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Essay On Natural Rights During The French Revolution

773 Words4 Pages

During the French Revolution, people fought and killed for the things they believed in, specifically rights. It was started for many things, including resentment of royal absolutism, rise of enlightenment ideals, unmanageable national debt, and the unfair treatment of the Third Estate. The French Revolution produced written works such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which served as a model of man’s inalienable right to liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. Everyone during the Revolution agreed on and wanted one thing: rights. However, not everyone wanted people to have this privilege, and cared more for themselves. In Document 1, Denis Diderot wrote on “Natural Law” from the Encyclopedia (1755) that every man must acknowledge their purpose and natural right, for it is sacred. As long as humanity is not arguing over it, you have a right to it. These rights are also explained in Document 4 using three rules from the Declaration of the Rights of Man …show more content…

Rule two mentioned that all men have the right to liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. And finally, rule 3: all men are free to do anything they want to exercise these natural rights with no limitations except those made by law, and as long as nobody is being stripped of their same rights. As you have noticed, Documents 1 and 4 all use the subject word man. Here, man is not being used as gender neutral. Only men could enjoy and exercise these privileges, as explained in Document 7. Document 7 covers The Declaration of the Rights of Woman written by Olympe de Gouges, a feminist playwright who was executed for her views, basically going over everything said above, only this time including the female population. The differences between the two books, The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Declaration of the Rights of Man are simply pronouns, for both have the same

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