of Powers and a Security
of Rights is not Provided for, wants a Constitution.

Seventeen: The Right to Property being inviolable and sacred, no one
ought to be deprived of it, except in cases of evident Public necessity,
legally ascertained, and on condition of a previous just Indemnity.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS

The first three articles comprehend in general terms the whole of a
Declaration of Rights, all the succeeding articles either originate
from them or follow as elucidations. The 4th, 5th, and 6th define more
particularly what is only generally expressed in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

The 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th articles are declaratory of principles
upon which laws shall be constructed, conformable to rights already
declared. But it is questioned by some very good people in France,
as well as in other countries, whether the 10th article sufficiently
guarantees the right it is intended to accord with; besides which it
takes off from the divine dignity of religion, and weakens its operative
force upon the mind, to make it a subject of human laws. It then
presents itself to man like light intercepted by a cloudy medium, in
which the source of it is obscured from his sight, and he sees nothing
to reverence in the dusky ray.*[10]

The remaining articles, beginning with the twelfth, are substantially
contained in the principles of the preceding articles; but in the
particular situation in which France then was, having to undo what was
wrong, as well as to set up what was right, it was proper to be more
particular than what in another condition of things would be necessary.

While the Declaration of Rights was before the National Assembly some of
its members remarked that if a declaration of rights were published
it should be accompanied by a Declaration of Duties. The observation
discovered a mind that reflected, and it only erred by not reflecting
far enough. A Declaration of Rights is, by reciprocity, a Declaration of
Duties also. Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another;
and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.

The three first articles are the base of Liberty, as well individual as
national; nor can any country be called free whose government does not
take its beginning from the principles they contain, and continue to
preserve them pure; and the whole of the Declaration of Rights is of
more value to the world, and will do more good, than all the