A complete history of the Marquis de Lafayette, major-general in the American army in the war of the revolution. Embracing an account of his tour through the United States, to the time of his departure, September, 1825. By an officer in the late army.

MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE. 187
likewise, after excluding the Stewarts, and calling William
III. to the crown, made him sign a bill of rights, on which
their present constitution is founded. But the American bill
of rights being intended for a people where there were no
ie-existing privileges to impede the pure operation of reason, there was a propriety in prefixing a declaration of the
universal principles of political liberty and equality, altogether'in conformity with the state of knowledge already
diffused among them. In England, the bill of rights did not
proceed on general ideas; it confirmed existing laws and institutions.-The French declaration of rights of 1789, contained the best part of those of England and America; but
it would have, perhaps, been better to have confined it, on
the one hand, to what was' indisputable, and, on the other,
to what would not have admitted of any dangerous interpretation. There can be no doubt, says Madame De Stael,
that distinctions in society can have no other object than the
general good; that all political power takes its rise from the
interest of the people; and that men are born and remain
free and equal in the eye of the law; —but there is ample
space for sophistry in so wide a field, while nothing is more
clear or undoubted than the application of these truths to
individual liberty, the establishment of juries, the freedom
of the press, popular elections, the division of the legislative
power, the sanctioning of taxes, &c. &c.The three different plans of a declaration of rights, which
principally engaged the attention of the assembly, were submitted by Lafayette, Mounier, and the Abbe Sieyes. Mounier
was a literary man, and of great abilities, and his project was
preferred; but, in fact, it was very little different from that
first offered by Fayette; all the originality of it was due to
his first speech on that subject. In its clearness and simplicity the scheme of Lafayette greatly resembled the celebrated American declaration. In offering it to the consideration
of the assembly, he made the following memorable discourse:
* Consider. French Rev. vol. i. chap iii, p. 273.