Declaration Of The Rights Of Man Essay

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Written as the French Revolution was beginning, the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”was drawn up by the National Assembly to solidify the principles of the revolution. It boldly stated to the king and nobility of France that the people would actively take their rightful freedom and equality.The Declaration also included the relatively novel idea of inalienable rights. And like all treatises written during times of turmoil, they have a historic background driving its creation. At the peak of the revolutionary period, the masses of France had been galvanized by new ideas of the enlightenment. Rousseau’s ideas on human rights and the ideas of independence from the American Revolution seemed particularly enticing to the third …show more content…

The very first right listed in the Declaration is that all “men are born and remain free” and is meant to undermine the position of the nobility and the monarchy who were seen to have a higher birth than of the commoners (22). The right continues to jab at the second estate by declaring “social distinction [should] be based only upon public utility” as most nobles were just deadweights the peasants had to provide for. Despite being a noble himself, Lafayette had proven to be a man of the masses. He had experience much suffering in his childhood and worked side by side with people of common heritage to defend the weak from an oppressive tyranny in the American Revolution. In the eyes of the third estate, Lafayette had “supersed[ed his] ancestral claims of crown and nobility” and joined their ranks (Alpaugh 578). Returning from America, Lafayette still had the desire to strive for change and “made the initial proposal for a declaration” after Bastille (Maslan 358). As the author to another important declaration, Thomas Jefferson was the perfect person to help draft the Declaration of Rights of Man and his influence can be seen in the second listed point. Although the “imprescriptible rights” are analogous to Jefferson’s inalienable rights from the Declaration of

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