he Balkan peninsula.

A noteworthy exception to this are the constitutions of the North German
Confederation of July 26, 1867, and of the German Empire of April 16,
1871, which lack entirely any paragraph on fundamental rights. The
constitution of the Empire, however, could the better dispense with such
a declaration as it was already contained in most of the constitutions
of the individual states, and, as above stated, a series of Federal laws
has enacted the most important principles of the Frankfort fundamental
rights. Besides, with the provisions of the Federal constitution as to
amendments, it was not necessary to make any special place for them in
that instrument, as the Reichstag, to whose especial care the
guardianship of the fundamental rights must be entrusted, has no
difficult forms to observe in amending the constitution.[6] As a matter
of fact the public rights of the individual are much greater in the
German Empire than in most of the states where the fundamental rights
are specifically set forth in the constitution. This may be seen, for
example, by a glance at the legislation and the judicial and
administrative practice in Austria.

But whatever may be one's opinion to-day upon the formulation of
abstract principles, which only become vitalized through the process of
detailed legislation, as affecting the legal position of the individual
in the state, the fact that the recognition of such principles is
historically bound up with that first declaration of rights makes it an
important task of constitutional history to ascertain the origin of the
French Declaration of Rights of 1789. The achievement of this task is of
great importance both in explaining the development of the modern state
and in understanding the position which this state assures to the
individual. Thus far in the works on public law various precursors of
the declaration of the Constituent Assembly, from Magna Charta to the
American Declaration of Independence, have been enumerated and arranged
in regular sequence, yet any thorough investigation of the sources from
which the French drew is not to be found.

It is the prevailing opinion that the teachings of the _Contrat Social_
gave the impulse to the Declaration, and that its prototype was the
Declaration of Independence of the thirteen United States of North
America. Let us first of all inquire into the correctness of these
assumptions.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: First of all, as is