included a State Church. This was not adopted. It
distinguished the inequality of men from the equality of rights. This
was deemed self-evident and superfluous. It derived the mutual rights
of men from their mutual duties--and this terrestrial definition also
disappeared, leaving the way open to a higher cause. The adopted code
was meagre and ill-composed, and Bentham found a malignant pleasure
in tearing it to pieces. It is, on the whole, more spiritual than the
one on which it was founded, and which it generally follows; and it
insists with greater energy on primitive rights, anterior to the State
and aloof from it, which no human authority can either confer or
refuse. It is the triumphant proclamation of the doctrine that human
obligations are not all assignable to contract, or to interest, or to
force.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man begins with an appeal to heaven,
and defines them in the presence, and under the auspices, of Almighty
God. The Preamble implies that our duties towards Him constitute our
rights towards mankind, and indicates the divine origin of Law,
without affirming it. The Declaration enumerates those rights which
are universal, which come from nature, not from men. They are four:
Liberty, Property, Security, and Self-defence. Authorities are
constituted, and laws are made, in order that these original,
essential, and supreme possessions of all mankind may be preserved.

The system of guarantees is as sacred as the rights which they
protect. Such are the right of contributing by representatives to
legislation and taxation, religious toleration, the liberty of the
press. As the rights are equal, the power of ensuring them must be
equal. All men alike have a share in representation, all alike are
admissible to office, all must be taxed in the same proportion. The
law is the same for all. The principle of equality is the idea on
which the Declaration most earnestly insists. Privilege had just been
overthrown, and the duty of providing against indirect means for its
recovery was the occupation of the hour. That this may be secured, all
powers must be granted by the people, and none must be exercised by
the people. They act only through their agents. The agent who
exercises power is responsible, and is controlled by the sovereign
authority that delegates it. Certain corollaries seem to follow:
restricted suffrage, progressive taxation, an established church, are
difficult to reconcile with equal