declarations

It is evident from comparing the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and the Virginia Declaration of Rights, that the writers of the French Declaration were heavily influenced and even copied the idea of Masons Declaration. These Ideas are evident in each numbering of the French and the Virginian Document. Even both documents have similar introductions stating the purpose of the documents.

The Documents similarities begin with the first lines of each document. The two documents make it know that that they were written by representatives of the People. So, in turn, the ideas written down are those wanted and expressed by the French and Virginian people.

Each Document states the rights that Man is born with, Liberty, property, safety, and happiness. It is obvious that the french took the rights of men straight from The Virginian Declaration. The French declaration states plainly, “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights…These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.” The writers of the Virginia Declaration hadthese ideas, but were much more elaborte in thier execution of words, “That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

The comparisons are through out the whole two documents. Following the basic rights of all men, both documents begin to go into more detail. Both documents state that the job of the government is to protect the people and the rights of them. The government should also be run by the people and not anyone man. The French revolutionaries even borrows the idea of separation of state, which is used in today’s American government, “A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers [is not] defined, has no constitution at all.” If it were not Mason's ideas, then the French Revolutionaries would have not gotten the ideas that our government is based off of. The French Declaration even borrowed many ideas that would become the First ten amendments. If it were not for the ideas of the Vriginia Declaration the French Revolutionaires might not have had such a solid foundation in trying to start a new form of government.