- Nature made men free and equal; the distinctions between them are based on general utility.
- Every man is born with inalienable rights; such are [the right of property, the care [of his honor and] of his life, the entire disposition of his person, of his industry, of all his faculties, the search for well-being and resistance to oppression.
- The exercise of natural rights has no limits except those which ensure the same rights to society.
- No man can be worried neither for his religion, nor for his opinions, nor for the communication of his thoughts by the word; writing or printing, unless it has disturbed the peace of the Citizens by Calumnies.
- No man can be subject except to Laws agreed by him or his representatives previously promulgated and legally applied.
- The Principle of all sovereignty resides imprescriptibly in the nation.
- All government has as its sole goal the common good; Legislative, executive and judicial powers must be distinct and defined: no body and no individual can have an Authority which does not expressly emanate from the Nation.
- Legislative power must be exercised essentially by deputies chosen from all the districts by free, regular and frequent elections.
- The executive power being exercised by the King, whose person is sacred, all his individual or collective agents are accountable and responsible to the nation whatever authorization they have received.
- The Judicial Power must be confined to the application of the Law; the procedure must be public and the distribution of justice easy and impartial.
- The Laws must be clear, precise, and uniform for all Citizens.
- Subsidies must be freely fixed and proportionally distributed.
- And as the progress of enlightenment, the introduction of abuses and the rights of successive generations require the revision of any human establishment, constitutional means must be indicated which ensure in certain cases an extraordinary convocation of representatives whose sole purpose is to ‘examine and modify, if necessary, the form of government.
PRIMARY DOCUMENT
Lafayette’s Draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (July 11, 1789)
CONTEXT
The Marquis de Lafayette presented a draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to the French National Assembly on July 11, 1789, three days before the storming of the Bastille and the official start of the French Revolution. Lafayette wrote the document with the help of Thomas Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France. The National Assembly approved a revised version of the declaration in August of 1789.
FULL TEXT
