Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
The National Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen on 26 August 1789. It was drafted in six weeks, in a hurry, as a preamble to a constitution that had not been written, and its seventeen articles were debated line by line in a chamber that had been a revolutionary body for two months. Lafayette produced an early draft with Jefferson's assistance, and the influence of the American declarations and of Rousseau is on every page. The first article states that men are born and remain free and equal in rights, and that social distinctions may be founded only on the common utility. The others establish that sovereignty resides in the nation, that law is the expression of the general will, that liberty consists in doing anything that does not harm another, that nobody may be accused or detained except as the law provides, that opinions including religious ones may not be disturbed, that the free communication of thought is among the most precious rights, and that property is inviolable and sacred. The omissions were noticed at the time. It says nothing about women, which Olympe de Gouges answered in 1791 with a declaration of the rights of woman and was guillotined in 1793; and nothing about slavery, which was not abolished in the colonies until 1794. It has preambular force in French constitutional law today, and the Constitutional Council strikes down legislation under it. The document also travelled further than any of its drafters expected. It was translated across Europe within months, quoted in Haiti, in Latin America and in the 1848 revolutions, and its structure is visible in the Universal Declaration of 1948.
- Year: 1789 CE
- Category: Political
