From Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

National Assembly

This declaration, adopted on 27 August 1789, was a revolutionary clarion call to the people of France. Its subsequent impact ton European political culture cannot be underestimated.

The representative of the French people, organized as a National Assembly, believing that the ignorance, neglect or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments, have determined to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of man, in order that this declaration, being constantly before all the members of the social body, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; in order that the acts of the legislative power, as well as those of the executive power, may be compared at any moment with the ends of all political institutions and may thus be more respected; and, lastly, in order that the grievances of the citizens, based hereafter upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution and redound to the happiness of all. Therefore the National Assembly recognizes and proclaims, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen:

Article 1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may only be founded upon the general good.

2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptibly rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.

3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.

4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.

5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.

6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally or through his representative in its formation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.

7. No person shall be accused, arrested or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing or causing to be executed any arbitrary order shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.

8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense.

9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner s person shall be severely repressed by law.

10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law. l1. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.

12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military force. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be entrusted.

13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.

14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment, and of collection, and the duration of the taxes.

15. Society has the right to require of every public agent an account of his administration.

16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all.

17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified.

James Robinson, Readings in European History, volII. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1906. pp. 409-11 Abbe Emanuel Sieyes

From What Is the Third Estate?

Chapter 1. The Third Estate Is a Complete Nation

What is needed for a nation to subsist and prosper? Individuals' work and public functions.

One can divide all the work of individuals among four classes:

1. As the land and the water supply the raw material for the needs of man, the first class, in logical order, will be that of all the families involved in rural work.

2. From the first sale of materials until their consumption or use, another more or less numerous labor force adds to these materials an additional, more or less enhanced, value. Human industry thus succeeds in perfecting the benefits of nature, and the net product is multiplied by two, by ten, by a hundred in value. Such is the work of the second class.

3. Between production and consumption, as between the different stages of production, there are many intermediary agents, useful to the producers as well as to the consumers. These are the merchants and the brokers; the brokers who, ceaselessly comparing demand at different times and in different places, speculate on the profit of storage and transport; the merchants who ultimately carry out the sale, either at wholesale or retail. This kind of usefulness characterizes the third class.

4. Besides these three classes of hard-working and useful citizens who occupy themselves with the objects of use and consumption, a society also needs many varieties of personal services. This fourth class includes everything from the most distinguished scientific and liberal professions to the least esteemed domestic services.

Such are the kinds of work that sustain society. Who does them? The Third Estate.

Public functions, at present, can likewise be listed under four familiar headings, the Sword [military], the Robe [judiciary], the Church, and the Administration. It would be superfluous to go over these in detail to show that the Third Estate makes up 95 per cent of them but is assigned everything really unpleasant, all the burdens that the privileged order refuses to carry. Only the lucrative and honorific positions are occupied by members of the privileged order. Shall we admire them for this? To justify doing so, it would have to be true that the Third Estate refused to fill these positions, or that it were less able to exercise the functions. The facts of the matter are no secret. Yet there is discrimination against the Third Estate. It has been told: "Whatever your services, whatever your talents, you shall go only so far; you shall not go further. It is not good that you be honored.": Rare exceptions, intended and felt as such, are only a form of derision, and the language that is used on these occasions is yet another insult. If this exclusion is a social crime against the Third Estate, if it is a real act of hostility, might one at least say that it is useful to the public good? Aren't the effects of monopoly well known? While it discourages those whom it excludes, isn't it well known that it renders less capable those whom it favors? Isn't it well known that all work from which free competition is excluded will be done worse and at higher cost?

. . . . .

It suffices here to have shown that the alleged usefulness of a privileged order for public service is only a phantom; that without it everything unpleasant in that service is done by the Third Estate; that without it the higher positions would be immeasurably better filled; that those places would naturally be the fair share and the reward for talents and recognized services; and that if the privileged men have succeeded in usurping all the lucrative and honorific positions this is both an odious injustice for the citizens in general and a betrayal of the public good.

Who then would dare to say that the Third Estate does not have within itself all that is needed to form a complete nation? It is the strong and robust man with one arm still in chains. If the privileged order were removed, the nation would not be lesser, but greater. What is the Third? The whole, but a whole held back and oppressed. What would it be without the privileged order? The whole, but a whole free and flourishing. Nothing can go without it; everything would go infinitely better without the others.

It is not enough to have shown that the privileged, far from being useful to the nation, can only weaken and harm it; we must also prove that the noble order1 is not in the social organization; that it can indeed be a burden for the nation but that it cannot be part of it.

First, among all the elements which make up a nation, it is impossible to know where to place the caste2 of nobles. I know that there are individuals, in too great numbers, whom infirmities, incapacity, incurable laziness or the force of evil ways exclude from the work of society. Exceptions and abuses are outside the rules everywhere and especially in a vast empire. But it will be agreed that the fewer these abuses, the better ordered the state. The worst ordered of all would be that in which not only isolated individuals but a whole class of citizens derived its glory from remaining idle amidst the general activity and could consume the greater part of what is produced without having joined in any way in creating it. Such a class is certainly foreign to the nation through its inactivity.

The noble order is no less foreign among us by reason of its civil and military prerogatives.

What is a nation? A body of associates living under a common law and represented by the same legislature, etc.

Isn't it only too certain that the noble order has privileges and dispensations, which it dares to call its rights, separated from the rights of the great body of citizens? Thereby it moves outside the common order, the common law. Thus its civil rights already make it a people apart in the great nation. It is truly imperium in imperio [a state within a state].

With regard to its political rights, these also it exercises by itself. It has its own representatives, who are in no way empowered to act for the people. The body of its deputies sits apart; and when they assemble in the same chamber with the deputies of simple citizens, it is nonetheless true that its representation is essentially distinct and separate; it is foreign to the nation, first by its origin since its mission does not come from the people; and then by its purpose, since this does not consist in defending the general interest but a special interest.

The Third therefore includes everyone who belongs to the nation; and everyone who is not in the Third cannot regard himself as being of the nation. What is the Third? EVERYTHING.

Chapter III What does the Third Estate Demand? To become something … The true perditions of this order may be appreciated only through the authentic claims directed to the government by the large municipalities of the kingdom. What is indicated therein? That the people wishes to be something, and in truth that very least that is possible. It wishes to have real representatives in the Estate General, that is to say, deputies drawn from its order, who are competent to be interpreters of its will and defenders of its interest. But what will it avail it to be present at the Estate General if the predominating interest there I s contrary to its own its presence would only consecrate the oppression of which it would be the eternal victim. Thus, it is indeed certain that is cannot come to vote at the Estate General unless it is to have in that body an influence at least equal to that of the prevailed classes, and it demands a cumber of representatives equal to that of the first tow orders together. Finally this equality of representation would become completely illusory if every chamber voted separately, The Third estate demands, then, that votes be taken by head and not be order, This is the essence of those claims so alarming to the privileged classes, because they veiled that thereby the reform of abuses would be come inevitable. The real intention of the third estate is to have an influence in the Estate General equal to that of the privileged classes, I repeat can it ask less? And is it not clear that if its influence therein is less then quality, it cannot be expected to emerge from its political nullity and become something? Nut what is indeed unfortunate is that the three articles constituting the demand of the third estate are insufficient to give it this equality of influence which it cannot in reality do without. IN vain will it obtain an equal number of representatives’ dram from its order; the influence of the privileged glasses will establish itself and dominate even in the sanctuary of the third estate.

Besides the influence of the aristocracy there is the influence of property. This is natural I do not proscribe it at all; but one must agree that it is still all to the advantage of the privileged classes… The more considers this matter, the more obvious the insufficiency of the three demands of the third estate becomes. But finally such as they are they have been vigorously attacked. Let us examine the pretext for this hostility.

I have only one observation to make, Obviously there are abuses in the France; these abuses are profitable to someone; they are scarcely advantageous to the third estate- indeed they are injurious to it in particular. Now I ask if in this state of affairs it is possible to destroy any abuse so long as those who profit there from control the veto? All justice would be powerless; it would be necessary to rely entirely on the sheer generosity of the privileged classes. Would that be your idea of what constitutes the social order?

Lynn Hunt,ed. And trans., The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s 1996, pp. 65-70