The French Revolution and Religion in Global Perspective by Bryan A. Banks & Erica Johnson

Author:Bryan A. Banks & Erica Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Even though Christianity seemed to have been incapable of enacting any substantial social change, Tocqueville believed that the Christian ideal of egalitarianism, when combined with the French revolutionary idea of political liberty, took on a renewed and invigorated purpose. It was the French who had the potential to transform the idea of Christian egalitarianism into a material, worldly reality. As implied earlier, eager to bolster France’s international moral standing in regards to the slavery issue, Tocqueville privileged the unique capacity of French universalism to provide justice to the subjugated and oppressed.

These essays on emancipation are critical for understanding Tocqueville’s complex colonial policy, for they bear witness to his belief in the vital significance of France’s colonies for the nation’s international status, regardless of their political or monetary cost, and they display what Tocqueville conceived of as France’s moral obligations in the world. 17 Tocqueville’s proclamations of France’s unique duty to the enslaved and uncivilized across the globe contain an underlying claim to moral and sociopolitical power over other European nation states, particularly Great Britain. Tocqueville believed that, if there was way for France to keep its colonies, it would come only from the abolition of slavery. 18

Importantly, France’s moral superiority in Europe was threatened by the continued existence of slavery in its colonies. Regardless of the fact that the British policy was proving itself more progressive than that of the French (the British abolished slavery in 1833), Tocqueville’s claim that the “French sentiments” of equality and liberty undoubtedly intended to undercut Britain’s ethical position within Europe by highlighting France’s distinctively revolutionary, Christian heritage within public discourse. 19 In Tocqueville’s writings, the Christian principle of equality and France’s Christian tradition legitimate and universalize France’s natural obligations to the chained and “barbaric” in France’s colonies while simultaneously bolstering its moral and, indirectly, its economic claims over other European nations. This contradictory justification of empire undoubtedly offered an ideological foundation for the mission civilisatrice in subsequent French colonial policy. Contrary to prevalent secularization narratives, a close reading of Tocqueville reveals that Christianity’s influence remained widespread in French society, though it became increasingly amalgamated into more temporal cultural fixtures, such as the civilizing mission, within secular liberal discourse.

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