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The frequent references that have been made to the present Conftitution of the French Republic have induced him to include it in the prefent collection. There have already appeared in this country, copies of the Conftitution, as fubmitted by the Commiffion of Eleven to the National Convention---but confiderable alterations having been made in the plan of the Commiffion, he obtained from Paris a correct copy of the Conftitution, as it was finally decreed by the Convention, and accepted by the French Nation.

23d July, 1796.

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ERRATA.

In the note to page x of the French Conftitution, for has read have,

In page 223 limes 13 and 14 dele « on the peace between France and Pry."

THE

FRENCH CONSTITUTION,*

DECREED BY THE NATIONAL CONVENTION, AUGUST 22, 1795, AND ACCEPTED BY THE PEOPLE.

Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, and of a Citizen.

The French People proclaim, in the prefence of the Supreme Being, the following Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, and of a Citizen:

RIGHTS.

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1.THE rights of man in fociety are liberty, equality, security,

property.

II. Liberty confifts in the power of doing that which does not injure the rights of another.

III. Equality confifts in this-that the law is the fame for all, whether it protect or punish.-Equality admits no diftinction of birth, no hereditary power.

IV. Security refults from the concurrence of all to fecure the rights of each.

V. Property is the right of enjoying and difpofing of a man's own goods, his revenues, the fruit of his labour, and his industry. VI. The law is the general will expreffed by the majority, either of the citizens, or of their reprefentatives.

VII. That which is not forbidden by the law cannot be hindered. No man can be constrained to that which the law ordains not.

VIII. No one can be cited, accufed, arrested, or detained, but in the cafes determined by the law, and according to the forms it has prescribed.

IX. Those who folicit, expedite, fign, execute, or caufe to be executed, arbitrary acts, are culpable, and ought to be punished. X. All rigour not neceffary to fecure the perfon of a man under charge, ought to be feverely repreffed by the law.

* The frequent references that are made to the prefent Conftitution of the French Republic, has induced the editor to include it in this Collection of State Papers.

VOL. III.-PART ii.

b

XI. No

XI. No man can be judged until he has been heard, or legally fummoned.

XII. The law ought not to decree any punishment but fuch as is strictly neceffary, and proportioned to the offence.

XII All treatment that aggravates the punishment determined by the law is a crime.

XIV. No law, criminal or civil, can have a retroactive effect. ^XV. Every man may engage his time and his fervices; but he cannot fell himself or be fold: his perfon is not an alienable property.

XVI. All contribution is established for general utility: it ought to be affeffed upon the contributors in proportion to their

means.

XVII. The fovereignty refides effentially in the univerfality of

citizens.

XVIII. No individual, and no partial union of, citizens, can arrogate the fovereignty.'

XIX. No man can, without a legal delegation, exercife any authority, nor fill any public function.

XX. Each citizen has an equal right to concur immediately or mediately in the formation of the law, the nomination of the reprefentatives of the people, and the public functionaries.

XXI. Public functions cannot become the property of thofe who exercife them..

XXII. The focial guarantee cannot exift, if the divifion of powers is not established, if their limits, are not fixed, and if the refponfibility of the public functionaries is not affured.

DUTIES.

I. The declaration of rights contains the obligations of legiflators the maintenance of fociety demands that thofe who compofe it fhould equally know, and fulfil their duties.

:

II. All the duties of man, and of a citizen, fpring from thefe two principles, engraved by nature in every heart :- "Do not to another that which you would not another fhould do to you." Do conftantly to others the good you would receive from them.".

III. The obligations of every one in fociety confift in defending it, in ferving it, in living obedient to the laws, and in refpecting those who are the organs of them.

IV. No man is a good citizen, if he is not a good fon, a good father, a good brother, a good friend, a good husband.

V. No man is a good man, if he is not frankly and religiously an obferver of the laws.

VI. He who openly violates the laws, declares himself in a state of war with fociety.

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