Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is a French document outlining the fundamental values of the French Revolution. France's National Assembly adopted the declaration in August of 1789. The American Revolution and the ideals of American constitutionalism heavily influenced the declaration, first assembled by French general Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, with the help of Thomas Jefferson. The document laid the groundwork for a new form of government, wherein the law upheld the natural rights of the citizen. The declaration included seventeen articles, which embraced freedom of religion, freedom of the press, no taxation without representation, and abolition of cruel punishments, among other rights. The declaration advocated universal liberty and equality and influenced other European nations to follow suit.

Overview: Background

The French Revolution began after a group of insurgents stormed Paris's Bastille, a fortress housing weapons and ammunition, in July of 1789. Before this momentous event, many French citizens desired the same freedoms won by the Americans during the Revolutionary War, which had ended in 1783. General Lafayette, who had fought in the American Revolution, returned to France with the idea to put in order a French document on the rights of man similar to those he encountered in the United States. He composed the earliest drafts of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in January of 1789. He often discussed his project with his close associate Thomas Jefferson, who annotated early versions of the draft. Jefferson, principal author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, worked closely with Lafayette and played a key role in the conception of the French declaration. The document expressed philosophies rooted in both French and American revolutionary attitudes. Because Lafayette had an American mentor in Jefferson, the drafts of the French declaration were similar in tone to the American Bill of Rights and the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Lafayette presented his text to the National Assembly, a revolutionary assembly representing the common people, in July of 1789. The members of the National Assembly reviewed and reshaped the document until it met their standards. They officially adopted the declaration on August 26, 1789.

Content and Analysis of the Declaration

The declaration consisted of seventeen articles, which were settled upon after a weeklong debate among National Assembly members. It is introduced by a preamble explaining the necessity of such a document. Each article focuses on what the authors considered the natural rights of man (liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression), rights inherent to all men and existing before any kind of government. These ideas were promoted in the texts of French Enlightenment philosophers such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, all of whom were major influences on the declaration's content. These philosophers believed in universal natural rights such as equality for all men and individualism, or the freedom to pursue individual interests to any extent. Equality and individual liberty were fundamental to all articles of the declaration. Drawing on Enlightenment ideals, the assembly members characterized liberty as protection from authority, freedom of expression, assurance of one's independence, and influence over how one is governed, encompassing the individual and collective rights of the citizen. The articles stipulated that liberty was only lawful when it did not harm others. It also stressed the accountability of the executive and legislative body to uphold these rights, which all men shared equally. This effectively eliminated the French monarchy style of government, and political participation was granted to a larger portion of the population.

It is also important to note that though greater rights were extended to the general population, the term citizen, as it is used in the document, only refers to property-owning men over the age of twenty-five who paid taxes. Women, slaves, children, and the less fortunate men of France were not extended the same political rights as property-owning men. They could not hold any public office or participate in the political process. This angered many lower-class citizens and especially irritated female French citizens, who played important roles in the French Revolution. Despite its somewhat limited scope, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen became an inspiration to people in other developing countries across Europe and around the world. The document was crucial to the history of France and to human rights in general. It was included in the constitutions of the Fourth French Republic in 1946 and the Fifth Republic in 1958, which is the current version of France's constitution.

Bibliography

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