Concept

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

Overview

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen de 1789), set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human and civil rights document from the French Revolution; the French title can be translated in the modern era as "Declaration of Human and Civil Rights". Inspired by Enlightenment philosophers, the declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution and had a significant impact on the development of popular conceptions of individual liberty and democracy in Europe and worldwide.

The declaration was initially drafted by Marquis de Lafayette with assistance from Thomas Jefferson, but the majority of the final draft came from Abbé Sieyès. Influenced by the doctrine of natural right, human rights are held to be universal: valid at all times and in every place. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by the law. It is included at the beginning of the constitutions of both the French Fourth Republic (1946) and French Fifth Republic (1958) and is considered valid as constitutional law.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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2, ch. 2) is the corner-stone of our Constitution, as reinforced, explained, improved, and in its fundamental principles forever settled. It is called "An act for declaring the rights and liberties of the subject, and for _settling_ the _succession_ of the crown." You will observe that these rights and this succession are declared in one body, and bound indissolubly together.
Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03
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So far, we have considered the prince as a moral and collective person, unified by the force of the laws, and the depositary in the State of the executive power. We have now to consider this power when it is gathered together into the hands of a natural person, a real man, who alone has the right to dispose of it in accordance with the laws. Such a person is called a monarch or king.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The social contract & discourses
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Later on, the organic laws are called into existence by the “Friends of Order,” and all the above named freedoms are so regulated that, in their enjoyment, the bourgeoisie encounter no opposition from the like rights of the other classes. Wherever the bourgeoisie wholly interdicted these rights to “others,” or allowed them their enjoyment under conditions that were but so many police snares, it was always done only…
Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
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Part of Conservatism.

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