Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, painted by Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789), set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution.
The Declaration was drafted by the Abbé Sieyès and the Marquis de Lafayette, in consultation with Thomas Jefferson. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal:
valid at all times and in every place, pertaining to human nature
itself. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected
equally by the law. It is included in the beginning of the constitutions
of both the Fourth French Republic (1946) and Fifth Republic (1958) and
is still current. Inspired by the Enlightenment philosophers, the
Declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution
and had a major impact on the development of popular conceptions of individual liberty and democracy in Europe and worldwide.
The 1789 Declaration, together with the 1215 Magna Carta, the 1689 English Bill of Rights, the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, and the 1789 United States Bill of Rights, inspired in large part the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
History
The content of the document emerged largely from the ideals of the Enlightenment.
The principal drafts were prepared by Lafayette, working at times with his close friend Thomas Jefferson. In August 1789, Honoré Mirabeau played a central role in conceptualizing and drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
The last article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was adopted on the 26 of August 1789 by the National Constituent Assembly, during the period of the French Revolution, as the first step toward writing a constitution for France. Inspired by the Enlightenment, the original version of the Declaration was discussed by the representatives on the basis of a 24 article draft proposed by the sixth bureau, led by Jérôme Champion de Cicé. The draft was later modified during the debates. A second and lengthier declaration, known as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1793, was written in 1793 but never formally adopted.
Philosophical and theoretical context
Print of the 17 articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789 (Musée de la Révolution française)
The concepts in the Declaration come from the philosophical and political duties of the Enlightenment, such as individualism, the social contract as theorized by the Genevan philosopher Rousseau, and the separation of powers espoused by the Baron de Montesquieu.
As can be seen in the texts, the French declaration was heavily
influenced by the political philosophy of the Enlightenment and
principles of human rights as was the U.S. Declaration of Independence which preceded it (4 July 1776).
According to a legal textbook published in 2007, the declaration
is in the spirit of "secular natural law", which does not base itself on
religious doctrine or authority, in contrast with traditional natural law theory, which does.
The declaration defines a single set of individual and collective
rights for all men. Influenced by the doctrine of natural rights, these
rights are held to be universal
and valid in all times and places. For example, "Men are born and
remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only
upon the general good." They have certain natural rights to property,
to liberty, and to life. According to this theory, the role of
government is to recognize and secure these rights. Furthermore, the
government should be carried on by elected representatives.
At the time it was written, the rights contained in the
declaration were only awarded to men. Furthermore, the declaration was a
statement of vision rather than reality. The declaration was not deeply
rooted in either the practice of the West or even France at the time.
The declaration emerged in the late 18th century out of war and
revolution. It encountered opposition as democracy and individual rights were frequently regarded as synonymous with anarchy and subversion. This declaration embodies ideals and aspirations towards which France pledged to struggle in the future.
Substance
The
Declaration is introduced by a preamble describing the fundamental
characteristics of the rights which are qualified as being "natural,
unalienable and sacred" and consisting of "simple and incontestable
principles" on which citizens could base their demands. In the second
article, "the natural and imprescriptible rights of man" are defined as
"liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression". It called for the destruction of aristocratic privileges by proclaiming an end to feudalism
and to exemptions from taxation, freedom and equal rights for all
"Men", and access to public office based on talent. The monarchy was
restricted, and all citizens were to have the right to take part in the
legislative process. Freedom of speech and press were declared, and arbitrary arrests outlawed.
The Declaration also asserted the principles of popular sovereignty, in contrast to the divine right of kings
that characterized the French monarchy, and social equality among
citizens, "All the citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are
equally admissible to all public dignities, places, and employments,
according to their capacity and without distinction other than that of
their virtues and of their talents," eliminating the special rights of
the nobility and clergy.
Articles
Article I – Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be founded only on the common good.
Article II – The goal of any political association is the
conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These
rights are liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression.
Article III – The principle of any sovereignty resides
essentially in the Nation. No body, no individual may exercise any
authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.
Article IV – Liberty consists of doing anything which does
not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man
has only those borders which assure other members of the society the
fruition of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by
the law.
Article V – The law has the right to forbid only actions
harmful to society. Anything which is not forbidden by the law cannot be
impeded, and no one can be constrained to do what it does not order.
Article VI – The law is the expression of the general will.
All the citizens have the right of contributing personally or through
their representatives to its formation. It must be the same for all,
either that it protects, or that it punishes. All the citizens, being
equal in its eyes, are equally admissible to all public dignities,
places, and employments, according to their capacity and without
distinction other than that of their virtues and of their talents.
Article VII – No man can be accused, arrested nor detained
but in the cases determined by the law, and according to the forms
which it has prescribed. Those who solicit, dispatch, carry out or cause
to be carried out arbitrary orders, must be punished; but any citizen
called or seized under the terms of the law must obey at once; he
renders himself culpable by resistance.
Article VIII – The law should establish only penalties
that are strictly and evidently necessary, and no one can be punished
but under a law established and promulgated before the offense and
legally applied.
Article IX – Any man being presumed innocent until he is
declared culpable if it is judged indispensable to arrest him, any rigor
which would not be necessary for the securing of his person must be
severely reprimanded by the law.
Article X – No one may be disquieted for his opinions,
even religious ones, provided that their manifestation does not trouble
the public order established by the law.
Article XI – The free communication of thoughts and of
opinions is one of the most precious rights of man: any citizen thus may
speak, write, print freely, except to respond to the abuse of this
liberty, in the cases determined by the law.
Article XII – The guarantee of the rights of man and of
the citizen necessitates a public force: this force is thus instituted
for the advantage of all and not for the particular utility of those in
whom it is trusted.
Article XIII – For the maintenance of the public force and
for the expenditures of administration, a common contribution is
indispensable; it must be equally distributed to all the citizens,
according to their ability to pay.
Article XIV – Each citizen has the right to ascertain, by
himself or through his representatives, the need for a public tax, to
consent to it freely, to know the uses to which it is put, and of
determining the proportion, basis, collection, and duration.
Article XV – The society has the right of requesting an account from any public agent of its administration.
Article XVI – Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured, nor the separation of powers determined, has no Constitution.
Article XVII – Property being an inviolable and sacred
right, no one can be deprived of private usage, if it is not when the
public necessity, legally noted, evidently requires it, and under the
condition of a just and prior indemnity.
Active and passive citizenship
While the French Revolution
provided rights to a larger portion of the population, there remained a
distinction between those who obtained the political rights in the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and those who did not.
Those who were deemed to hold these political rights were called active
citizens. Active citizenship
was granted to men who were French, at least 25 years old, paid taxes
equal to three days work, and could not be defined as servants (Thouret). This meant that at the time of the Declaration only male property owners held these rights. The deputies in the National Assembly believed that only those who held tangible interests in the nation could make informed political decisions.
This distinction directly affects articles 6, 12, 14, and 15 of the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen as each of these rights is
related to the right to vote and to participate actively in the
government. With the decree of 29 October 1789, the term active citizen
became embedded in French politics.
The concept of passive citizens
was created to encompass those populations that had been excluded from
political rights in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.
Because of the requirements set down for active citizens, the vote was
granted to approximately 4.3 million Frenchmen out of a population of around 29 million.
These omitted groups included women, slaves, children, and foreigners.
As these measures were voted upon by the General Assembly, they limited
the rights of certain groups of citizens while implementing the
democratic process of the new French Republic (1792–1804). This legislation, passed in 1789, was amended by the creators of the Constitution of the Year III in order to eliminate the label of active citizen. The power to vote was then, however, to be granted solely to substantial property owners.
Tensions arose between active and passive citizens throughout the
Revolution. This happened when passive citizens started to call for
more rights, or when they openly refused to listen to the ideals set
forth by active citizens. This cartoon
clearly demonstrates the difference that existed between the active and
passive citizens along with the tensions associated with such
differences.
In the cartoon, a passive citizen is holding a spade and a wealthy
landowning active citizen is ordering the passive citizens to go to
work. The act appears condescending to the passive citizen and it
revisits the reasons why the French Revolution began in the first place.
Women, in particular, were strong passive citizens who played a significant role in the Revolution. Olympe de Gouges penned her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen in 1791 and drew attention to the need for gender equality.
By supporting the ideals of the French Revolution and wishing to expand
them to women, she represented herself as a revolutionary citizen.
Madame Roland also established herself as an influential figure
throughout the Revolution. She saw women of the French Revolution as
holding three roles; "inciting revolutionary action, formulating policy,
and informing others of revolutionary events."
By working with men, as opposed to working separate from men, she may
have been able to further the fight of revolutionary women. As players
in the French Revolution, women occupied a significant role in the civic
sphere by forming social movements and participating in popular clubs,
allowing them societal influence, despite their lack of direct political
influence.
Women's rights
The Declaration recognized many rights as belonging to citizens (who could only be male). This was despite the fact that after The March on Versailles on 5 October 1789, women presented the Women's Petition to the National Assembly in which they proposed a decree giving women equal rights. In 1790, Nicolas de Condorcet and Etta Palm d'Aelders unsuccessfully called on the National Assembly to extend civil and political rights to women.
Condorcet declared that "he who votes against the right of another,
whatever the religion, color, or sex of that other, has henceforth
abjured his own". The French Revolution did not lead to a recognition of women's rights and this prompted Olympe de Gouges to publish the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen in September 1791.
The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen is
modeled on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and
is ironic in formulation and exposes the failure of the French Revolution, which had been devoted to equality. It states that:
This revolution will only take effect when all women become fully aware of their deplorable condition, and of the rights, they have lost in society.
The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen follows
the seventeen articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of
the Citizen point for point and has been described by Camille Naish as
"almost a parody... of the original document". The first article of the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen proclaims that "Men
are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be
based only on common utility." The first article of Declaration of the
Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen replied: "Woman is born free and
remains equal to man in rights. Social distinctions may only be based on
common utility".
De Gouges also draws attention to the fact that under French law
women were fully punishable, yet denied equal rights, declaring "Women
have the right to mount the scaffold, they must also have the right to
mount the speaker's rostrum".
Slavery
The declaration did not revoke the institution of slavery, as lobbied for by Jacques-Pierre Brissot's Les Amis des Noirs and defended by the group of colonial planters called the Club Massiac because they met at the Hôtel Massiac. Despite the lack of explicit mention of slavery in the Declaration, slave uprisings in Saint-Domingue in the Haitian Revolution were inspired by it, as discussed in C. L. R. James' history of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins.
Deplorable conditions for the thousands of slaves in
Saint-Domingue, the most profitable slave colony in the world, led to
the uprisings which would be known as the first successful slave revolt
in the New World. Free persons of color were part of the first wave of revolt, but later former slaves took control. In 1794 the Convention dominated by the Jacobins abolished
slavery, including in the colonies of Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe.
However, Napoleon reinstated it in 1802 and attempted to regain control
of Saint-Domingue by sending in thousands of troops. After suffering the
losses of two-thirds of the men, many to yellow fever, the French
withdrew from Saint-Domingue in 1803. Napoleon gave up on North America
and agreed to the Louisiana Purchase by the United States. In 1804, the leaders of Saint-Domingue declared it as an independent state, the Republic of Haiti, the second republic of the New World.
Legacy
The Declaration has also influenced and inspired rights-based liberal democracy throughout the world. It was translated as soon as 1793–1794 by Colombian Antonio Nariño, who published it despite the Inquisition. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for doing so. In 2003, the document was listed on UNESCO's Memory of the World register.
Constitution of the French Fifth Republic
According to the preamble of the Constitution of the French Fifth Republic
(adopted on 4 October 1958, and the current constitution), the
principles set forth in the Declaration have constitutional value. Many
laws and regulations have been canceled because they did not comply with
those principles as interpreted by the Conseil Constitutionnel ("Constitutional Council of France") or by the Conseil d'État ("Council of State").
- Taxation legislation or practices that seem to make some unwarranted difference between citizens are struck down as unconstitutional.
- Suggestions of positive discrimination on ethnic grounds are rejected because they infringe on the principle of equality, since they would establish categories of people that would, by birth, enjoy greater rights.
