Abbe Sieyes Philosophy

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The Philosophy of Abbe Sieyes

French abbe and statesman Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes was one of the chief theorists of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era . He was likewise one of the of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and the Constitution of 1791 . Sieyes was well-known for his belief that the National Assembly should function as a single chamber instead of three separate Estates . Furthermore , he called for the distinction between active ' and passive ' citizens , restricting the right to vote

to men of property in the process (Age-Of-The-Sage .org n pag

Sieyes believed that taxpayers were active ' citizens - the taxes that they paid enabled them to participate in the building of society In sharp contrast , women , children , domestic servants and foreigners were passive ' citizens - their inability to pay taxes rendered them unable to contribute to the building of society (Heilbron , Magnusson and Wittrock 71 . He therefore concluded that only the taxpayers have the right to vote , as the government derived its funds from taxes . In the process , however , the right to vote would inevitably be restricted to citizens who had the economic capacity to pay taxes

Charles Dickens would tend to disagree with him . In his novel Oliver Twist (1837 , Dickens criticized the moral hypocrisy of the Victorian Era when it came to the treatment of the poor . The Victorian middle class established poorhouses that were intended to take care of impoverished orphan children . But these institutions were notorious for starvation...