Two early American documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence have, over the past 200 years, influenced a great number of democratic ideas and institutions. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights share many obvious similarities to both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was written by the Marquis de Lafayette, approved by the National Assembly of France in 1789, and gave meaning to the revolutionary cry "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written on December 10, 1948 by the General Assembly of the United Nations. …
