The French Revolution and Human Rights A Brief Documentary History

by Hunt, Lynn

• ISBN13: 9780312108021
• ISBN10: 0312108028
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-04-15
• Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Summary

This brief documentary history includes 38 documents that explore the issue of rights and citizenship in Revolutionary France and the movement that helped define modern notions of civil rights.

Author Biography

LYNN HUNT, Eugen Weber Professor of Modern European History at University of California at Los Angeles, received her B.A. from Carleton College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. She is the author of Revolution and Urban Politics in Provincial France (1978), Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (1984), and The Family Romance of the French Revolution (1992); she is also the co-author of Telling the Truth About History (1994), co-author of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution (2001, with CD-ROM), editor of The New Cultural History (1989), editor and translator of The French Revolution and Human Rights (1996), and co-editor of Histories: French Constructions of the Past (1995), Beyond the Cultural Turn (1999), and Human Rights and Revolutions (2000). She has been awarded fellowships by the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She served as president of the American Historical Association in 2002.

Table of Contents

Foreword	iii	(2)
Preface	v
PART ONE Introduction: The Revolutionary Origins of Human Rights	1	(32)
PART TWO The Documents	33	(107)
1. Defining Rights before 1789	35	(36)
Natural Law as Defined by the Encyclopedia	35	(3)
Diderot
1. "Natural Law," 1755	35	(3)
Religious Toleration	38	(13)
Voltaire
2. Treatise on Toleration, 1763	38	(2)
3. Edict of Toleration, November 1787	40	(4)
4. Letter from Rabaut Saint Etienne on the Edict of Toleration, December 6, 1787	44	(4)
Zalking Hourwitz
5. Vindication of the Jews, 1789	48	(3)
Antislavery Agitation	51	(9)
Abbe Raynal
6. From the Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies, 1770	51	(4)
Condorcet
7. Reflections on Negro Slavery, 1781	55	(3)
8. Society of the Friends of Blacks, Discourse on the Necessity of Establishing in Paris a Society for...the Abolition of the Slave Trade and of Negro Slavery, 1788	58	(2)
Women Begin to Agitate for Rights	60	(3)
9. "Petition of Women of the Third Estate to the King," January 1, 1789	60	(3)
Categories of Citizenship	63	(8)
Abbe Sieyes
10. What Is the Third Estate?, January 1789	63	(8)
2. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, 1789	71	(9)
Debates about the Declaration of Rights, July and August 1789	71	(6)
11. Marquis de Lafayette, July 11, 1789	71	(2)
12. Duke Mathieu de Montmorency, August 1, 1789	73	(2)
13. Malouet, August 1, 1789	75	(2)
The Declaration	77	(3)
14. "Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen," August 26, 1789	77	(3)
3. Debates over Citizenship and Rights during the Revolution	80	(60)
The Poor and the Propertied	80	(4)
Abbe Sieyes
15. Preliminary to the French Constitution, August 1789	81	(1)
Thouret
16. Report on the Basis of Political Eligibility, September 29, 1789	82	(1)
17. Speech of Robespierre Denouncing the New Conditions of Eligibility, October 22, 1789	83	(1)
Religious Minorities and Questionable Professions	84	(17)
The First Controversies	84	(9)
18. Brunet de Latuque, December 21, 1789	84	(2)
19. Count de Clermont Tonnerre, December 23, 1789	86	(2)
20. Abbe Maury, December 23, 1789	88	(2)
21. Letter from French Actors, December 24, 1789	90	(1)
22. Prince de Broglie, December 24, 1789	91	(2)
The Jewish Question	93	(8)
23. Petition of the Jews of Paris, Alsace, and Lorraine to the National Assembly, January 28, 1790	93	(4)
24. La Fare, Bishop of Nancy, Opinion on the Admissibility of Jews to Full Civil and Political Rights, Spring 1790	97	(2)
25. Admission of Jews to Rights of Citizenship, September 27, 1791	99	(2)
Free Blacks and Slaves	101	(18)
26. The Abolition of Negro Slavery or Means for Ameliorating Their Lot, 1789	101	(2)
27. Motion Made by Vincent Oge the Younger to the Assembly of Colonists, 1789	103	(2)
Abbe Gregoire
28. Memoir in Favor of the People of Color or Mixed-Race of Saint Domingue, 1789	105	(1)
29. Society of the Friends of Blacks, Address to the National Assembly in Favor of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, February 5, 1790	106	(3)
30. Speech of Barnave, March 8, 1790	109	(3)
Kersaint
31. Discussion of Troubles in the Colonies, March 28, 1792	112	(3)
32. Decree of the National Convention of February 4, 1794, Abolishing Slavery in All the Colonies	115	(1)
33. Speech of Chaumette Celebrating the Abolition of Slavery, February 18, 1794	116	(3)
Women	119	(21)
Condorcet
34. "On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship," July 1790	119	(3)
Etta Palm D'Aelders
35. Discourse on the Injustice of the Laws in Favor of Men, at the Expense of Women, December 30, 1790	122	(2)
Olympe de Gouges
36. The Declaration of the Rights of Woman, September 1791	124	(5)
Prudhomme
37. "On the Influence of the Revolution on Women," February 12, 1791	129	(3)
38. Discussion of Citizenship under the Proposed New Constitution, April 29, 1793	132	(3)
39. Discussion of Women's Political Clubs and Their Suppression, October 29-30, 1793	135	(3)
Chaumette
40. Speech at the General Council of the City Government of Paris Denouncing Women's Political Activism, November 17, 1793	138	(2)
Appendices	140	(7)
Chronology	140	(2)
Questions for Consideration	142	(3)
Selected Bibliography	145	(2)
Index	147