What is the Third Estate? by Abbe de Sieyes

What is the Third Estate? is Abbe de Sieyes pamphlet that was written in 1789 during the public debate on the convocation of the Estates General. The third estate was the most powerful estate and embraced all that belongs to the nation, and all that is not the third estate is not seen as being of a nation. The pamphlet did shape the third estate demands during the states general election. It elaborated and defined the political strategy that was to become significant to the advancement of the Revolutionary Ideology. Sieyes maintain that the third estate needs a voice in laws and policies ruling their lives. He describes the third estate as what was meant to French policies and what will be established in the future politics i.e. a nation. In Sieyes definition of The Third Estate as a nation, he argues that the estate includes everything required for the survival of a nation. The mass of the people of the social order under the old regime controlled by the advantaged class, or aristocrats, the commoners requirements has been overlooked. Sieyes believed that a society includes producers and consumers. His perfect society includes four classes; producers, merchants, sellers and an intellectual consumer class. Firstly, they control land in which they do not own, but they are the individuals working on the land to allow it to prosper. Second, the value of the goods is increased from that of the land through the industry by being the consumer of the goods produced by the labor. Between consumption and production are the merchants and dealers as the third importance of the nations third estate. These individuals sell goods at inflated prices. The forth include the general tasks supporting the whole society.

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The third estate is the common individuals in France constituting a nation that is complete and has no need of the other second and first estates of aristocracy and clergy. The third estate was different from second and first estates of aristocracy and clergy as it wanted genuine and equal representation, genuine representation in the estates general and votes not to be taken by orders but by heads. The dominance of the second and first estates of aristocracy and clergy involves a monopoly that has always treated the third party unfairly. There was a need for equal and fair representation in the governments three orders, and all the three estates were to affect the society equally. For Sieyes, the second and first estate were unnecessary, and the third estate was the only legitimate estate in France that represents the whole population. Thus, it was essential for the third estate to replace the first and second estate.

Sieyes claimed that the third estate position is nothing under the old regime, and the old regime social structure was founded on inequalities, which was sanctioned by a forceful law. The members of the third estate were the commoners with no power and representation. The division between the poor and the rich was vast and being a member of the third estate meant being among the group or class that is unprivileged. Thus, they were the individuals who paid heavy taxes, did most of the hard work and without them the survival of the nobility could be impossible, yet they did not have voice and power. Sieyes further claimed that there was a need for financial equality. He criticized lavishness and pluralism of the upper clergy. The third estate also wanted the powers of the king to be limited by introducing a parliament to control the kings authority. Sieyes claimed religious toleration and fair trial. Sieyes convinced people that his claims were true by stating that the third estate were the individuals who paid heavy taxes, did most of the hard work and without them the survival of the nobility could be impossible, yet they did not have voice and power. The third estate was the nation of France, yet they had no representation in policies and thus their place meant nothing in the society.

Revolution

Friedrich Julius Stahl saw revolution as an explicit political teaching or force that alter the world by shaping nation's outlook (Meinecke & Kimber, 2015). Revolution, therefore, is the establishment of the public condition of a mans will instead of Gods providence and order (Meinecke & Kimber, 2015). It involves an upheaval and placing of what should be lowermost uppermost based on the eternal laws. It makes people into a source of the moral world order; it turns subjects into lords having governing power; it declares human rights without vocations and thought to rise to the statures of power (Bigler, 2011). Therefore, revolution demands sovereignty in a monarchy and democratic republic where the king is the servant of the parliament and parliament the public opinion servant (Drucker & Brem, 1990). It dictates freedom by letting individuals in a nation to have unlimited alienability and divisibility of landed property, unlimited autonomy of trade and residency, unrestricted freedom of public teaching and divorce (Sperber, 1995). It stresses the eradication of the legalization of blasphemy, the capital punishment, and moral entombment for suicides (Singer & Cohen, 1998). Revolution dictates equality through corporations, classes and estates, leveling of society and the existing government laws and authority (Singer & Cohen, 1998). It also demands the state and church separation, equal rights in all religion and cults, treatment of the church as a private society deprived of the nation and state interest (Meinecke & Kimber, 2015). Finally, revolution demands the destruction of the whole constitution having an indigenous origin since it was formed using individual and traditional laws.

Friedrich Julius Stahl opposed revolution because of the different meanings that break revolution. Revolution did not mean violence used by citizens against the authorities that govern them as this is the same as rebellion (Alvarado, 2009). Thus, revolution is a new order of things or a continuous action and not a single act. Overthrowing the constitution, the dismissal of dynasties and rebellion are the things that existed for centuries, but revolution is a facet of the political signature in the world (Orr, 1968). Moreover, does revolution mean political and institutions f freedom? Paying homage to revolution is an adherent to the unregulated power of the police or adherent of absolute monarchy. Is it revolution whenever people resist the laws provided by ministers and kings? Thus, Friedrich Julius Stahl believed that revolution is something that is quietened different from anarchy and rebellion (Chalmers & Drucker, 2009). Revolution does not involve fighting and storming the howling and armory of the Montagne. These are only the characteristics of the illness and not the essence (Chalmers & Drucker, 2009). Revolution is not a momentary of people rising against a government certain authority in a given order and does not involve disturbances in the government relationship with the people but the disintegration and dissolution of the whole society (Meinecke & Kimber, 2015). Though rebellion is usually one of the expressions of revolution there is also a form of rebellion that is without people arrogance resulting from willfulness and oppression (Alvarado, 2009). It is true that it answers to its judgment, however, it is not revolution.

Friedrich Julius Stahl contribution promised (Meinecke & Kimber, 2015). His ideological framework to his philosophy which opened people eyes to the real meaning of revolution, anti-Christian import, and its radicalism (Bigler, 2011). Stahl offered solutions to the difficulties that can be used to manage modern change based on legal philosophy fixed in the common law. The characteristic of Stahl philosophy including obedience to God and respect for the honored principles of justice set aspirations for transformation against the steadying legacy expressed by traditions (Drucker & Brem, 1990). The conservative accommodationism assured a change that is peaceful, but conservatives and Germans did not listen by abandoning Stahl visions for freedom and centralized tyranny (Drucker & Brem, 1990). Thus, the importance of Friedrich Julius Stahl to the evolution and transformation of the political philosophy of Germans is common because of his commitment, belief, and influence in the normative recommendations of Christian doctrine. Stahl also wanted the social institutions to change by providential design and that the system of monarch was not essentially adversative to the typical politics of a God-fearing laypeople (Singer & Cohen, 1998).

The ideas of Friedrich Julius Stahl was different from the ideas voiced in progressive party program because he opposed the abolition of the Prussian constitution. He argued that a constitution of a particular country should increase the authority and power of the ruler instead of weakening it (Orr, 1968). This is fear that the program of the progressive party feared as Stahl defended the authoritarian government, and in this case, it was the Prussian King (Alvarado, 2009). Thus, Friedrich Julius Stahl clarified what traditionalists opposed and, from this antagonism, what conformists adopted or advocated. Moreover, he opposed the ideas of a revolution that describe that it can be expressed through rebellion or a form of rebellion that is without people arrogance resulting from willfulness and oppression (Chalmers & Drucker, 2009). Revolution dictates equality through corporations, classes and estates, leveling of society and the existing government laws and authority (Singer & Cohen, 1998). It also demands the state and church separation, equal rights in all religion and cults, treatment of the church as a private society deprived of the nation and state interest (Meinecke & Kimber, 2015). Finally, revolution demands the destruction of the whole constitution having an indigenous origin since it was formed using individual and traditional laws. His belief in the conservative theory also made his ideas to be different from the ideas voiced in the program of the Progressive Party. The theory describes that a nation must attain insofar as it symbolizes an obligation and preventing the state to be the only obligation of becoming a total state (Singer & Cohen, 1998). An institution develops from the Supreme Court dissolution; a kingdom with a meaning and human goal. These objectives and meanings are the demoralizing and evil when bound to an immutable order and Gods plan.

References

Alvarado, R. (2009). The Doctrine of State and the Principles of State Law. Haworth: WordBridge Publishing.

Baecque, A. d. (1997). The Body Politic: Corporeal Metaphor in Revolutionary France, 1770-1800. California: Stanford University Press.

Bigler, R. M. (2011). The Politics of German Protestantism: The Rise of the Protestant Church Elite in Prussia, 1815-1848. California: University of California Press.

Chalmers, M., & Drucker, P. (2009). Friedrich Julius Stahl: Conservative Theory of the State and Historical Development. London: The Drucker Institute.

Drucker, P. F., & Brem, R. (1990). Conservative Theory of the State and Historical Development...