DECLARATION OF THE
RIGHTS OF MAN AND
CITIZEN
BACKGROUND
• As its name suggests, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
was a written expression of the natural rights of citizens in
revolutionary France.
• May 5th, 1789, the Estates General was called, as France was in poor
Economic Condition. However, eventually, the Third Estate acted in a
revolutionary manner on June 17, and renamed itself the National
Assembly.
• In July 1789, the National Constituent Assembly began deliberating
how to guarantee and protect individual rights in the new nation.
• One proposed solution was a document that explicitly protected these
rights. So, the Assembly formed a committee to draft a bill of rights.
On August 26th 1789, it passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man
• The Declaration was drafted by the Abbé Sieyès and the Marquis de
Lafayette, in consultation with Thomas Jefferson.
• philosophical and political duties of the Enlightenment, individualism,
the social contract constitutionalism, popular sovereignty and natural
rights
• The spirit of "secular natural law“
• Though the cconservatives were not in the favor of the idea. They
accepted that the royal government needed reform and limitations on
its power.
ENACTMENT
• The Declaration was passed by the National Constituent Assembly and
delivered to Louis XVI for endorsement.
• As Eric Hobsbawm puts it, the king “resisted with his usual stupidity”
and refused to sign.
• He refused his assent until October 5th, when he signed the
Declaration to placate angry crowds at Versailles.
• Passed into law, the Declaration became a cornerstone of the
revolution. The National Constitution Assembly adopted the
Declaration as a preamble to the Constitution of 1791.
THE DECLARATION
• 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.
1. Men are born free and remain free and equal in rights.
2. Liberty consists in the power to do anything that does not injure others.
3. The law has only the right to forbid such actions as are injurious to society.
4. Property being an inviolable and sacred right, no one can be deprived of
private usage.
5. Each citizen has the right to ascertain, by himself or through his
representatives
SHORTCOMINGS
• While the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was held up as
sacred and inviolable. It still had shortcomings to it.
• Right to Vote and political rights was only given to the Active Citizens.
• The Declaration said nothing about the rights of women.
• rights were not extended to the slaves and indentured servants in the
colonies.
THE LEGACY
• Despite these gaps and shortcomings, the Declaration remains one of
history’s foremost expressions of human rights.
• It had a major impact on the development of popular conceptions of
individual liberty and democracy in Europe and worldwide, it inspired
large parts of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
• The preamble of the Constitution of the French Fifth - the principles set
forth in the Declaration have constitutional value.
• 19th-century historian Jules Michelet, “the credo of the new age”.
DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS
OF WOMEN AND OF [FEMALE]
CITIZEN
WOMEN DURING FRENCH REVOLUTION
• Women had few Rights.
• Control on women used to shift from their fathers to their
husbands.
• No power over property.
• Unfavourable economic situations.
• Women had few political rights.
MARIE – OLYMPE DE GOUGES
• French social reformer and a writer.
• Born on May 7, 1748.
• Took social issues and advocated Rights of Women.
• Released the Declaration of the Rights of Women and of [Female]
citizen in 1791.
DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND OF
[FEMALE] CITIZEN
• Women should have same rights as man.
• Children born outside marriage should be treated as legitimate children
in matters of inheritance.
• Women must be included among those considered part of France’s
National Assembly.
• Right to voice opinions in public.
• Property rights to women regardless of their marital status.
• Also talks about measures that should be taken to provide for widows
and young girls declined by false promises.
