After the French Revolution, monarchies could return, but the obedience that had sustained them could not be fully restored. Joseph de Maistre rejected popular sovereignty and defended a final authority rooted in religious order. Edmund Burke answered abstract rights with tradition, inheritance, and gradual reform. François Guizot accepted representative government but sought to reserve political power for a minority considered capable of exercising it. These were different responses to the same fear: that popular mobilization would destroy stability, property, and institutions. This is the story of modern conservatism and the limits imposed on democracy in the name of order.

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The French Revolution destroyed centuries-old privileges and proclaimed that human beings were born free and equal in rights. Sovereignty no longer belonged to the king but to the nation. Yet war, crisis, and popular mobilization radicalized the revolution until the defense of liberty became a justification for the Terror. Sans-culottes, Jacobins, and counterrevolutionaries fought over its meaning. Years later, Benjamin Constant warned against sacrificing individual independence to collective power. This is a story of universal rights, political exclusion, and a revolution that permanently transformed the language and institutions of modern politics.

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The United States was founded on the claim that political power came from the people, yet its founders deeply distrusted an unchecked majority. The Declaration of Independence defended rights, consent, and the people’s authority to replace a tyrannical government. Madison proposed a large, representative, and federal republic to control factions and prevent majority tyranny. The separation of powers added further restraints on authority. Decades later, Andrew Jackson would demand fewer intermediaries and greater trust in the common man. This is the story of a republic built against kings, but also against the perceived dangers of popular rule.

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