DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND OF THE CITIZEN
Décretés by the National Assembly in the meetings of the
20, 21, 23, August 24, and 25 1789, accepted by the KING.
PREAMBULE
The representatives of the French people, made up in national
assembly, considering that ignorance, the lapse of memory or the
contempt of the humans right are the only causes of public misfortunes
and the corruption of the governments, solved to expose, in a solemn
declaration the natural, inalienable and crowned rights of the man;
so that this declaration, constantly presents to all the members of
the social body, unceasingly points out their rights and their duties
to them; so that the acts of the legislative power and those of the
executive power, being able to be at every moment compared with the
goal of each political institution, are more respect; so that the
complaints of the citizens, founded from now on on simple and
undeniable principles, always turn to the maintenance of the
constitution and the happiness of all.
Consequently, the national assembly reconnait and declares,
in presence and under the auspices To be it supreme, the following
rights of the man and the citizen.
Article first - the men are born and remain free and
equal in rights; the social distinctions can be founded only on the
common utilite.
Article 2 - The goal of any political association
is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of the
man. These rights are: freedom, the property, sureté and resistance
to oppression.
Article 3 - The principle of all souverainete lies
primarily in the nation; no body, no individual cannot exert autorite
which does not emanate from it expressement.
Article 4 - Freedom consists in being able to do
all that does not harm others. Thus, the exercise of the natural
rights of each man has terminals only those which ensure the other
members of the company the pleasure of these same rights. These
terminals can be given only by the law.
Article 5 - The law has the right to defend only
the harmful actions at the company. All that is not defended by the
law cannot be empéché, and no one cannot be constrained to do what
it does not order.
Article 6 - The law is the expression of the
general will; all the citizens have right to contribute personally,
or by their representants, with his formation; it must be the same
one for all, either that it protects, or that it punishes. All the
citizens being equal in its eyes, are also acceptable with all
dignities, places and employment public, according to their capacity
and without other distinction that that their virtues and their
talents.
Article 7 - No man cannot be shown, stopped, nor
held that in the cases determined by the law, and according to forms'
which it prescribed. Those which solicit, dispatch, carry out or make
carry out arbitrary commands must be punished; but any citizen called
or seized under the terms of the law must obey at the moment: he
makes himself guilty by resistance.
Article 8 - The law should establish only sorrows
strictly and obviously necessary and null can be punished only under
the terms of one law established and promulgated before with the
offence, and legally applied.
Article 9 - Any man being supposed innocent until
it was declared guilty, if it is considered it essential to stop it,
any rigour which would not be necessary to be ensured of its person
must severly be repressed by the law.
Article 10 - No one should not be worried for its
opinions, even religious, provided that their demonstration does not
disturb the command piblic established by the law.
Article 11 - The free communication of the thoughts
and the opinions is one of the most invaluable rights of the man; any
citizen can thus speak, write, print freely, except answering of the
abuse this freedom in the cases determined by the law.
Article 12 - The guarantee of the humans right and
of the citizen requires a police force; this force is thus instituted
for the advantage of all, and not
for the particular utility of those to which it is entrusted.
Article 13 - For the maintenance of the police
force, and for the expenditure of administration, a common
contribution is essential; it must be also distributed between all
the citizens, because of their faculties.
Article 14 - The citizens have the right to note,
by them-even or their representatives, the need for the public
contribution, to agree it voluntarily, to follow employment of it, and
to determine of it the share, the plate, the recovery and the
duration.
Article 15 - The company has the right to request
account from any public agent of its administration.
Article 16 - Any company in which the guarantee of
the rights is not assured, nor the separation of the capacities
determined, does not have a constitution.
Article 17 - The property being a foolproof and
crowned right, no one cannot be private for it, if it is not when the
public need, legally contatée, requires it obviously, and under the
condition of a Juste and preliminary allowance.