The first French Republic

THE FIRST FRENCH REPUBLIC: A STUDY OF THE ORIGIN AND THE CONTENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN, OF THE CONSTITUTION, AND OF THE ADOPTION OF THE REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT IN 1792.
BY HORACE MANN CONAWAY, Sometime Fellow in European History in Columbia University .
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE Faculty of Political Science Columbia University.
New York. 1902.


The present study is one of origins. Our object is to trace from the beginning the gradual development of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, of the first written constitution in France, and to follow the movement which led to the abolition of monarchy and to the adoption of the republican form of government. In view of the complex phenomena of the French Revolutionary period, it is advantageous to our understanding of that surpassingly interesting era to view the various classes of facts from different standpoints. The Revolution was social, religious, political, and economic. While the study of any one of these phases necessarily involves the others, the best results will be secured by considering the movement now as social, now as religious, now as political, and now as economic. This paper is an investigation of the early Revolution from the political point of view. Whence arose in the minds of the French the idea of a Declaration of the Rights of Man? Where did they derive the principles therein contained? How were they led to feel the need of a written constitution? Through what series of events were they brought to suspect, to denounce and to renounce royalty, and to accept the idea of an elective executive? Such questions as these are of interest to the student of political history.
Though the primary sources for the investigation of this subject are limited in our American libraries, enough has been found to lead to an interpretation suggestive and, we believe, correct.