Tentative answer: Rights (for Nikhil)

4. How does the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen compare with American ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights?

Both sets of ideals call upon men being born equal. While the American texts do not clearly determine what creates social distinctions past the premise of intrinsic and inherited equality, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen clarifies that “civil distinctions can be founded only on public utility,” created by their virtues and talents. Contributions from the community for the government ought to be divided equally among individuals based on their abilities in the French declarations. These clarifications about social ascension are likely in response to the Third Estate seeking greater social mobility through the French Revolution - they underlined the notion that ability and talent, not occupation and class, should determine one’s ascent through society. Similarly, the emphasis on contribution according to ability can be read as a reaction to the overt taxation of the Third Estate that concurred with the “sloth” privilege of the nobility. Evidently, the French set of ideals urged a more social transformation of the modern state than did the American.

Although both sets of ideals condemn excessive policing or investigative force and advocate for fair and speedy judiciary action, one may note a contrast between how the two view the citizens’ use of violence. Whereas the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen assert that political liberty “consists in the power of doing whatever does not injure another,” the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights provides citizens the right to bear arms, perhaps written with the notion of self-defense but nonetheless a conduit for violence. The irony comes in the 40,000 or so deaths of aristocrats during the post-French-revolution terror, and is only one of many examples that the ideals set forth in these declarations do not necessarily reflect the social reality. Of course, one may argue against this specific example by stating that the declarations apply only to the people of the given state, and if an aristocrat in France during the terror is not identified as a person of the state, they are not protected by these rights.