All drafts of the French Declaration, from those of the cahiers to the twenty-one proposals before the National Assembly, vary more or less from the original, either in conciseness or in breadth, in cleverness or in awkwardness of expression. But so far as substantial additions are concerned they present only doctrinaire statements of a purely theoretical nature or elaborations, which belong to the realm of political metaphysics. To enter upon them here is unnecessary. Let us confine ourselves to the completed work, the Declaration as it was finally determined after long debate in the sessions from the twentieth to the twenty-sixth of August.[32]
FOOTNOTES:
[18] "De la nécessité d'établir quels sont les droits de l'homme et des citoyens, et d'en faire une déclaration qu'ils puissent opposer à toutes les espèces d'injustice."—Archives parlementaires I. Série, IV, pp. 161 et seq.
[19] Archives parl., V, pp. 281 et seq.
[20] Arch. parl., VIII, pp. 221, 222.
[21] Cf. e.g. H. v. Sybel, Geschichte der Revolutionszeit von 1789 bis 1800, 4. Aufl., I, p. 73.
[22] Cf. Häusser, Geschichte der franz. Revolution, 3. Aufl., p. 169; H. Schulze, Lehrbuch des deutschen Staatsrechts, I, p. 368; Stahl, Staatslehre, 4. Aufl., p. 523; Taine, loc. cit.: La révolution, I, p. 274: "Ici rien de semblable aux déclarations précises de la Constitution américaine." In addition, note 1: cf. la Déclaration d'indépendance du 4 juillet 1776.
[23] Stahl, loc. cit., p. 524; Taine, loc. cit. The fact that Jefferson's proposal to enact a declaration of rights was rejected is expressly emphasized in a note.
[24] Stahl, loc. cit., p. 523, does mention, in addition, the declarations of the separate states, but he does not specify when they originated, nor in what relation they stand to the French Declaration, and his comments show that he is not at all familiar with them. Janet, loc. cit., I, p. v et seq., enters at length into the subject of the state declarations in order to show the originality of the French, and he even makes the mistaken attempt to prove French influence upon the American (p. xxxv). The more detailed history of the American declarations he is quite ignorant of.
[25] Mémoires, correspondances et manuscripts du général Lafayette, publiés par sa famille, II, p. 46.
[26] "Mais les constitutions que se donnèrent successivement les treize états, furent précedées de déclarations des droits, dont les principes devaient servir de règles aux représentans du peuple, soit aux conventions, soit dans les autres exercises de leur pouvoirs. La Virginie fut la première à produire une déclaration des droits proprement dite."—Ibid., p. 47.
[27] Recueil des loix constitutives des colonies anglaises, confédérées sous la dénomination d'États-Unis de l'Amérique-Septentrionale. Dédié à M. le Docteur Franklin. En suisse, chez les libraires associés.
[28] Cf. Ch. Borgeaud, Établissement et revision des constitutions en Amérique et en Europe, Paris, 1893, p. 27.
[29] Especially the exceptional work of James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Vol I, Part II., The State Governments; Boutmy, Études de droit constitutionnel, 2me éd., Paris, 1895, pp. 83 et seq.; and Borgeaud, loc. cit., pp. 28 et seq.
[30] The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and other Organic Laws of the United States. Compiled by Ben: Perley Poore. Two vols., Washington, 1877. Only the most important documents of the colonial period are included.
[31] This is not quite clear even to the best French authority on American history, Laboulaye, as is evident from his treatment of the subject, Histoire des États-Unis, II, p. 11.
[32] Cf. Arch. Parl., VIII, pp. 461–489.
CHAPTER IV.
VIRGINIA'S BILL OF RIGHTS AND THOSE OF THE OTHER NORTH AMERICAN STATES.
The Congress of the colonies, which were already resolved upon separation from the mother country, while sitting in Philadelphia issued on May 15, 1776, an appeal to its constituents to give themselves constitutions. Of the thirteen states that originally made up the Union, eleven had responded to this appeal before the outbreak of the French Revolution. Two retained the colonial charters that had been granted them by the English crown, and invested these documents with the character of constitutions, namely, Connecticut the charter of 1662, and Rhode Island that of 1663, so that these charters are the oldest written constitutions in the modern sense.[33]
Of the other states Virginia was the first to enact a constitution in the convention which met at Williamsburg from May 6 to June 29, 1776. It was prefaced with a formal "bill of rights",[34] which had been adopted by the convention on the twelfth of June. The author of this document was George Mason, although Madison exercised a decided influence upon the form that was finally adopted.[35] This declaration of Virginia's served as a pattern for all the others, even for that of the Congress of the United States, which was issued three weeks later, and, as is well known, was drawn up by Jefferson, a citizen of Virginia. In the other declarations there were many stipulations formulated somewhat differently, and also many new particulars were added.[36]
Express declarations of rights had been formulated after Virginia's before 1789 in the constitutions of
Pennsylvania of September 28, 1776,
Maryland of November 11, 1776,
North Carolina of December 18, 1776,
Vermont of July 8, 1777,[37] Massachusetts of March 2, 1780, New Hampshire of October 31, 1783, (in force June 2, 1784.)
In the oldest constitutions of
