of rights regardless of race or religion, pay for public service to enable rich and poor alike to hold office, publicity for legislative debates, a national system of education, the use of taxation to smooth out economic inequalities, recognition of the economic responsibilities of society to the individual...religious liberty, local self-government - such were the some of the principles for which he stood, and which are now taken for granted in democratic societies."

— Alfred Cobban

The American Revolution was more successful in building and consolidating institutions, in solving the religious question with the First Amendment, but they also had advantages the French did not have. They had vast sea borders from invading forces and a dissenting religious tradition open to a genius separation of church and state…whereas the French had the Catholic Church as the largest landowner and a fiercely corrupt and counter-revolutionary institution to boot. So in many cases the Americans did not have to impose or create conditions from above and from below, as the French had no choice to do.

In terms of influence, the French Revolution has been more exportable than the American one. It was a model for how a state steeped in traditions could radically transform itself so it has been a perennial influence on European, Asian, South American and African nations. Nationalism was invented by the French, including the whole idea of museums for culture (the Louvre was opened to the Public by the Jacobins), scientific institutions, the national flag and anthems. There’s a reason why the flags of many nations are tricolor in pattern, everyone wants to homage the French pattern (Red and Blue, Colours of Paris, with Royal White in middle). The Revolution saw the first total war, the first use of mass conscription and it proved to the world that the middle-class can defend itself, can fight wars, they can win and they can conquer.

"After all, the French Revolution was the biggest event in the world since Christianity...We owe many things to the French Revolution, if only that it gave Jewish people names, for examples…before, Jews were named, for example, Abraham, son of Jacob, but they had no family names and weren't listed with the registry office. The Revolution actually forced them to take one. The victorious revolutionary and Napoleonic armies did the same thing in the conquered countries…That gave a social existence to many people who didn't have one."

— Jean Renoir

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