Excerpts from Legal Documents 809
Article IX. That the general, great and essential principles of liberty and free
government may be recognized and unalterably established, we declare:
- That all men are born equally free and independent....
- That the legislature shall not grant any title of nobility or hereditary distinc-
tion, nor create any office the appointment of which shall be for a longer term than
during good behavior.
F. N. Thorpe, Federal and State Constitutions, 7 vols. (Washington, 1909), V, 3093,
3099, 3101.
- FRANCE: THE CONSTITUTION OF 1791
PreambleThe National Assembly, wishing to establish the French constitution on the prin-
ciples that it has recognized and declared, irrevocably abolishes the institutions
that have done injury to liberty and to the equality of rights.
Nobility no longer exists, nor peerage, nor hereditary distinction of orders, nor
feudal regime, nor patrimonial courts, nor titles, denominations or prerogatives
deriving therefrom, nor any order of chivalry, nor any of the corporations or deco-
rations for which proofs of nobility used to be required or which presupposed
distinctions of birth, nor any other superiority than that of public officers in the
exercise of their functions.
Property in office, and its inheritance, no longer exist.
No privilege or exception to the common law for all Frenchmen any longer ex-
ists for any part of the nation or for any individual.
Gilds and corporations for professions, arts and crafts no longer exist.
The law no longer takes cognizance of religious vows or any other engagement
contrary to natural rights or to the Constitution.
Title I: Fundamental Provisions Guaranteed by the ConstitutionThe Constitution guarantees as natural and civil rights:
- That all citizens are admissible to all positions and employments
without other distinction than that of virtues and talents. - That all taxes shall be apportioned among all citizens equally in
proportion to ability to pay. - That the same offenses shall be punished with the same penalties
without distinction of persons.
The constitution likewise guarantees as natural and civil rights [liberty of move-
ment, speech, publication, religion, assembly, petition, property, relief of the poor,
work for the unemployed and observance of patriotic holidays].