What was the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen? Learn who wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and its historical significance.
Updated: 11/21/2023
Declaration of the Rights of Man | Definition & Significance
Table of Contents
- What Was the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen?
- What Events Led to the Declaration of the Rights of Man?
- A Summary of the Declaration's Main Points
- The Significance of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
- Lesson Summary
Frequently Asked Questions
What were the five guarantees of the Declaration of the Rights of Man?
The Declaration of the Rights of Man guarantees men the right to liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. The document also gives men the right to free speech.
What was the main idea of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen?
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen consists of seventeen articles that explain the natural and legal rights of individuals. The articles reflect the commonly held beliefs that had become popular during the Enlightenment. The Declaration afforded citizens of France the right to own land, the right to vote, equal treatment under the law, and the right to religious freedom.
Why was the Declaration of the Rights of Man written?
The Declaration of the Rights of Man was written by members of the National Assembly as a preamble to the new French constitution of 1791.
Table of Contents
- What Was the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen?
- What Events Led to the Declaration of the Rights of Man?
- A Summary of the Declaration's Main Points
- The Significance of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
- Lesson Summary
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was issued by the National Assembly on August 27, 1789. The document was written by Marquis de Lafayette with the help of Thomas Jefferson. It outlined the natural and legal rights of French citizens and limited the power of King Louis XVI. The document became a preamble to the new French constitution in 1791.
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In 1774, Louis XVI succeeded his grandfather, Louis XV, as the king of France. In the late 1780s, France was in a precarious economic position. Louis XIV had left the government deep in debt, and the problem intensified with the expenses incurred from France's involvement in the American Revolution. Taxes were poorly regulated, and self-serving government administrators ensured that the nobility paid very little to help offset government spending. The peasants found themselves in a dire economic situation as complicated tax laws and poor crop yields caused the price of bread to soar.
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Changes in Social Class
The social order in France began to shift in the latter half of the 1800s. Traditionally, there were three social classes in France:
- The First Estate consisted of the clergy
- The Second Estate was made up of the nobility
- The Third Estate included all people who were neither clergy members nor nobles.
While the First Estate was well defined, the Second Estate and Third Estate remained in flux. Members of the Third Estate who became wealthy enough could purchase titles and eventually integrate into the Second Estate. However, as the economic situation worsened, it became more difficult for wealthy members of the Third Estate to purchase land and titles. Conversely, nobles sometimes found themselves in possession of titles, but little wealth. This situation caused tensions between the social classes.
The Estates-General
In an effort to avert economic disaster, Louis XVI's ministers proposed a number of new taxes, including a tax on produce and a stamp duty. Louis XVI convened an Assembly of Notables in an effort to rally support for the taxes. The group not only refused to support the new taxes, they insisted that Louis XVI summon the Estates-General to seek approval on the tax plan.
The Estates-General was an assembly made up of representatives from all three of the estates. The group had been conceived by Philip IV during the Middle Ages as a way for the monarch to hear the opinions of the people. Over the years, the Estates-General was called to advise the king during tumultuous times. When Louis XVI assembled the Estates-General, it was the first time the group had been assembled since 1614.
Each of the three estates elected representatives to send to the Estates-General. In the past, the Third Estate had held little power and was often dominated by the representatives from the First Estate and the Second Estate. The social order had changed dramatically since the Estates-General had last met in 1615. The Third Estate was now populated with lawyers, business owners, and government officeholders who wanted their grievances heard. Abbe Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes, a radical Catholic clergyman, believed that the Third Estate deserved more representation than the other two estates. The Third Estate comprised the largest percentage of people in France. Sieyes authored a pamphlet titled "What is the Third Estate?" that encouraged the Third Estate to examine the importance of their role in French society. With the support of Sieyes, the number of representatives to the Estates-General from the Third Estate was doubled, and Sieyes was named deputy of the Third Estate. The Third Estate was now in a position of power.
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The National Assembly
In May of 1789, the Estates-General met at Versailles. Under Sieyes' leadership, the Third Estate representatives quickly declared themselves the National Assembly. Louis XVI did not approve of the National Assembly and refused to allow the members to enter Versailles. Disgusted by the king's efforts to ban the National Assembly from the Estates-General, a number of clergy members from the First Estate as well as some forward-thinking nobles from the Second Estate left to join the National Assembly.
On June 20, 1789, the National Assembly convened their own meeting at a nearby tennis court. The members pledged an oath to remain united until they had drafted a constitution for France. The Tennis Court Oath, as it came to be known, is considered the start of the French Revolution. Louis XVI was aware that his power was slipping away. On June 27, in an effort to stave off revolution, Louis XVI directed the First Estate and the Second Estate to join the National Assembly.
Tensions mounted as the summer progressed. In Paris, the working class people rose up and stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789. In the countryside, peasants started militias and attacked manor houses. In response, the National Assembly gathered on August 4, 1789 , and decided to abolish the church tithe, forced and unpaid labor, and many tax exemptions that favored the wealthy. During this meeting, a proposal was issued for a declaration of the rights of man to accompany the new constitution. On August 12, 1789, a committee was formed to construct a proposal for the declaration. Lafayette wrote the first draft with the help of one of the authors of the American Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. The final draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was adopted on August 26, 1789. It consisted of 17 articles that explained the rights of the French people.
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Intellectual Context
The authors of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen drew inspiration from a number of sources such as the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence. However, the overall tone and scope of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was inspired by the philosophers of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment thinkers rejected absolute authority and celebrated social progress.
Voltaire, one of the most famous philosophers of the Enlightenment, believed in political freedom. He admired the British system of government because he felt that it was more fair and balanced than the French government. He believed that the British had succeeded in limiting their monarch's power as well as the power of the nobility. He also admired their tax system, which did not exempt the rich in the way that the French tax system did. Voltaire was also a staunch believer in religious freedom.
From a governmental standpoint, the authors were shaped by the beliefs of Montesquieu. The philosopher and nobleman Baron de Montesquieu believed that France was shifting from monarchy to despotic rule. He felt that the way to avoid absolute rule was to enter into a system of checks and balances. He believed that separate executive, judicial, and legislative branches would keep the monarch from becoming too powerful.
Another influential philosopher was Rousseau. Jean-Jaques Rousseau was a radical thinker who felt that all people were inherently free. He believed that the people should work together in order to make their own laws of governance because people naturally know what they need in society.
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Drawing from the beliefs of the Enlightenment philosophers, the Declaration aims to describe the natural and legal rights afforded to all men in France. The following articles do not explain the operations or limits of the government, they instead guarantee general freedom and equality for all people :
- "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights." (Article 1)
- "The purpose of all political association is the preservation of the natural...rights of man" (Article 2)
- "No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views..."(Article 10)
- "The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man."(Article 11)
- "Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof..."(Article 17)
Other articles are meant to undo parts of the current political system that the authors felt were unjust. Whether they are aimed at limiting power or preventing corruption, the following articles are safeguards against the persistent problems that the French faced:
- "Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes." (Article 6)
- "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." (Article 13)
- "A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all." (Article 16)
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The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen limited Louis XVI's power. According to the Declaration, the people were now responsible for making the laws and there was to be a clear division of powers within the government. In theory, the people of France had been granted the right to vote, own property, and practice any religion they wanted to practice. In reality, many people were excluded from the rights set out in the Declaration.
Nearly fifty percent of adult men in France had passive citizenship. Passive citizens could not afford to pay the minimum taxes and therefore were excluded from all political life, including the right to vote. This meant that the citizens with less money continued to be excluded from the government. Enslaved people in the French colonies as well as free people of color in France were also excluded from the rights outlined in the Declaration. While slavery and serfdom were outlawed in France, the French colonies were exempt from the law. The Jews and some Protestants were also excluded from enjoying the rights issued in the Declaration. While the Declaration explicitly detailed the rights of citizens to practice any religion; the reality was that non-Catholics were not given equal rights.
Women were noticeably left out of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. However, in the spirit of the revolutionary time, some women did come forward to demand some rights. In 1791, Olympe de Gouges wrote her own declaration entitled "Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Citizen". She believed that women were entitled to all of the rights that had been laid out for men in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. She also believed that women should have the right to name the father of their children born out of wedlock.
The Legacy of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
France's Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was a major influence in the formation of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights echoed many of the principles found in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. Both declarations grant the right to own land, the right of free speech, and the right to religious freedom. The United Nations declaration is more precise about how the rights are extended to include all people regardless of gender, race, color, religion, property, language, or status.
Other Changes
The Declaration turned out to be the first of many changes from the Assembly. In November of 1789 the Assembly took control of all of the Catholic Church's land throughout the country. They needed something to back their new currency, the assignat, and the Church's property served that purpose. In July of 1790, the Assembly went a step further and enacted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy turned France's Catholic Church into a state church under the government's control. The Assembly wanted to sever the Church's allegiance to Rome by requiring the clergy to sign the Civil Constitution thereby pledging allegiance to France; but the pope made it known that anyone who signed the Civil Constitution would be excommunicated.
By 1791, the Assembly had completed their Constitution. The Constitution of 1791 limited Louis XVI's powers considerably by changing his role to that of a constitutional monarch. Most of the power now lay with the legislature. The Constitution also limited which of the French citizens were allowed to vote. In order to vote, a citizen had to be a man of at least 25 years of age who owned land and regularly paid his taxes.
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As Louis XVI struggled to keep France from going bankrupt, tensions between the Third Estate and the Second Estate continued to mount. When Louis XVI tried to garner support for his new tax plan, the nobles insisted that he assemble the Estates-General. The Estates-General, which had not assembled since 1614, was composed of representatives from the First Estate (clergy people), the Second Estate (nobles), and the Third Estate (non-clergy, non-nobles). The Third Estate found leadership under the radical clergyman, Sieyes and was able to double their representation.
Shortly after the start of the Estates-General, the Third Estate proclaimed themselves the National Assembly. Louis XVI banned the assembly from Versailles and the group relocated to a tennis court where they pledged the Tennis Court Oath, in which they promised to stay together long enough to write a new constitution. This marked the beginning of the French Revolution.
Inspired by the Enlightenment thinkers, Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau, the Assembly decided to draft a declaration of human rights. Lafayette, with the help of Thomas Jefferson, drafted the 17 articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The articles detailed the rights of all men to be considered free and equal, to own land, to vote, to exercise religious freedom, and to have the freedom of speech. It also protected citizens from unlawful imprisonment and unfair taxation. The declaration did not grant the right to vote to passive citizens, meaning anyone who could not afford to pay taxes. Women, people of color, non-Catholics, and those living in French colonies were also not afforded the rights outlined in the Declaration.
With the passage of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the Catholic Church of France came under state control. The Constitution of 1791 went on to greatly limit Louis XVI's power and change the voting requirements for French citizens.
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Video Transcript
A Call for a New Order
France's Estates General met in May of 1789 to try and solve the problem of the country's bankrupt government. In a little over a month, the common people of the Third Estate, disgusted by unequal treatment and lack of results, split off from the clergy and the nobles on June 17 and formed the National Assembly.
King Louis XVI ordered the new Assembly to disperse and locked the members out of the meeting hall. The delegates transferred their meeting to a nearby tennis court. On June 20, 1789, they swore the famous Tennis Court Oath, vowing that they would never disband until they received a new constitution. 'We are here according to the will of the people,' one delegate exclaimed, 'and nothing except bayonets will drive us out.' The king, unsure how to respond, tried to order the delegates to return to the Estates General. When that didn't work, he commanded the clergy and nobility to join the National Assembly. A new order was beginning.
A Declaration
The National Assembly, led by the Third Estate, thought that it was time to get a few things straight about the rights of the French people, especially the common people. On August 26, 1789, it issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which proclaimed the basic rights of human beings and the limits of the government. The following are just a few of the Declaration's 17 articles:
- 'Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.' (Article 1)
- 'The purpose of all political association is the preservation of the natural... rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.' (Article 2)
- 'Liberty consists in the ability to do whatever does not harm another.' (Article 4)
- 'No one should be disturbed for his opinions, even in religion, provided that their manifestation does not trouble public order as established by law.' (Article 10)
- 'The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may therefore speak, write, and print freely...' (Article 11)
More Changes
The Assembly did not stop there. Now that they had firmly proclaimed the rights of the people, the leading members turned their attention to limiting the powers of the king, the nobles, and the clergy. In October, the king was forcibly moved to Paris where the Assembly could keep an eye on him. He also received a new title to reflect the new system. Instead of 'Louis, by Grace of God, King of France,' he was now 'Louis, by Grace of God and the constitutional law of the State, King of the French.' The nobility lost some power when the Assembly abolished the seigneurial system, declaring that noble landlords could no longer hold their peasants in bondage.
The clergy was not exempt from new limitations either. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on July 12, 1790, made the French Catholic Church a state church under governmental control. The Assembly took charge of reorganizing parishes, controlling the clergy's salaries, and setting rules for clerical conduct. Bishops and priests, the new law maintained, were to be elected by governmental assemblies rather than appointed by the Vatican. In November, the Assembly required all clergy to swear an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution. Most of the higher clergy and nearly half of the lower clergy refused, setting the stage for a major conflict.
A Constitutional Monarchy
By 1791, Louis XVI realized that things were not looking good for the monarchy. In June, he tried to escape to Austria with his family, but his attempt failed. In September of 1791, the Assembly finally presented the new constitution it had been wanting for over two years.
The constitution did indeed bring major changes for the monarch. Louis was still the king, but now he faced some serious limitations to his power. No longer an absolute monarch governing by divine right, he was now a constitutional monarch, whose power came from the law and the legislature. He was required to cooperate with the new Legislative Assembly, which replaced the National Assembly and in which the sovereignty, or ruling power, resided. It was a harsh blow to Louis, but the new Assembly was positive that it was the right move for the country.
The new constitution also determined voting rights. Only active citizens, male residents of France who were over 25 years old and who paid taxes, could vote. While this new designation increased the number of enfranchised Frenchmen, it still denied the vote to the majority of the common people. The long-awaited constitution of 1791 proved to be short-lived. The French Revolution was about to take a radical turn.
Lesson Summary
On June 17, 1789, the Third Estate broke off from the Estates General to form the National Assembly. A few days later, they swore the Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disband until they had received a new constitution. On August 26, the new Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which proclaimed the basic rights of human beings and the limits of the government. More changes came in the following months, as the Assembly abolished the seigneurial system, gave King Louis XVI a new title and promulgated the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which made the French Catholic Church a state church under the control of the national government.
Finally, in September of 1791, the Assembly presented its long-awaited new constitution, which declared that the king was a constitutional monarch, whose power came from the law and the legislature. Louis would have to cooperate with the new Legislative Assembly and adjust to some serious limits to his power. The new constitution also determined that only active citizens, male residents of France who were over 25 years old and who paid taxes, could vote. The new constitution would not last long, however, for the French Revolution was about to take a radical turn.
Learning Outcomes
Following this lesson, you should be able to:
- Describe the creation of the Tennis Court Oath by the National Assembly
- Identify some of the articles in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
- Explain the changes that came to the monarchy and the clergy through the Assembly's actions
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Declaration of the Rights of Man | Definition & Significance
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