The representatives of the French people, constituted in national Assembly, considering that ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt of the rights of man are the only causes of public misfortunes and of the corruption of governments, have resolved to expose, in a solemn declaration, the natural rights, inalienable and sacred to man, in order that this declaration, constantly present to all members of the social body, reminds them continually of their rights and duties, in order that the acts of the legislative power, and those of the executive power, that may be each moment compared with the goal of any political institution, be more respected, so that the claims of the citizens, based henceforth on simple and indisputable, turn always to the maintenance of the Constitution and the happiness of allAccordingly, the national Assembly recognizes and declares, in presence and under the auspices of the supreme Being, the following rights of man and of the citizen. Social distinctions may be based only on the common utility. The aim of all political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation.
No body, no individual may exercise authority which does not emanate expressly.
Freedom is to be able to do anything that does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has terminals only those which ensure to other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights.
These terminals can only be determined by law. The law has the right to defend the actions harmful to the company Everything that is not forbidden by the law cannot be prevented and no one may be compelled to do what she is not ordered. The law is the expression of the general will All citizens have the right to concur personally, or by their representatives, to its formation.
It should be the same for all, either that it protects, or whether it punish. All citizens being equal in its eyes are equally admissible to all dignities, positions and public employment according to their capacity and without distinction other than that of their virtues and of their talents. No man can be accused, arrested or detained in cases determined by law, and according to the forms which it has prescribed. Those who solicit, speed, run or execute orders on the arbitrary, must be punished, but any citizen called or seized under the law must obey at the moment: he makes himself guilty by resistance.
The law shall only establish penalties strictly and evidently necessary, and no one may be punished except under a law established and promulgated prior to the offence, and legally applied.
Every man being presumed innocent until he has been declared guilty, if it is deemed necessary to stop it, any rigour which would not be necessary to secure his person must be severely repressed by law. No one should be molested for his opinions, even religious, provided their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by law. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of man: any citizen may therefore speak, write, print freely, except to answer for the abuse of this liberty in cases determined by law. The guarantee of the rights of man and of the citizen requires a public force: this force is therefore instituted for the advantage of all, and not for the particular utility of those to whom it is entrusted. For the maintenance of the public force, and for the expenses of administration, a common contribution is indispensable: it must be equally distributed among all citizens, because their faculties. All citizens have the right to establish, by themselves or by their representatives, the necessity of the public contribution, to consent freely, to follow employment, and to determine the proportion, the base, collection and duration. Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured, nor the separation of powers determined, has no Constitution. The property being a right inviolable and sacred, no one may be deprived, if it is not when public necessity, legally noted, required obviously, and under the condition of a just and prior compensation.
