ROUSSEAU'S _CONTRAT SOCIAL_ WAS NOT THE SOURCE OF THIS DECLARATION.
In his _History of Political Science_--the most comprehensive work of
that kind which France possesses--Paul Janet, after a thorough
presentation of the _Contrat Social_, discusses the influence which this
work of Rousseau's exercised upon the Revolution. The idea of the
declaration of rights is to be traced back to Rousseau's teachings. What
else is the declaration itself than the formulation of the state
contract according to Rousseau's ideas? And what are the several rights
but the stipulations and specifications of that contract?[7]
It is hard to understand how an authority upon the _Contrat Social_
could make such a statement though in accord with popular opinion.
The social contract has only one stipulation, namely, the complete
transference to the community of all the individual's rights.[8] The
individual does not retain one particle of his rights from the moment he
enters the state.[9] Everything that he receives of the nature of right
he gets from the _volonte generale_, which is the sole judge of its own
limits, and ought not to be, and cannot be, restricted by the law of any
power. Even property belongs to the individual only by virtue of state
concession. The social contract makes the state the master of the goods
of its members,[10] and the latter remain in possession only as the
trustees of public property.[11] Civil liberty consists simply of what
is left to the individual after taking his duties as a citizen into
account.[12] These duties can only be imposed by law, and according to
the social contract the laws must be the same for all citizens. This is
the only restriction upon the sovereign power,[13] but it is a
restriction which follows from the very nature of that power, and it
carries in itself its own guarantees.[14]
The conception of an original right, which man brings with him into
society and which appears as a restriction upon the rights of the
sovereign, is specifically rejected by Rousseau. There is no fundamental
law which can be binding upon the whole people, not even the social
contract itself.[15]
The Declaration of Rights, however, would draw dividing lines between
the state and the individual, which the lawmaker should ever keep before
his eyes as the limits that have been set him once and for all by "the
natural, inalienable and sacred rights of man."[16]
The principles of the _Contrat Social_ are accordingly at enmity with
every declaration of rights. For from these principles there ensues not
the right of the individual, but the omnipotence of the common will,
unrestricted by law. Taine comprehended better than Janet the
consequences of the _Contrat Social_.[17]
The Declaration of August 26, 1789, originated in opposition to the
_Contrat Social_. The ideas of the latter work exercised, indeed, a
certain influence upon the style of some clauses of the Declaration, but
the conception of the Declaration itself must have come from some other
source.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: "Est-il necessaire de prouver, qu'un tel acte ne vient
point de Montesquieu, mais de J.-J. Rousseau?... Mais l'acte meme de la
declaration est-il autre chose que le contrat passe entre tous les
membres de la communaute, selon les idees de Rousseau? N'est ce pas
l'enonciation des clauses et des conditions de ce contrat?"--_Histoire
de la science politique, 3me ed._, pp. 457, 458.]
[Footnote 8: "Ces clauses, bien entendues, se reduisent toutes a une
seule: savoir l'alienation totale de chaque associe avec tous ses droits
a toute la communaute."--_Du contrat social_, I, 6.]
[Footnote 9: "De plus, l'alienation se faisant sans reserve, l'union est
aussi parfaite qu'elle peut l'etre et nul associe n'a plus rien a
reclamer." I, 6.]
[Footnote 10: "Car l'Etat, a l'egard de ses membres, est maitre de tous
leurs biens par le contrat social." I, 9.]
[Footnote 11: "... Les possesseurs etant consideres comme depositaires
du bien public." I, 9.]
[Footnote 12: "On convient que tout ce que chacun aliene, par le pacte
social, de sa puissance, de ses biens, de sa liberte, c'est seulement la
partie de tout cela dont l'usage importe a la communaute; mais il faut
convenir aussi que le souverain seul est juge de cette importance." II,
4.]
[Footnote 13: "Ainsi, par la nature du pacte, tout acte de souverainete,
c'est-a-dire toute acte authentique de la volonte generale, oblige ou
favorise egalement tous les citoyens." II, 4.]
[Footnote 14: "La puissance souverain n'a nul besoin de garant envers
les sujets." I, 7.]
[Footnote 15: "Il est contre la nature du corps politique que le
souverain s'impose une loi qu'il ne puisse enfreindre ... il n'y a ni ne
peut y avoir nulle espece de loi fundamentale obligatoire pour le corps
du peuple, pas meme le contrat social." I, 7.]
[Footnote 16: Constitution du 3 septembre 1791, titre premier: "Le
pouvoir legislatif ne pourra faire aucune loi qui porte atteinte et
mette obstacle a l'exercise de droits naturels et civils consignes dans
le present titre, et garantis par la constitution."]
[Footnote 17: _Cf._ Taine, _loc. cit._: _L'ancien regime_, pp. 321 _et
seq._]