Citizen Genêt
(noun)
A French ambassador to the United States during the French Revolution.
Examples of Citizen Genêt in the following topics:
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Citizen Gênet Affair
- The Citizen Genêt Affair threatened American neutrality during the French Revolutionary Wars.
- The "Citizen Genêt Affair" refers to an event from 1793 to 1794, when a French minister, Edmond-Charles Genêt, was dispatched by the French National Assembly to the United States to enlist American support for France's wars with Spain and Britain.
- Instead of traveling to Philadelphia to present himself to President Washington for accreditation, Citizen Genêt arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 8, 1793, where he remained after being met with great Democratic-Republican fanfare.
- Genêt commissioned four privateering ships (the Republicaine, the Anti-George, the Sans-Culotte, and the Citizen Genêt) and organized American volunteers to fight Britain's Spanish allies in Florida.
- The Citizen Genêt Affair spurred Great Britain to instruct its naval commanders in the West Indies to seize all ships trading with the French.
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Jay's Treaty
- After the Citizen Genêt Affair, relations between the United States and France were strained.
- The Citizen Genêt Affair spurred Great Britain to instruct its naval commanders in the West Indies to seize all ships trading with the French.
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The Holocaust
- Other victims of Nazi crimes included ethnic Poles, Soviet citizens and Soviet POWs, other Slavs, Romanis, communists, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and the mentally and physically disabled.
- The last two groups were to be sent to concentration camps for "re-education," with the aim of eventual absorption into the Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community"), though some of the moral opponents were to be sterilized, as they were regarded as "genetically inferior."
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Principles of Freedom
- Civic duty: citizens have the responsibility to understand and support the government, participate in elections, pay taxes, and perform military service.
- Democracy: The government is answerable to citizens, who may change their representatives through elections.
- Equality before the law: The laws should attach no special privilege to any citizen.
- Government officials are subject to the law the same as private citizens.
- Freedom of speech: The government cannot restrict through law or action the personal, nonviolent speech of a citizen; a marketplace of ideas should prevail.
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The Language of Liberty
- It is invoked to describe the fundamental rights of citizens as defined in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
- Broadly, the "language of liberty" includes widespread political participation and the duty of the citizen to safeguard against arbitrary despotism; the right of citizens to life and liberty, and the Bill of Rights' protections from politically corrupted governance.
- Democracy: The government is answerable to citizens, who may change the representatives through elections.
- Equality before the law: The laws should attach no special privilege to any citizen (i.e. government officials and wealthier citizens are also subject to the law).
- Freedom of speech: The government cannot restrict the citizen's right to criticize authority or voice opposition to the government.
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A Virtuous Citizenry
- Virtue was of the utmost importance for citizens and representatives.
- A virtuous citizen was one that ignored monetary compensation and made a commitment to resist and eradicate corruption.
- 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 American Revolution.
- Thomas Jefferson defined a republic as: "...a government by its citizens in mass, acting directly and personally, according to rules established by the majority; and that every other government is more or less republican, in proportion as it has in its composition more or less of this ingredient of the direct action of the citizens.
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The Eugenics
- Eugenics is the social movement claiming to improve the genetic features of human populations through selective breeding and sterilization.
- Galton studied the upper classes of Britain, and arrived at the conclusion that their social positions were due to a superior genetic makeup.
- They tended to believe in the genetic superiority of Nordic, Germanic and Anglo-Saxon peoples; supported strict immigration and anti-miscegenation laws; and supported the forcible sterilization of the poor, disabled and "immoral. "
- Both class and race factored in to eugenic definitions of "fit" and "unfit. " Using intelligence testing, American eugenicists asserted that social mobility was indicative of one's genetic fitness.
- Middle to upper class status was a marker of "superior strains. " In contrast, eugenicists believed poverty to be a characteristic of genetic inferiority, which meant that that those deemed "unfit" were predominately of the lower classes.
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African and Asian Origins
- Genetic studies, archaeological evidence, and scientific dating methods suggest that Paleo-Indians originated out of Africa and Asia.
- Genetic evidence found in Paleo-Indians' mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) supports the theory of multiple genetic populations migrating from Asia.
- However, since previous exits from Africa didn't leave genetic or other traces, it's possible those modern humans either didn't survive or survived in small numbers and were assimilated by other groups .
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The Dred Scott Decision
- Supreme Court ruled that slaves were not protected by the Constitution and were not U.S. citizens.
- Supreme Court stating that people of African descent brought into the United States and held as slaves were not protected by the Constitution and were not U.S. citizens.
- The Dred Scott decision was particularly significant because the Court concluded that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories (nullifying the Missouri Compromise) and that, because slaves were not citizens, they could not sue in court.
- Were black people considered citizens of the U.S. and therefore eligible to pursue suits in court?
- The Court ruled that Scott was not a citizen of the United States, that residence in a free territory did not make Scott free, and that Congress had no constitutional authority to prohibit slavery in any territory.
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Politics in Public
- Civic duty: citizens have the responsibility to understand and support the government, participate in elections, pay taxes, and perform military service.
- Democracy: The government is answerable to citizens, who may change the representatives through elections.
- Equality before the law: The laws should attach no special privilege to any citizen (i.e. government officials and wealthier citizens are also subject to the law).
- Freedom of speech: The government cannot restrict the citizen's right to criticize authority or voice opposition to the government
- With the conflict with Britain in the 1760s and 1770s, these principles, particularly that the government is answerable to citizens and political representation, was a requisite for implementing new taxes and were often invoked by colonists as justification for boycotting British goods and other forms of resistance.