VisionIAS - Video Classroom Lecture

World History Class 01

American Civil War: (9:14 AM)

For the president-elected Lincoln, preserving the union was more important than the issue of slavery.
He declared emphatically that he would do it by liberating one Slave, a few, or all the slaves.
When the war stopped, the South gave a very stiff resistance, and in many instances, Union armies were defeated.
In 1863, on January 1st, President Lincoln announced his famous Edict of Emancipation promising liberation for more than 3 lakh 50 thousand slaves in America.
As the war progressed the southern states gradually lost their resources.
On April 9, 1865, the South surrendered.
On April 14, 1865, President Lincoln was assassinated.

The results of the Civil War: (9:18 AM)

The differences between North and South continued to persist.
President Andrew Jackson was for a liberal policy towards the defeated southern states.
Under the Reconstruction Program amendments were made to the American Constitution.
Amendment 13 made slavery illegal and punishable.
Amendment 14 declared that all the liberated Negro slaves were the citizens of America. And it provided for citizenship rights for all.
Amendment 15 provided for the right to vote for the Negros.
In spite of the above amendments, the problems of the blacks continued to persist.
Discrimination of blacks continued in social, economic, and political spheres.
Civil war had actually not solved the problem, finally making Martin Luther King to emerge as the champion of civil rights and liberties for the blacks.
War had a devastating effect on the economy of the Southern States, where per capita income had fallen by 40%.
South lost its power and prestige at the center.
In terms of casualties, nearly 7 lakh 50 thousand people died.
In terms of casualties, it was the worst war before World War I.
South gradually reconciled with the realities.
Instead of going for huge tracts for agriculture, the South preferred small units, and agriculture by hiring labor, instead of purchasing slaves.
With the end of the Civil War, the major crisis in American history ended.
Largescale migrations started from Europe to America.
In order to control the influx of people, America introduced a quota system of giving a fixed number of Visas, after the Civil War, America became more aggressive in her foreign policy.
She gave an ultimatum to France and got Mexico vacated by 1870.
America openly supported the Cuban Revolution against Spain, defeated Spain, and occupied the Philippines in 1898.

French Revolution (1789-1815): (9:57 AM)

It may be defined as a violent reaction to the questions and the challenges posed by the Age of Enlightenment.
Under the light of the Enlightenment of the 18th Century, man questioned social, economic, political, and religious ideas and institutions.
The answer was a violent reaction in the form of the French Revolution.
Unique aspects of the Revolution were:
1) It was the first major political revolution in European history.
With the Revolution, the ‘History of Europe had become the History of one nation, one event, and one man. The nation being France, the event French Revolution, and the man Napolean.’
Thus, European history centered around France from 1789 with the Revolution.
2) It was the mother of all the revolutions.
In the sense that the 1812 Spanish Revolution, 1830, 1848 French Revolutions, and 1917 Russian Revolution were all connected to the French Revolution.
Secondly, powerful ideas like individualism, universalism, humanism, romanticism, and socialism, all found their expressions for the first time in the French Revolution.
3) It was a revolution seen in every place in France, in the sense that it affected the country as a whole.
It was a revolution with extreme violence, the violence of that type never before or after.
The other unique aspect of the Revolution was the nature of mob participation.
As a matter of fact, the revolution started with the violent mobs.

Causes for the French Revolution: (11:48 AM)

The Revolution was more against “an unjust and unequal social order than royal absolutism”.
French society was a society with extreme inequalities divided into three Estates:
1) Clergy,
2) Nobility,
3) Commons.
Clergy and Nobility constituted the upper section of the society and the most privileged section of the society.
They were exempted from taxes, and punishments, but enjoyed all the privileges, including higher positions in administration.
They constituted not even a 1% of the French population but controlled 40% of the resources of France.
The Third Estate consisted of the middle class, peasantry, and bonded labor called Serfs.
The Middle Class and peasantry were the sections hard hit with severe taxation.
Middle-class educated professional class questioned privileges and inequalities.
The peasantry of France were not the owners of their lands.
For the land of the Feudal class they used, they were made to discharge free-of-cost service to the Feudal class.
They paid taxes like Tithe to the church, land tax (Taille) to the Feudal Class, Curve for using the transport system, and Goble for purchasing essential commodities.
At the time of the Revolution, it is said that the peasantry was not even left with one-fourth of the produce, after deducting the taxes.
Apart from taxation natural calamities like severe famines equally affected the peasantry.
What really caused the revolutionary situation was crops failed for three consecutive years.
It was this situation that made violent mobs to storm the City Palace.
Thus, the Revolution was more against social inequality than royal absolutism.
It was so because, even during the Revolution, they had not questioned the monarchy, for that matter, they made monarch/king Louis XVI as the king of France, and also gave him veto powers.
There was no protest at all in France when Napoleon declared himself the Emperor of France.

Topic for the next class: French Revolution, continued.