Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

A 1789 statement adopted during the French Revolution that set out individual rights and principles of national sovereignty, legal equality, and government accountability.

Natural rights: Rights understood as belonging to people by nature rather than being granted by governments. The declaration treats liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression as inherent rights.
French Revolution: A period of political and social upheaval in France beginning in 1789 and ending with Napoleon's rise. The declaration was adopted amid the Revolution's challenge to absolute monarchy and inherited privilege.
Article 1 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: The declaration's opening article, stating that people are born and remain free and equal in rights. It states the equality principle on which the later articles build.
French Constitution of 1793: A revolutionary constitution adopted in 1793 that expanded democratic and social rights but was never implemented. Its accompanying rights declaration revised the 1789 model during a more radical phase of the Revolution.
Olympe de Gouges: A French playwright and political writer who published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen in 1791. Her critique directly challenged the declaration's failure to extend political rights to women.
Popular sovereignty: The principle that legitimate political authority derives from the people. Article 3 locates sovereignty in the nation, displacing the monarch as its source.
National Constituent Assembly: The revolutionary French assembly that governed from 1789 to 1791 and drafted a constitution. The assembly debated and adopted the declaration in August 1789.
Article 6 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: The declaration's article defining law as the expression of the general will and affirming equal civic participation. It connects popular lawmaking with equal access to public office.
French Civil Code: The 1804 code that unified French civil law and consolidated legal equality for men while protecting property. It carried some revolutionary legal principles into durable civil legislation.
French citizenship: The legal and political membership that defines a person's rights and duties within the French state. Revolutionary distinctions between active and passive citizens narrowed participation despite declarations of equality.

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