The Best of the OLL No. 49: “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” (1789)

This is part of “The Best of the Online Library of Liberty” which is a collection of some of the most important material in the OLL. A thematic list with links to HTML versions of the texts is available [here](/pages/best-of-the-oll). The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen came into effect in August 1789 and summed up the ideas of the liberal constitutional phase of the French Revolution. It was influenced by General Lafayette who had been influenced in turn by the American Declaration of Independence and the creation of various state constitutions. This extract contains the French Declaration in French and English, along with a comparison of it and several American state constitutions of the period.