What did the Declaration of the Rights of Man actually promise, and to whom?

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted on 26 August 1789, promised a lot. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. The principle of sovereignty resides in the Nation. The law is the expression of the general will. A man is presumed innocent until declared culpable, and citizens may speak, write and print freely, while answering for abuses defined by law.

But "men" meant men, and "citizen" did not mean everyone. Active citizenship, the kind that carried the vote, went to men who were French, at least 25, paid taxes equal to three days' work and were not servants. About 4.3 million of roughly 29 million French people received the vote. The omitted passive citizens included women, the poor, domestic servants, enslaved people, children and foreigners.

Who wrote it? Lafayette drafted it first, with help from Thomas Jefferson, but most of the final draft came from Abbé Sieyès. Its rights were liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression. Historian Georges Lefebvre argued that, joined with the end of privilege and feudalism, it highlighted equality in a way the American Declaration of Independence did not.

So the Declaration was both a bold statement and an aspirational vision, a starting point rather than a finished settlement. Its ambiguity about women, slaves and colonial citizens influenced the desire for freedom and equality in Saint-Domingue.