Revolutionary republic

For Sister Republics of the French Revolution, see Sister republic.

Proclamation of the Bremen republic

A revolutionary republic is a form of republic that revolutionaries favored during the period nearing and throughout the age of revolutions. Its main tenets are popular sovereignty, rule by law, and representative democracy. It also borrows ideas from Whig and Enlightenment thinkers. A revolutionary republic is the consolidation of a revolutionary political power, by means of the formation of a provisional government in the wake of an existing state and political regime overthrow. A revolutionary republic often takes the form of a revolutionary state, which represents the will of its constituents.

A revolutionary republic also generally refers to the form of republic that the National Convention and Robespierre favored during the period leading up to and throughout the French Revolutionary Wars. During its occupation of neighboring territories in Europe during the French Revolutionary Wars, France established republican regimes. The French Republic claimed to support the spread of republican principles in Europe, but most of these established client republics, or sister republics, were a means of controlling occupied lands through a mix of French and local control. The institution of republican governments that seeks to promote democratic nationalism over monarchies (primarily the Bourbons and Habsburgs) set the stage for the appearance of nationalist sentiment in all Europe, which significantly influenced the course of European history (see 1830 and Revolutions of 1848). Today, however, a revolutionary republic can refer to various governments in disparate locations. In the United Kingdom, it can be defined as those who advocate for the removal of the monarch as head of state, or simply replacement a monarchical leader with an elected figurehead, as told by the history of Irish nationalism. In Australia, revolutionary republicanism is closely tied to moderate nationalism, along with the removal of the monarch as a head of state in keeping with the British tradition.

Revolutionary republicanism in the United States

Irish republicanism: the Easter Rising

In the United States, the colonial intellectual and political leaders in the 1760s and 1770s (leading up to and during the American Revolutionary War) closely read history to compare governments and their effectiveness of rule. They were especially concerned with the history of liberty in England, and the rights of Englishmen, which they claimed were the proper heritage of the colonists. These intellectuals were especially influenced by Britain's "Country Party" (which opposed the Court Party that actually held power). Country Party relied heavily on the classical republicanism of Roman heritage; it celebrated the ideals of duty and virtuous citizenship in a republic. It drew heavily on ancient Greek city-state and Roman republican examples. The Country Party roundly denounced the corruption surrounding the "Court" Party in London centering on the royal court. This approach produced a political ideology Americans called "republicanism", which was widespread in America by 1775. "Republicanism was the distinctive political consciousness of the entire Revolutionary generation." J.G.A. Pocock explained the intellectual sources in America:

The Whig canon and the neo-Harringtonians, John Milton, James Harrington and Sidney, Trenchard, Gordon and Bolingbroke, together with the Greek, Roman, and Renaissance masters of the tradition as far as Montesquieu, formed the authoritative literature of this culture; and its values and concepts were those with which we have grown familiar: a civic and patriot ideal in which the personality was founded in property, perfected in citizenship but perpetually threatened by corruption; government figuring paradoxically as the principal source of corruption and operating through such means as patronage, faction, standing armies (opposed to the ideal of the militia); established churches (opposed to the Puritan and deist modes of American religion); and the promotion of a monied interest—though the formulation of this last concept was somewhat hindered by the keen desire for readily available paper credit common in colonies of settlement.

American Revolutionaries took a lesson from ancient Rome. They knew it was necessary to avoid the luxurious lifestyles and gluttonous greed that had destroyed the Roman Empire. A virtuous citizen was defined as one that ignored monetary compensation and made a commitment to resist and eradicate corruption. Revolutionary republicanism has a tendency to limit corruption and greed. Hence, from the early American Republican perspective, the Republic was sacred. It was necessary to serve the state in a truly representative way, ignoring self-interest and individual will. Republicanism required the service of those who were willing to give up their own interests for a common good. According to Bernard Bailyn, "The preservation of liberty rested on the ability of the people to maintain effective checks on wielders of power and hence in the last analysis rested on the vigilance and moral stamina of the people." Virtuous citizens needed to be strong defenders of liberty and challenge the corruption and greed in government. The duty of the virtuous citizen became a foundation for the ideology of the American Revolution.