ble principles, may ever tend to maintain the Conftitution, and to promote the general good:

For these reasons, the National Affembly recognises, and declares in the presence, and under the aufpices of the SUPREME BEING, the following Rights of Men and of Citizens:

ARTICLE FIRST.

ALL men are born, and remain, free and equal in rights: focial diftinctions cannot be founded but on common utility.

II. The end of all political affociations is the prefervation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man: these rights are liberty, property, fecurity, and refiftance against oppreffion.

III. The principle of fovereignty refides effentially in the nation: no body of men, no individual, can exercise an authority that does not emanate expressly from that source.

IV. Liberty confifts in the power of doing every thing except that which is hurtful to another hence the exercife of the natural rights of every man, has no other bounds than those that are neceffary to enfure to the other members of fociety the enjoyment of the same rights: thofe bounds to be determined by the law only.

V. The law has a right to forbid thofe actions alone, that are hurtful to fociety. Whatever is

not

not forbidden by the law, cannot be hindered; and no person can be conftrained to do that which the law ordaineth not.

VI. The law is the expreffion of the general will: all the citizens have a right to concur perfonally, or by their reprefentatives, to the formation of the law: it ought to be the fame for all, whether it protect, or whether it punish. All citizens being equal in the eye of the law, are equally admiffible to public honour, places and offices, according to their capacity, and without any other diftinction but that of their virtue, or their talents.

VII. No man can be accufed, arrefted, or detained, except in cafes determined by the law, and according to the forms which the law hath prescribed. Those who folicit, dispatch, execute, or cause to be executed, arbitrary orders, ought to be punished; but every citizen that is fummoned, or feized, in virtue of the law, ought to obey instantly-he becomes culpable by refiftance.

VIII. The law ought to establish such punishments only as are strictly and evidently neceffary; and no perfon can be punished, but in virtue of a law established and promulgated prior to the offence, and legally applied. C

IX. Every

IX. Every man being prefumed innocent till fuch time as he has been declared guilty, if it shall be deemed abfolutely neceffary to arrest a man, every kind of rigour employed, not neceffary to fecure his perfon, ought to be feverely punished by the law.

X. No perfon fhall be molested for his opinions, even fuch as are religious, provided that the manifestation of those opinions does not disturb the public order established by the law.

XI. The free communication of thought, and of opinion, is one of the most precious rights of man. Every citizen, therefore, may freely fpeak, write, and publish his fentiments; fubject, however, to answer for the abufe of that liberty, in cases determined by the law.

XII. The guarantee of the rights of men and citizens involves a neceffity of public force. This force is therr inftituted for the advantage of all, and not for the particular utility of those to whom it is confided.

XII. For the maintenance of the public force, and for the expences of administration, a common contribution is indifpenfably neceffary: this contribution should be equally divided amongst all the citizens, in proportion to their abilities.

XIV. Every citizen has a right, by himself, or by his reprefentatives, to decide concerning

the

the neceffity of the public contribution; to confent to it freely; to look after the employment of it; to determine the quantity, the distribution, the collection, and duration.

XV. Society has a right to demand from every public agent, an account of his administration. XVI. That fociety in which the guarantee of rights is not affured, nor the feparation of powers determined, has no conftitution.

XVII. Property being a right inviolable and facred, no person can be deprived of it, except when the public neceffity, legally ascertained, fhall evidently require it, and on condition of a juft and previous indemnification.

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, defirous of establishing the French Conftitution on the principles which it has juft now recognised and declared, abolishes, irrevocably, those institutions which are injurious to liberty, and equality of rights.

There is no longer any nobility, nor peerage, nor hereditary difiinctions, nor difference of orders, nor feudal government, nor patrimonial jurisdiction, nor any of the titles, denominations and prerogatives which are derived from them; nor any of the orders of chivalry, corporations, or decorations, for which proofs of nobility were required; nor any kind of fuperiority, but that C 2

of

of public Fonctionaries in the exercise of their functions.

No public office is henceforth hereditary or purchafeable.

No part of the nation, nor any individual, can henceforth poffefs any privilege or exception from the common rights of all Frenchmen.

There are no more wardenfhips or corporations in profeffions, arts, or trades.

The law recognises no longer any religious other engagement which would be contrary to natural rights, or to the Consti

vows, nor any

tution.

TITLE I.

FUNDAMENTAL REGULATIONS GUARANTEED BY

THE CONSTITUTION.

THE Constitution guarantees, as natural and civil rights,

1. That all the citizens are admiffible to places and employments, without any other distinction than that of virtue and talents.

2. That all taxes fhall be equally divided amongst all the citizens, in proportion to their abilities.

3. That