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THE US “BILL OF RIGHTS” AS A CONFLICT OF INTERESTS COMPROMISE, AND FRANCE’S “Declaration of the Rights of Man and the CITIZENS” ...

The Bill of Rights was added to Constitution to ensure ratification of the document, the Federalists offered concessions, and the First Congress proposed a Bill of Rights as protection for those afraid of a strong national government, while some colonies preferred more autonomy from a centralized government. It represents the conflict of powers and interests during the formation of the Constitution in 1787, and ratified in December of 1791.

The US Constitution Bill of Rights

The Bill of Rights is the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. It spells out Americans’ rights in relation to their government. It guarantees civil rights and liberties to the individual—like freedom of speech, press, and religion. It sets rules for due process of law and reserves all powers not delegated to the Federal Government to the people or the States. And it specifies that “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The First Amendment

The First Amendment provides several rights protections: to express ideas through speech and the press, to assemble or gather with a group to protest or for other reasons, and to ask the government to fix problems. It also protects the right to religious beliefs and practices. It prevents the government from creating or favoring a religion.

The Second Amendment

The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms.

The Third Amendment

The Third Amendment prevents government from forcing homeowners to allow soldiers to use their homes. Before the Revolutionary War, laws gave British soldiers the right to take over private homes.

The Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment bars the government from unreasonable search and seizure of an individual or their private property.

The Fifth Amendment

The Fifth Amendment provides several protections for people accused of crimes. It states that serious criminal charges must be started by a grand jury.  A person cannot be tried twice for the same offense (double jeopardy) or have property taken away without just compensation. People have the right against self-incrimination and cannot be imprisoned without due process of law (fair procedures and trials.)

The Sixth Amendment

The Sixth Amendment provides additional protections to people accused of crimes, such as the right to a speedy and public trial, trial by an impartial jury in criminal cases, and to be informed of criminal charges. Witnesses must face the accused, and the accused is allowed his or her own witnesses and to be represented by a lawyer. 

The Seventh Amendment

The Seventh Amendment extends the right to a jury trial in Federal civil cases.

The Eighth Amendment

The Eighth Amendment bars excessive bail and fines and cruel and unusual punishment.

The Ninth Amendment

The Ninth Amendment states that listing specific rights in the Constitution does not mean that people do not have other rights that have not been spelled out.

The Tenth Amendment

The Tenth Amendment says that the Federal Government only has those powers delegated in the Constitution. If it isn’t listed, it belongs to the states or to the people.

At the same time, in 1791 in France, The Constitution was created to establish constitutional monarchy and sovereignty. The National Assembly during French Revolution brought in the Constitution that separated the powers between the legislature, executive and judiciary.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789 presented the rights of citizens which served as the founding document of the Constitution. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid always and in every place. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by the law. It is included in the beginning of the constitutions of both the Fourth French Republic (1946) and Fifth Republic (1958) and is still current.

Inspired by Enlightenment philosophers, the Declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution and had a major impact on the development of popular conceptions of individual liberty and democracy in Europe and worldwide.                                       

Articles of the Bill of Rights in the French Constitution

Article I – 

Human Beings are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be founded only on the common good.

Article II – 

The goal of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression.

Article III – 

The principle of any sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation. No body, no individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.

Article IV – 

Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the fruition of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law.

Article V – 

The law has the right to forbid only actions harmful to society. Anything which is not forbidden by the law cannot be impeded, and no one can be constrained to do what it does not order.

Article VI – 

The law is the expression of the general will. All the citizens have the right of contributing personally or through their representatives to its formation. It must be the same for all, either that it protects, or that it punishes. All the citizens, being equal in its eyes, are equally admissible to all public dignities, places, and employments, according to their capacity and without distinction other than that of their virtues and of their talents.

Article VII – 

No man can be accused, arrested nor detained but in the cases determined by the law, and according to the forms which it has prescribed. Those who solicit, dispatch, carry out or cause to be carried out arbitrary orders, must be punished; but any citizen called or seized under the terms of the law must obey at once; he renders himself culpable by resistance.

Article VIII – 

The law should establish only penalties that are strictly and evidently necessary, and no one can be punished but under a law established and promulgated before the offense and legally applied.

Article IX – 

Any man being presumed innocent until he is declared culpable if it is judged indispensable to arrest him, any rigor which would not be necessary for the securing of his person must be severely reprimanded by the law.

Article X – 

No one may be disquieted for his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law.

Article XI – 

The free communication of thoughts and of opinions is one of the most precious rights of man: any citizen thus may speak, write, print freely, except to respond to the abuse of this liberty, in the cases determined by the law.

Article XII – 

The guarantee of the rights of man and of the citizen necessitates a public force: this force is thus instituted for the advantage of all and not for the particular utility of those in whom it is trusted.

Article XIII – 

For the maintenance of the public force and for the expenditures of administration, a common contribution is indispensable; it must be equally distributed to all the citizens, according to their ability to pay.

Article XIV – 

Each citizen has the right to ascertain, by himself or through his representatives, the need for a public tax, to consent to it freely, to know the uses to which it is put, and of determining the proportion, basis, collection, and duration.

Article XV – 

The society has the right of requesting an account from any public agent of its administration.

Article XVI – 

Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured, nor the separation of powers determined, has no Constitution.

Article XVII – 

Property being an inviolable and sacred right, no one can be deprived of private usage, if it is not when the public necessity, legally noted, evidently requires it, and under the condition of a just and prior indemnity.