c theory of the French Declaration.[22] Others bring forward, as
a more fitting object of comparison, the first amendments to the
constitution of the United States,[23] and even imagine that the latter
exerted some influence upon the French Declaration, in spite of the fact
that they did not come into existence until after August 26, 1789. This
error has arisen from the French Declaration of 1789 having been
embodied word for word in the Constitution of September 3, 1791, and so
to one not familiar with French constitutional history, and before whom
only the texts of the constitutions themselves are lying, it seems to
bear a later date.

By practically all those, however, who look further back than the French
Declaration it is asserted that the Declaration of Independence of the
United States on July 4, 1776, contains the first exposition of a series
of rights of man.[24]

Yet the American Declaration of Independence contains only a single
paragraph that resembles a declaration of rights. It reads as follows:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness;
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is
the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
Safety and Happiness."

This sentence is so general in its content that it is difficult to read
into it, or deduct from it, a whole system of rights. It is therefore,
at the very start, improbable that it served as the model for the French
Declaration.

This conjecture becomes a certainty through Lafayette's own statement.
In a place in his _Memoirs_, that has as yet been completely overlooked,
Lafayette mentions the model that he had in mind when making his motion
in the Constituent Assembly.[25] He very pertinently points out that the
Congress of the newly formed Confederation of North American free states
was then in no position to set up, for the separate colonies, which had
already become sovereign states, rules of right which would have binding
force. He brings out the fact that in t