The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Introduction to the Third Edition.
• On Civil Liberty and Self-government.
• Chapter I.: Introductory.
• Chapter II.: Definitions of Liberty.
• Chapter III.: The Meaning of Civil Liberty.
• Chapter IV.: Ancient and Modern Liberty.—Ancient, Medieval, and Modern States.
• Chapter V.: Anglican Liberty.
• Chapter VI.: National Independence—Personal Liberty.
• Chapter VII.: Bail.—Penal Trial.
• Chapter VIII.: High Treason.
• Chapter IX.: Communion.—Locomotion, Emigration.
• Chapter X.: Liberty of Conscience.—Property:—Supremacy of the Law.
• Chapter XI.: Quartering Soldiers.—The Army.
• Chapter XII.: Petition.—Association.
• Chapter XIII.: Publicity.
• Chapter XIV.: Supremacy of the Law.—Taxation.—Division of Power.
• Chapter XV.: Responsible Ministers.—Courts Declaring Laws Unconstitutional.—Representative Government.
• Chapter XVI.: Representative Government, Continued.—Basis of Property.—Direct and Indirect Elections.
• Chapter XVII.: Parliamentary Law and Usage.—The Speaker.—Two Houses.—The Veto.
• Chapter XVIII.: Independence of the Judiciary.—The Law Jus, Common Law.
• Chapter XIX.: Independence of Jus, Self-development of Law, Continued.—Accusatorial and Inquisitorial Trials.—Independence of the Judge.
• Chapter XX.: Independence of Jus, Continued.—Trial By Jury.—The Advocate.
• Chapter XXI.: Self—Government.
• Chapter XXII.: American Liberty.
• Chapter XXIII.: In What Civil Liberty Consists, Proved By Contraries.
• Chapter XXIV.: Gallican Liberty.—Spreading of Liberty.
• Chapter XXV.: The Institution.—Its Definition.—Its Power For Good and Evil.
• Chapter XXVI.: The Institution, Continued.—Institutional Liberty.—Institutional Local Self-government.
• Chapter XXVII.: Effects and Uses of Institutional Self-government.
• Chapter XXVIII.: Dangers and Inconveniences of Institutional Self-government.
• Chapter XXIX.: Advantages of Institutional Government, Farther Considered.
• Chapter XXX.: Institutional Government the Only Government Which Prevents the Growth of Too Much Power.—Liberty, Wealth, and Longevity of States.
• Chapter XXXI.: Insecurity Op Uninstitutional Governments.—Unorganized Inarticulated Popular Power.
• Chapter XXXII.: Imperatorial Sovereignty.
• Chapter XXXIII.: Imperatorial Sovereignty, Continued.—Its Origin and Character Examined.
• Chapter XXXIV.: Centralization.—Influence Of Capital Cities.
• Chapter XXXV.: Vox Populi Vox Dei.
• Appendix.
• Appendix I.: A Paper On Elections, Election Statistics, and General Votes of Yes Or No.
• Appendix II.: A Paper On the Abuse of the Pardoning Power.
• Appendix III.: A Paper On Subjects Connected With the Inquisitorial Trial and the Laws of Evidence.
• Appendix IV.: Magna Charta of King John, Fifteenth Day of June, In the Seventeenth Year of the King's Reign, A.d. 1215.
• Appendix V.: The Petition of Right. 1
• Appendix VI.: An Act For the Better Securing the Liberty of the Subject, and For Prevention of Imprisonments Beyond the Seas, Commonly Called “the Habeas Corpus Act.” 1
• Appendix VII.: Bill of Rights, Passed 1 William and Mary, Sess. 2, Ch. 2, 1689.
• Appendix VIII.: A Declaration By the Representatives of the United States of America In Congress Assembled.
• Appendix IX.: Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union Between the States.
• Appendix X.: Constitution of the United States of America.
• Appendix XI.: The French Constitution, Adopted and Proclaimed On the Twenty-fourth of June 1793. the First Republican Constitution
• Declarations of the Rights of Man and of Citizens.
• Constitution of the Twenty-fourth of June, 1793.
• Appendix XII.: French Charter of Louis XVIII. And That Adopted In the Year 1830.
• Appendix XIII.: Constitution of the French Republic. Adopted November, 1848.
• Appendix XIV.: The Present Constitution of France.
• Appendix XV.: Report of the French Senatorial Committee On the Petitions to Change the Republic Into an Empire, In November, 1852, 1 and the Senatus-consultum Adopted In Conformity With It.
• Appendix XVI.: Letter of the French Minister of the Interior, Mr. De Morny, Addressed to the Prefects of the Deparments In the Year 1852.

APPENDIX XI.

the french constitution, adopted and proclaimed on the twenty-fourth of june 1793.
the first republican constitution

Had the space permitted it, I would have given all the French constitutions, from the first in the first revolution, to that now called the constitution of the empire. As it is, I must restrict myself to the following selection.

I have copied the translation of the first republican constitution of France from a work by Mr. Bernard Roelker, of the New York bar, The Constitutions of France, Monarchical and Republican, together with Brief Historical Remarks, relating to their Origin, and the late Orleans Dynasty, Boston, Mass., 1848.

DECLARATIONS OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND OF CITIZENS.

The French people, convinced that oblivion and contempt of the natural rights of man are the only causes of calamities in the world, has resolved to explain these sacred and inalienable rights in a solemn declaration, that all citizens, by comparing always the acts of the government with the whole social union, may never suffer themselves to be oppressed and dishonored by tyranny; that the people may always have before its eyes the fundamental pillars of its liberty and welfare, and the authorities the standard of their duties, and the legislator the object of his problem.

It accordingly makes, in the presence of the Highest Being, the following declaration of the rights of man and of the citizens.

1. The object of society is the general welfare. Government is instituted, to insure to man the free use of his natural and inalienable rights.

2. These rights are equality, liberty, security, property.

3. All men are equal by nature and before the law.

4. Law is the free and solemn proclamation of the general will; it is the same for all, be it protective or penal; it can command only what is just and beneficial to society, and prohibit only what is injurious to the same.

5. All citizens are equally admissible to all public offices. Free nations are in their elections guided by no other considerations than virtues and talents.

6. Freedom is the power, by which man can do what does not interfere with the rights of another; its basis is nature; its standard is justice; its protection is law; its moral boundary is the maxim: Do not unto others what you do not wish they should do unto you.

7. The right of communicating thoughts and opinions, either through the press, or in any other manner; the right of assembling peaceably; the free exercise of religion, cannot be prohibited.

The necessity publicly to claim these rights, presupposes the actual existence of despotism, or the fresh recollection of the same.

8. Security rests on the protection given by society to each of its members, for the preservation of his person, his rights and his property.

9. Law must protect the general and the individual liberty against the oppression of those who govern.

10. No one can be accused, arrested, or kept in close custody, except in the cases specified by law, and according to the prescribed forms; every citizen who, by virtue of the law, is summoned before court or arrested, must immediately obey; every refusal shows him to be guilty.

11. Every order against a person, in cases and forms not specified by law, is arbitrary and tyrannical; the person against whom such an order should be executed by force, has the right to resist it by force.

12. Those who cause, aid in, sign, execute or cause to be executed, such arbitrary acts, are culpable, and must be punished.

13. Since every man is deemed to be innocent, until he be proved guilty, if his condemnation will necessarily lead to arrest, every severity, not required for the forthcoming of his person, is strictly prohibited.

14. Only he who has been first heard or legally summoned, can be condemned and punished, and this only by a law promulgated before the commission of the crime. A law which would punish transgressions, committed before its publication, would be tyranny; and it would be a crime to give retrospective force to law.

15. Law shall order punishments only which are unavoidably necessary; the punishments shall be suitable to the crime, and beneficial to society.

16. The right of property is that by which every citizen can enjoy his goods and his income, the fruits of his labor and industry, and dispose of them at pleasure.

17. No kind of occupation, employment and trade can be prohibited to citizens.

18. Every one may dispose of his services and time at pleasure; but he can neither sell himself nor be sold. His person is inalienable property. The law does not recognize a state of servitude; an agreement only for services rendered and a compensation for them, can exist between him who labors and him who employs him.

19. Without his consent, no one can be deprived of the least part of his property, unless it be required by a general and legally specified necessity, and then only on condition of a just and previously fixed indemnity.

20. No tax can be laid except for the common welfare. All citizens have the right to have a voice in the laying of taxes, to watch over the application of them, and to have an account rendered thereof.

21. The public support of the poor is a sacred obligation. Society takes upon itself the support of needy citizens, either by giving work to them, or by giving subsistence to those who are unable to work.

22. Instruction is a want for all. Society shall further with all its power the progress of the public welfare, and regulate instruction according to the wants of all citizens.

23. Social guarantee rests on the activity of all to secure to each one the enjoyment and the preservation of his rights. This guarantee rests on the sovereignty of the people.

24. It cannot exist, if the boundaries of public administration be not definitely specified by law, and unless the responsibility of all public officers be secured.

25. Sovereignty belongs to the people. It is one and indivisible, imprescriptible and inalienable.

26. No single part of the people can exercise the power of the whole people; but every assembled section of the sovereign people enjoys the right to express its will with perfect freedom.

27. Every individual who would assume the sovereignty shall be at once condemned to death by the free men.

28. The people have the right to revise, amend, and alter their constitution. One generation cannot bind succeeding generations to its laws.

29. Every citizen has the right of taking part in the legislation, and of appointing his representatives or agents.

30. Public functions are in their nature temporary;they cannot be considered as distinctions, nor as rewards, but as obligations.

31. The offences of the representatives of the people and of its agents, shall not be unpunished. No one has the right to hold himself more inviolable than the other citizens.

32. The right of presenting petitions to the public authorities can in no case be interdicted, abolished or limited.

33. Resistance to oppression is the inference from the other rights of man.

34. It is oppression of the whole of society, if but one of its members be oppressed. Oppression of every single member exists, when the whole of society is oppressed.

35. When government violates the rights of the people, insurrection of the people and of every single part of it, is the most sacred of its rights and the highest of its duties.

CONSTITUTION
of the twenty-fourth of june, 1793.

of the republic.

1. The French Republic is one and indivisible.

of the division of the people.

2. The French people is, for the purpose of exercising its sovereignty, divided into primary assemblies according to cantons.

3. For the purpose of administration and justice, it is divided into departments, districts, and municipalities.

of the right of citizenship.

4. Every man born and living in France, of twenty-one years of age, and every alien, who has attained the age of twenty-one, and has been domiciled in France one year, and lives from his labor;

• or has acquired property;
• or has married a French woman;
• or has adopted a child;
• or supports an aged man;

and finally every alien whom the legislative body has declared as one well deserving of the human race, are admitted to exercise the rights of a French citizen.

5. The right of exercising the rights of citizen is lost:

• by being naturalized in a foreign state;
• by accepting offices of state, or favors which do not proceed from a democratic government;
• by being sentenced to dishonorable or corporal punishments, till reinstated in the former state.

6. The exercise of the rights of citizen is suspended:

• by being in a state of accusation;
• by a sentence in contumaciam, so long as this sentence has not been rescinded.

of the sovereignty of the people.

7. The sovereign people embraces the whole of French citizens.

8. It chooses its deputies directly.

9. It delegates to electors the choice of administrators, public civil judges, penal judges, and judges of cassation.

10. It deliberates on laws.

of the primary assemblies.

11. The primary assemblies are formed of the citizens who have resided six months in a canton.

12. They consist of no less than 200 and no more than 600 citizens, called together for the purpose of voting.

13. They are organized, after a president, secretaries and collectors of votes have been appointed.

14. They exercise their own police.

15. No one is allowed to appear there with arms.

16. The elections are made either by secret or loud voting, at the pleasure of each voter.

17. A primary meeting can in no case prescribe more than one manner of voting.

18. The collectors of votes note down the votes of those citizens who cannot write, and yet prefer to vote secretly.

19. The votes on laws are given by “Yes,” and “No.”

20. The elections of primary assemblies are published in the following manner:

The united citizens in the primary assembly at—, numbering—votes, vote for, or vote against, by a majority of—.

of the national representation.

21. Population is the only basis of national representation.

22. For every 40,000 individuals, one deputy is chosen.

23. Every primary assembly which is formed of from 39,000 to 41,000 individuals, chooses directly a deputy.

24. The choice is effected by an absolute majority of votes.

25. Every assembly makes an abstract of the votes, and sends a commissioner to the appointed central place of general record.

26. If at the first voting, no absolute majority be effected, a second meeting shall be held, and those two citizens who had the most votes, shall be voted for again.

27. In case of an equal division of votes, the oldest person has the preference, no matter whether he was voted for, or whether he was chosen without it. In case of an equality of age, the casting of lots shall decide.

28. Every Frenchman, who enjoys the rights of a citizen, is eligible throughout the whole republic.

29. Every deputy belongs to the whole nation.

30. In case of non-acceptance, of abdication, or expiration of office, or of the death of a deputy, the primary assembly which had chosen him shall choose a substitute.

31. A deputy who hands in his resignation, cannot leave his post till his successor shall have been appointed.

32. The French people assembles every year on the 1st of May for election.

33. It proceeds thereto, whatever the number of citizens [present] may be, who have a right to vote.

34. Extraordinary primary meetings are held at the demand of one-fifth of the eligible citizens.

35. The meeting is, in this case, called by the municipal authority of the usual place of assembly.

36. These extraordinary meetings can transact business only when at least more than one-half of the qualified voters are present.

of the electoral assemblies.

37. The citizens, united in primary assemblies, nominate in proportion of 200 citizens, (they may be present or not,) one elector; two, for from 301 to 400;three, for from 501 to 600.

38. The holding of election meetings, and the manner of election, are the same as in the primary meetings.

of the legislative body.

39. The legislative body is one, indivisible and continual.

40. Its session lasts one year.

41. It assembles on the 1st of July.

42. The national assembly cannot be organized, unless at least one more than one-half of the deputies are present.

43. The deputies can, at no time, be held answerable, accused or condemned on account of opinions uttered within the legislative body.

44. In criminal cases, they may be arrested if caught in the act;but the warrant of arrest and the warrant of committal can be issued only by the legislative body.

mode of procedure of the legislative body.

45. The sessions of the national assembly are public.

46. The debates in their sessions shall be printed.

47. It cannot deliberate, unless it consist of 200 members.

48. It cannot refuse to members the floor, in the order in which they demand the same.

49. It decides by a majority of those present.

50. Fifty members have the right to demand a call by names.

51. It has the right of censorship on the conduct of the members in its midst.

52. It exercises the power of police at the place of its sessions, and within the whole extent of its environs.

of the functions of the legislative body.

53. The legislative body proposes laws, and issues decrees.

54. By the general name of law, are understood the provisions of the legislative body which concern:

• the civil and penal legislation;
• the general administration of revenues and of the ordinary expenditures of the republic;
• the national domains;
• the inscription, alloy, stamp and names of coins; declaration of war;
• every new general division of the French territory; public instruction;
• public demonstrations of honor to the memory of great men.

55. By the particular name of decrees are understood those enactments of the legislative body, which concern:

• the annual establishment of the land and marine forces; the permission or refusal of the marching of foreign troops
• through the French territory; the admission of foreign vessels of war into the ports of the republic;
• the measures for the common peace and safety; the distribution of annual and momentary relief and of public works;
• the orders for the stamping of coins of every description; the unforeseen and extraordinary expenses;
• the local and particular orders for an administration, a commune, and any kind of public works;
• the defence of the territory;
• the ratification of treaties;
• the nomination and removal of the commander-in-chief of the army;
• the carrying into effect the responsibility of members of the executive council, and of public officers;
• the accusation of discovered conspiracies against the common safety of the republic;
• every alteration in the division of the French territory; the national rewards.

of the making of laws.

56. A notice must precede the introduction of a bill.

57. Not till after a fortnight from the giving of notice can the debate begin, and the law be temporarily accepted.

58. The proposed law is printed and sent to all the communes of the republic, under the address of, Proposed law.

59. If, forty days after the sending in of the proposed law, of the absolute majority of departments, one-tenth of all the primary meetings, legally assembled by the departments, have not protested, the bill is accepted and becomes a law.

60. If protest be made, the legislative body calls together the primary meetings.

of the superscription of laws and decrees.

61. The laws, decrees, sentences, and all public transactions are superscribed:

In the name of the French people, in the—year of the French Republic.

of the executive power.

62. There shall be an executive council, consisting of twenty-four members.

63. The electoral assembly of each department nominates a candidate. The legislative body chooses from this general list the members of the executive council.

64. It shall be renewed each half session of every legislature, in the last months of its session.

65. The executive council has the management and supervision of the general administration. Its activity is limited to the execution of laws and decrees of the legislative body.

66. It appoints, but not out of its midst, the highest agents of the general administration of the republic.

67. The legislative body establishes the number of these agents, and their business.

68. These agents form no council. They are separated one from the other, and have no relation among themselves. They exercise no personal power.

69. The executive council chooses, but not from its midst, the foreign agents of the republic.

70. It negotiates treaties.

71. The members of the executive council are, in case of violation of duties, accused by the legislative body.

72. The executive council is responsible for the non-execution of the laws and decrees, and the abuses, of which it does not give notice.

73. It recalls and substitutes the agents at pleasure.

74. It is obliged, if possible, to inform the judicial authorities regarding them.

of the mutual relations between the executive council, and the legislative body.

75. The executive council shall have its seat near the legislative body. It shall have admittance to, and a special seat at the place of session.

76. It shall every time be heard, when it shall have to give account.

77. The legislative body shall call it into its midst, in whole or in part, when it is thought necessary.

of the administrative authorities and the municipalities.

78. There shall be a municipal authority in each commune of the republic; and in each district an intermediate administration; and in each department a central administration.

79. The municipal officers are chosen by the assemblies of the commune.

80. The administrators are chosen by the electoral assemblies of the departments and of the district.

81. The municipalities and the administrative authorities are annually renewed one-half.

82. The administrative authorities and municipal officers have not a representative character. They can, in no case, limit the resolves of the legislative body, nor the execution of them.

83. The legislative body assigns the business of the municipal officers and of the administrative authorities, the rules regarding their subordination, and the punishments to which they may become liable.

84. The sessions of the municipalities and of the administrative authorities are held in public.

of civil justice.

85. The civil and penal code is the same for the whole republic.

86. No encroachment can be made upon the right of citizens to have their matters in dispute decided on by arbitrators of their own choice.

87. The decision of these arbitrators is final, unless the citizens have reserved the right of protesting.

88. There shall be justices of the peace, chosen by the citizens of the districts, appointed by law.

89. They shall conciliate and hold court without fees.

90. Their number and extent of power shall be established by the legislative body.

91. There shall be public judges of arbitration, who are chosen by electoral assemblies.

92. Their number and districts are fixed by the legislative body.

93. They shall decide on matters in controversy, which have not been brought to a final decision by private arbitrators or by the justices of the peace.

94. They shall deliberate publicly. They shall vote with loud voice.

They shall decide in the last resort on oral pleadings, or on a simple petition, without legal forms and without cost. They shall assign the reasons of their decisions.

95. The justices of the peace and the public arbitrators are chosen annually.

of criminal justice.

96. In criminal cases, no citizen can be put on trial, except a true bill of complaint be found by a jury, or by the legislative body.

The accused shall have advocates, either chosen by themselves, or appointed officially. The proceedings are in public. The state of facts and the intention are passed upon by a jury. The punishment is executed by a criminal authority.

97. The criminal judges are chosen annually by the electoral assemblies.

of the court of cassation.

98. There is a court of cassation for the whole republic.

99. This court takes no cognizance of the state of facts.

It decides on the violation of matters of form, and on transgressions expressed by law.

100. The members of this court are appointed annually through the electoral assemblies.

of the general taxes.

101. No citizen is excluded from the honorable obligation to contribute towards the public expenses.

of the national treasury.

102. The national treasury is the central point of the revenues and expenses of the republic.

103. It is managed by public accountants, whom the legislative body shall elect.

104. These agents are supervised by officers of account, whom the legislative body shall elect, but who cannot be taken from their own body: they are responsible for abuses of which they do not give legal notice to the courts.

of the rendition of accounts.

105. The accounts of the agents of the national treasury, and those of the administrators of public moneys are taken annually, by responsible commissioners appointed by the executive council.

106. Those persons appointed to revise the accounts are under the supervision of commissioners, who are elected by the legislative body, not out of their own number; and they are responsible for the frauds and mistakes of accounts, of which they do not give notice.

The legislative body preserves the accounts.

of the military forces of the republic.

107. The general military power of the republic consists of the whole people.

108. The republic supports, also, in times of peace, a paid land and marine force.

109. All Frenchmen are soldiers; all shall be exercised in the use of arms.

110. There is no generalissimo.

111. The distinction of grade, the military marks of distinction and subordination, exist only in service and in time of its duration.

112. The general military force is used for the preservation of order and peace in the interior; it acts only on a written requisition of the constituted authorities.

113. The general military force against foreign enemies is under the command of the executive council.

114. No armed body can deliberate.

of the national convention.

115. If of the absolute majority of departments, the tenth part of their regularly formed primary assemblies demand a revision of the constitution, or an alteration of some of its articles; the legislative body is obliged to call together all primary assemblies of the republic, in order to ascertain whether a national convention shall be called.

116. The national convention is formed in like manner as the legislatures, and unites in itself the highest power.

117. It is occupied, as regards the constitution, only with those subjects which caused its being called together.

of the relations of the french republic towards foreign nations.

118. The French nation is the friend and natural ally of free nations.

119. It does not interfere with the affairs of government of other nations. It suffers no interference of other nations with its own.

120. It serves as a place of refuge for all who, on account of liberty, are banished from their native country.

These it refuses to deliver up to tyrants.

121. It concludes no peace with an enemy that holds possession of its territory.

of the guaranty of rights.

122. The constitution guarantees to all Frenchmen equality, liberty, security, property, the public debt, free exercise of religion, general instruction, public assistance, absolute liberty of the press, the right of petition, the right to hold popular assemblies, and the enjoyment of all the rights of man.

123. The French republic respects loyalty, courage, age, filial love, misfortune. It places the constitution under the guaranty of all virtues.

124. The declaration of the rights of man and the constitution shall be engraven on tables, to be placed in the midst of the legislative body, and in public places.