What was the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizens?

Answer 1

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen is a document that was issued by the France's National Constituent Assembly on August 27, 1789. Although mainly directed against the specific abuses of the old French aristocratic and monarchial regime, it was written in abstract universalistic language that also made it applicable to other European nations. Its political language was influenced by the Enlightenment as well as Virginia's Declaration of Rights that it adopted in 1776. Two of its main declarations were that of civic equality, which would challenge Europe's social and legal inequities, and popular sovereignty, which claimed that governments must be responsible to those they govern. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizenalso proclaimed that all men were "born and remain free and equal in rights" and that these natural rights were "liberty, property, security, and resistance to protection." It also claimed that government existed to protect these rights, all citizens were equal before the law, there must be due process of law and the presumption of innocent until proven guilty, and that political sovereignty resided in the representatives and the nation. In addition, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizenaffirmed the freedom of religion and that taxation was to be apportioned equally according to one's ability to pay. Note, however, that the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen only applied to men, not women, in accordance with Rousseau's idea of distinct gender spheres.