Napoleon Bonaparte as a Political Leader - Essay Example

Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte is considered and known as one of the greatest political, military and revolutionary leaders not only in France or Europe but also in the history of the world. His legacy continues to live due to many of his accomplishments and formations. Known as one of the greatest and the most celebrated epitome of leadership, ambition, success, and grandeur, Napoleon Bonaparte was a great man who, in some ways, continued, and in other ways, departed from the aims and goals of the predecessors that came before him.

Napoleon Bonaparte was, indeed, was a man with a purpose, a leader with the intention to defeat and conquer, gaining control and authority so that his goals and intentions for control and sovereignty might be achieved. The way in which he went about attaining these objectives is seen and observed in the approach by which he both sustained and broke from the aims of his revolutionary predecessors. The battlefield was the place in which the majority of his ability, intelligence and competence were either in support of or in antagonism against the great rulers and monarchs who have built and paved the passageway before him.

Many scholars and intelligent historians who have studied Bonaparte and the many courses of actions he took, still argue and debate about the question of whether he obstructed, upheld or in fact ‘expanded’ the goals of the French Revolution. And to this very day, they have come to no final answer. This is due to the evident fact that in some ways, Napoleon had unquestionably followed the aims and goals of his predecessors during the revolution but in more ways than one, he, as a ruler, had also established and set forth systems that were opposed to the revolutionaries in the late 1700s.

In the economic aspect, Bonaparte certainly followed certain values of the revolution in his economic reform of the country. Introducing the Bank of France in 1803, along with the valuables France acquired from plundering defeated powers aided the economy. Napoleon also initiated limits on exports and the pricing of grain, much like what the revolutionary administrations did. Napoleon further fortified the country’s financial system with a reform that facilitated the stabilization of France’s monetary currency.

France was at one point, under his reign, more economically affluent than it ever was under the reign of previous revolutionary governments. On the other hand, Napoleon also established reforms, which opposed revolutionary ideologies. Taxation became uneven, which made the life of laborers and peasants harder. For instance, some taxes on liquor and cards rose by half in 1814 as compared to a decade ago. Paradoxically, resentment over high taxes instigated the revolution. In the political aspect, Napoleon moved to reconstruct an aristocracy, a long French practice eradicated in the Revolution.

This reinstitution strengthened his influence and status. Because of his hunger for recognition and desire for a persona that would emphasize his eminence and authority as the leader of his newly formed aristocracy, he mirrored his court like that of Louis XIV's. (Lualdi 3-14) Napoleon additionally called upon the institution of Charlemagne's 9th-century empire by implementing the emperor's symbol of the eagle. (Kelley 110) Also, Napoleon’s promotion of nationalism showed the difference of purpose as that of the previous French monarchs such as Louis, who instead, promoted veneration of the King.

He also endeavored meritocracy, borrowing this from the changes of previous administrations, and then improved much of what was now in place. He sustained that which begun during the Revolution, of advancement based chiefly on merit. Though Napoleon Bonaparte’s “enlightened dictatorship” took the place of the previous order, he was an authoritarian that introduced advantageous improvements, which possessed a liberal viewpoint, It is frequently said that he perhaps went further and founded a democratic kingdom, a goal, at the time, that contradicted political trends worldwide.

According to Lualdi, the concept of democracy was more theoretical than actual at the time, with the experiment in America still beginning (621)Moreover, his chief plan of building a single, united European empire was itself a radical concept. There was none who ruled before him who seriously reflected on the idea. Napoleon Bonaparte made himself a commanding leader that he was that would spearhead France to European domination. He almost accomplished it if he had only been more prepared to deal with warfare in the harshest circumstances.

His rule is best described and explained by Bonaparte himself. “I closed the gulf of anarchy and brought order out of chaos. I rewarded merit regardless of birth or wealth, wherever I found it. I abolished feudalism and restored equality to all regardless of religion and before the law. I fought the decrepit monarchies of the Old Regime because the alternative was the destruction of all this. I purified the Revolution.” Works CitedLualdi, Katharine. Sources of the Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St.

Martins, 2009. Print.Sowards, J. Kelley. Makers of World History. 2nd ed. New York: Bedford/St. Matins, 1995. Print.“Napoleon Bonaparte.” Lucid Café and Information Resource. n.p. n.d. Web. 12 May 2012.