DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
edited by Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat
This on-line version of P. B. Shelley's Declaration of
Rights (1812) was prepared as part of The Devil's Walk: A Hypertext Edition,
edited by Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat. Our copy-text,
from which we do not vary substantively, is the copy of
Declaration of Rights at the Public Record Office
(HO 42/127), for which we have created a photofacsimile from
Ruth S. Granniss, A Descriptive Catalogue of the First
Editions in Book Form of the Writings of Percy Bysshe
Shelley).
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.
G OVERNMENT has no
rights; it is a delegation from several individuals for the
purpose of securing their own. It is therefore just, only so
far as it exists by their consent, useful only so far as it
operates to their well-being.
2
IF
these individuals think that the form of government which they,
or their forefathers constituted is ill adapted to produce
their happiness, they have a right to change it.
3
Government is devised for
the security of rights. The rights of man are liberty, and an
equal participation of the commonage of nature.
4
As the benefit of the
governed, is, or ought to be the origin of government, no men
can have any authority that does not expressly emanate from
their will.
5
Though all governments are
not so bad as that of Turkey, yet none are so good as they
might be; the majority of every country have a right to perfect
their government, the minority should not disturb them, they
ought to secede, and form their own system in their own
way.
6
All have a right to an
equal share in the benefits, and burdens of Government. Any
disabilities for opinion, imply by their existence, barefaced
tyranny on the side of government, ignorant slavishness on the
side of the governed.
7
The rights of man in the
present state of society, are only to be secured by some degree
of coercion to be exercised on their violator. The sufferer has
a right that the degree of coercion employed be as slight as
possible.
8
It may be considered as a
plain proof of the hollowness of any proposition, if power be
used to enforce instead of reason to persuade its admission.
Government is never supported by fraud until it cannot be
supported by reason.
9
No man has a right to
disturb the public peace, by personally resisting the execution
of a law however bad. He ought to acquiesce, using at the same
time the utmost powers of his reason, to promote its
repeal.
10
A man must have a right to
act in a certain manner before it can be his duty. He may,
before he ought.
11
A man has a right to think
as his reason directs, it is a duty he owes to himself to think
with freedom, that he may act from conviction.
12
A man has a right to
unrestricted liberty of discussion, falsehood is a scorpion
that will sting itself to death.
13
A man has not only a right
to express his thoughts, but it is his duty to do
so.
14
No law has a right to
discourage the practice of truth. A man ought to speak the
truth on every occasion, a duty can never be criminal, what is
not criminal cannot be injurious.
15
Law cannot make what is in
its nature virtuous or innocent, to be criminal, any more than
it can make what is criminal to be innocent. Government cannot
make a law, it can only pronounce that which was law before its
organization, viz. the moral result of the imperishable
relations of things.
16
The present generation
cannot bind their posterity. The few cannot promise for the
many.
17
No man has a right to do an
evil thing that good may come.
18
Expediency is inadmissible
in morals. Politics are only sound when conducted on principles
of morality. They are, in fact, the morals of
nations.
19
Man has no right to kill
his brother, it is no excuse that he does so in uniform. He
only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of
murder.
20
Man, whatever be his
country, has the same rights in one place as another, the
rights of universal citizenship.
21
The government of a country
ought to be perfectly indifferent to every opinion. Religious
differences, the bloodiest and most rancorous of all, spring
from partiality.
22
A delegation of individuals
for the purpose of securing their rights, can have no
undelegated power of restraining the expression of their
opinion.
23
Belief is involuntary;
nothing involuntary is meritorious or reprehensible. A man
ought not to be considered worse or better for his
belief.
24
A Christian, a Deist, a
Turk, and a Jew, have equal rights: they are men and
brethren.
25
If a person's religious
ideas correspond not with your own, love him nevertheless. How
different would yours have been had the chance of birth placed
you in Tartary or India!
26
Those who believe that
Heaven is, what earth has been, a monopoly in the hands of a
favoured few, would do well to reconsider their opinion: if
they find that it came from their priest or their grandmother,
they could not do better than reject it.
27
No man has a right to be
respected for any other possessions, but those of virtue and
talents. Titles are tinsel, power a corruptor, glory a bubble,
and excessive wealth, a libel on its possessor.
28
No man has a right to
monopolise more than he can enjoy; what the rich give to the
poor, whilst millions are starving, is not a perfect favour,
but an imperfect right.
29
Every man has a right to a
certain degree of leisure and liberty, because it is his duty
to attain a certain degree of knowledge. He may before he
ought.
30
Sobriety of body and mind
is necessary to those who would be free, because, without
sobriety a high sense of philanthropy cannot actuate the heart,
nor cool and determined courage, execute its
dictates.
31
The only use of government
is to repress the vices of man. If man were to day sinless,
to-morrow he would have a right to demand that government and
all its evils should cease.
______
Man! thou whose rights are
here declared, be no longer forgetful of the loftiness of thy
destination. Think of thy rights; of those possessions which
will give thee virtue and wisdom, by which thou mayest arrive
at happiness and freedom. They are declared to thee by one who
knows thy dignity, for every hour does his heart swell with
honourable pride in the contemplation of what thou mayest
attain, by one who is not forgetful of thy degeneracy, for
every moment brings home to him the bitter conviction of what
thou art.
Awake!-arise!-or be for ever
fallen.
Historical
Contexts
Romantic Circles / Electronic Editions /
The
Devil's Walk /
Declaration of Rights by Percy Bysshe
Shelley