Great Statements; the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

Dr Darren Reid of the University of Dundee is running an series of seminars over Skype on Atlantic History and in his fifth (and final) seminar he has asked us to look at two important documents and compare them.

These two documents have many similarities in both style and content and were written fairly closely together. They say similar things in similar ways. But I wonder if there are as many differences as there are similarities between the Declaration of Independence (July 1776) and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (August 1789). 

The second document which I shall look at is the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

You can see the entirety of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen online and, as such, it is not my intention to transcribe the entire document in this blog post, presenting choice sections in their entirety.

The opening paragraph is very concise, summarising all of the content of the American Declaration of Independence. It presents the rights of the authors to speak for the French people (the "Representatives of the French people, organized in National Assembly"), offers that unalienable rights are being denied by a corrupt government ("considering that ignorance, forgetfulness, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole causes of public miseries and the corruption of governments"), and then submits that the only purpose of government is for the benefit of the people governed.

The Declaration then lays out, clearly, the rights enjoyed by the citizens of France;

"In consequence, the National Assembly recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and citizen" 

The rights of man and citizen

Following this declaration there are 17 articles, many of them short and to the point. The first article, indeed, is one such and it clearly sets out what is important to the people of France (as embodied by the "Representatives of the French people, organized in National Assembly"). It states that;

"Men are born free and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be based only on public utility"

Perhaps the most important of the 17 articles in terms of the Declaration is the second one. This states clearly and simply the unalienable rights which should be enjoyed by the people of France. They are;

"The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression."

These rights are further defined, two of them (liberty and property) explicitly and the other two by a reasonable interpretation of other of the articles. The two relating to liberty and property are;

"Liberty consists in the power to do anything that does not injure others; accordingly, the exercise of the rights of each man has no limits except those that secure the enjoyment of these same rights to the other members of society. These limits can be determined only by law. 

"Property being a sacred to and inviolable right, no one can be deprived of it, unless illegally established public necessity evidently demands it, under the condition of a just and prior indemnity."

In conclusion then

I believe it is important to recognise that the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen manages to clearly define its intent and then present itself in a simple and easy to understand form. Someone without lettering and without understanding of reasoning, rhetoric and legal argument would be able to understand it.

That simplicity and clarity does come with a price - the document is a little dry, and is (perhaps) lacking in emotion and isn't very stirring. Perhaps that is a strength rather than a weakness - rather than relying upon powerful emotive language it presents a simple and easily understood point and allows the strength of that point to show its value.