Absence of Liberty Among the Ancients. Genesis of Liberty. Importance of Liberty. The Rights of Man. Importance of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The Theory of Natural Law. Influence of the Theory of Natural Law
THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL LAW
The Conception of a Law of Nature. Greek and Roman Philosophers. Roman Jurists. Christianity. The Canon Law. Aquinas.
THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
The Reformation. Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity Grotius. Selden. Milton. Hobbes. Spinoza. Montaigne. Bossuet Fénélon. Pufendorf. Thomasius. Locke.
Popularity of Natural Law. Enlightened Despotism Montesquieu. Voltaire. The Encyclopedists, Turgot. Blackstone
HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE
Greek Republics and Rome. The Lex Regia. The Political Institutions of the Ancient Germans. Roman Traditions and Roman Law During the Middle Ages. Manegold von Lautenbach. Arnold of Brescia and the Roman Republic. Thomas Aquinas’s De Regimine Principum. Marsilius of Padua. Lupold of Bebenburg. The Roman de la Rose. The Conciliar Movement: Gerson, d’Ailly, Cusanus, Æneas Silvius. Résumé of the Political Principles of the Middle Ages
THE REFORMATION AND THE MONARCHOMACHISTS
The Ideas of the Great Reformers Theocratic. Calvin’s System of Church Polity. Mair, Knox, Poynet, Junius Brutus, Hotman. The Jesuits: Lainez, Bellarmin, Mariana, Suarez. Their Object the Debasement of the State. Bodin. Althusius. Grotius. Hooker
INDEPENDENTS, LEVELLERS, AND WHIGS
In English Independency the Individualism of the Reformation Found Its Fullest Expression. The Congregational Church Polity Democratic. Democratic Political Ideas Result from It. The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination. Independents Opposed to Both Episcopacy and the Divine Right of Kings. Growth of Independency. The New Model and the Independents. The Levellers Ultra-Republicans. Their Doctrines. The Case of the Army and the First Agreement of the People. Discussions in the Council of the Army The Third Agreement of the People, by Lilburne, the Fullest Expression of Levelling Doctrines. Milton. Harrington. Sidney and Locke.
The Formation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man not Due to Rousseau. His Social Contract. Freedom and Equality. His Sovereign. Distinction between Sovereign and Government. The General Will and the Will of All. Rousseau’s Eclecticism
THE POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND DOCTRINES OF THE AMERICAN COLONISTS
Why Did the Declaration of the Rights of Man Originate in America? Character of the Colonists. Religion. Self-government. Republican Institutions. Equality in Social and Economic Conditions. American Democrats: Roger Williams, Thomas Hooker. Reality of Contract Theory to the Colonists. Attraction of Natural Law to Them. John Wise.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE BILLS OF RIGHTS
Massachusetts First Appealed to Natural Law. Otis. Writs of Assistance. Rights of the British Colonies. Otis’s Vindication. Letter. John Adams on Canon and Feudal Law. Samuel Adams. The Fourteen Resolves. The Declaration of the Rights of the Colonists as Men, Christians, and Subjects, 1772, Composed by Samuel Adams. The Congress of 1774. Origin of the Virginia Bill of Rights. Its Stipulations. The Ideas of the Declaration of Independence. Other Bills of Rights.
THE FRENCH DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND OF THE CITIZEN
FRANCE AND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
The Interest the American Revolution Excited in France. Ségur’s Account. Books Written on American Affairs: Brissot, Mably, Raynal, Mirabeau. The French Declaration Based upon the American Bills of Rights. The Cahiers of Paris and Nemours.
THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY AND THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND OF THE CITIZEN
The Plan of the Constitution. Lafayette. The Discussions Concerning the Declaration: Champion de Cicé, Malouet, Delandine, Grégoire. The Drafts of Mounier and Sieyès. The Project of the Committee of Five. Mirabeau’s Speech. Dissatisfaction of the Assembly. Speech of Lally-Tollendal. The Declaration in Its Final Form.
THE EFFECTS OF THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN
Political Theories of Little Influence upon the Development of English Liberty. These Ideas at the Basis of the Reforms of the French Revolution. Views of the Constitutent Assembly Regarding the Importance of the Declaration: Bailly, Condorcet, Rabaut de Saint Étienne. Burke’s Attack upon the Declaration. Taine’s View. Investigation of the Declaration. Why the Ideas of the Declaration were Misunderstood in France. The Importance of Individual Liberty.