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Fear
> The Declaration of the Rights of Man
> A
Summary of what happened...
On
August 26, 1789, the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen" were passed by the National Assembly. This presented to
the world a summary of the ideals and principles of the Revolution,
and justified the destruction of a government based upon absolutism
and privilege, and the establishment of a new regime based upon the
inalienable rights of individuals, liberty, and political equality.
The Declaration became the preamble to the Constitution of 1791. It
has been referred to in almost every single revolutionary movement since
1789, and has been translated into nearly all major languages. It is
the basis of the constitutional foundations of many countries, including
France's Fifth Republic.
Many
ideas for the Declaration were from the Enlightenment,
with the most important influence being John Locke's Second Treatise
of Government (first published in England in 1690 at the time of
the 'Glorious Revolution').
By
1791, the Declaration had been transformed from a legislative document
into a kind of political manifesto. No one assisted this process more
than Tom Paine, whose Rights of Man became one of the best-selling
books in English history, and the bible of working-class radicals. Paine
reproduced the document, word for word, treating it as a sacred text
that ushered in a new epoch of world history.
The
King was never in favour of the Declaration and he refused to endorse
it because he thought its clauses were too ambiguous. He only sanctioned
it under popular pressure on October fifth and sixth, 1791. Since then,
it has been adopted by all kinds of political groups, and has been used
both to justify revolution and also to supress it.
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