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tion of the cortes. Don Ferdinando VII. is declared king of Spain, and after his decease his legitimate descendants shall succeed to the throne. The king shall be a minor until he has completed the age of 18 years. The eldest son of the king shall be called Prince of the Asturias, and, as such, shall at the age of 14 take an oath before the cortes to maintain the constitution, and to be faithful to the king. During a minority a regency shall be formed, which shall superintend the education of the young prince according to the orders of the cortes. The regency shall be presided by the queen mother, if she be in life, and shall be composed of two of the oldest deputies of the cortes, who shall be repla

In

months. This period can only be ex-
tended on the request of the king, or
for some reason of great urgency.
such cases the session may be prolong-
ed, but not beyond one month.

The Cortes.-The election of the cortes shall take place conformably to the mode prescribed by the constitution, and one deputy shall be chosen for each 70,000 souls. The sittings of the cortes shall be opened by the king, or in his name, by the president of the deputation of the cortes, which ought to remain permanent, in order to watch over the fulfilment of the constitution.

SOUTH AMERICA.

vinces of the Caraccas.

The supreme congress of Venezuela, in its legislative session for the province of Caraccas, taking into consideration that to the neglect and disregard of the rights of man, which have hitherto prevailed, must be ascribed all those evils which this people have endured for three centuries past; and actuated by the desire of re-establishing those sacred principles on a solid basis, has resolved, in obedience to the general will, to declare, and doth now solemnly declare, in the presence of the universe, these rights inalienable; to the end that every citizen may at all times compare the acts of the government with the purposes of the social institutions; that the magistrate may never lose sight of the rules by which his conduct must be regulated; and that the legis lator may in no case mistake the objects of the trust committed to him.

eed from year to year, and of two The Declaration of Rights of the Procounsellors of the council of state chosen in the order of their seniority. The cortes shall fix the salary proper for the support of the king and his family, and shall point out the places destined for his recreation, &c. The infantes may be appointed to all employments, but cannot be magistrates, nor members of the cortes, and must not leave the kingdom without the permission of the said cortes. There shall be eight secretaries of state, in cluding two for South and North America; they shall be responsible for the affairs of their respective departments, and the renumeration which they shall receive shall be determined by the cortes. A council of state shall be formed, consisting of 40 members: four of this number are to be grandees of Spain of acknowledged merit and virtue; four ecclesiastics, of which two shall be bishops; twelve Americans ; the remaining twenty members to be chosen from among the most respectable citizens of the other classes of the community. This council shall meet every year on the first of March, and shall sit during three

Sovereignty of the People. 1. The sovereignty resides in the people, and the exercise of it in the citizens, by the medium of the right

of suffrage, and through the agency of their representatives legally constituted.

2. Sovereignty is by its essence and nature imprescriptible, inalienable, and indivisible.

3. A portion only of the citizens, even with the right of suffrage, cannot exercise the sovereignty; every individual ought to participate by his vote in the formation of the body which is to represent the sovereign authority; because all have a right to express their will with full and entire liberty. This principle alone can render the constitution of their government legitimate and just.

4. Any individual, corporate body, or city, which attempts to usurp the sovereignty, incurs the crime of treason against the people.

5. The public functionaries shall hold their offices for a definite period `of time, and the investiture with a public function shall not attach any other importance or influence than what they acquire in the opinion of their fellow-citizens, by the virtues they may exercise whilst occupied in the service of the republic.

6. Crimes committed by the representatives and agents of the republic shall not be passed over with impunity; because no individual has a right to become more inviolable than another. 7. The law shall be equal for all, to punish crimes, and to reward virtues, without distinction of birth or hereditary pretensions.

Rights of Man in Society. 1. The purpose of society is the common happiness of the people, and government is instituted to secure it.

2. The felicity of the people consists in the enjoyment of liberty, security, property, and equality of rights, in the presence of the law.

3. The law is formed by the free and solemn expression of the general

will, declared by agents whom the people elect to represent their will.

4. The right to declare their thoughts and opinions, through the medium of the press, is unrestrained and free, under responsibility to the law for any violation of the public tranquillity, the religious opinions, property, and honour of the citizen.

5. The object of the law is to regu. late the manner in which the citizens ought to act upon occasions, when reason requires that they should conduct themselves not merely by their indivi dual judgment and will, but by a common rule.

6. When a citizen submits his actions to a law which his judgment does not approve, he does not surrender his right nor his reason, but obeyt the law because he should not be influenced by his own private judgment against the general will to which he ought to conform. Thus the law does not exact the sacrifice of reason, nor the liberty of those who do not approve it, because it never makes an attempt upon liberty, unless where the latter violates social order, or swerves from those principles which determine that all shall be governed by one common rule or law.

7. Every citizen cannot hold an equal power in the formation of the law, because all do not equally contribute to the preservation of the state, to the security and tranquillity of society.

8. The citizens shall be ranged in two classes; the one with the right of suffrage, the other without it.

9. Those possessing the right of suffrage are such as are established in the territory of Venezuela, of whatever nation they may be, and they alone constitute sovereignty.

10. Those not entitled to the right of suffrage are such as have no certain place of residence; those without property, which is the support of society.

This class, neverthesles, enjoys the benefits of the law, and its protection, in as full a measure as the other, but without participating in the right of suffrage.

11. No individual can be accused, arrested, or confined, unless in cases explicitly pointed out by law.

12. Every act exercised against a citizen, without the formalities of the law, is arbitrary and tyrannical.

13. Any magistrate who decrees or causes an arbitrary act to be executed, shall be punished with the severity the law prescribes.

14. The law shall protect public and individual liberty against oppression and tyranny.

15. Every citizen is to be regarded as innocent, until he shall have been proved culpable. If it become necessary to secure his person, unnecessary rigour for the purpose shall be repressed by law.

16. No person shall be sentenced or punished without a legal trial, in virtue of a law promulgated previously to the offence. Any law which punishes crimes committed previous to its existence, is tyrannical. A retroactive effect assumed by the law is a crime.

17. The law shall not decree any punishment not absolutely necessary, and that shall be proportionate to the crime, and useful to society.

18. Security consists in the protection afforded by society to each of its members, for the preservation of his person, his rights, and his property.

19. Every individual possesses the right to acquire property, and to disof it at will, unless his will be conpose trary to a previous compact, or to law.

20. No kind of labour, art, industry, or commerce, shall be prohibited to any citizen, save only such establishments as may be required for the sub. sistence of the state.

11. No one can be deprived of the least portion of his property without his consent, except when the public necessity requires it, and then under the condition of a just compensation. No contribution can be required and established, unless for the general utility. Every citizen entitled to suffrage, has the right, through the medium of his representatives, to advise and consult on the establishment of contributions, to watch over their application, and to require an account of the same from those he has elected as his representatives.

22. The liberty of claiming one's rights, in the presence of the depositories of the public authority, in no case can be withheld, nor confined to any particular citizen.

23. There is individual oppression, when one member of society is oppressed; there is also the oppression of a number, when the social body is oppressed. In these cases the laws are violated, and the citizens have a right to demand the observance of the laws.

24. The house of every citizen is an inviolable asylum. No one has a right to enter it violently; except in cases of conflagration, deluge, or ap. plication proceeding from the same house; or for objects of criminal proceedings in the cases and with the essentials determined by law, and under the responsibility of the constituted au thorities who have issued the decree. Domiciliary visits, and civil executions, shall take place only in open day, in virtue of the law, and with respect to the person and object expressly pointed out in the act authorising such vi

sitation and execution.

25. Every foreigner, of whatever nation he may be, shall be received and admitted into the state of Venezuela.

26. The persons and properties of foreigners shall enjoy the same security as the native citizens, provided al

ways that they acknowledge the sovereignty and independence, and respect the catholic religion, the only one in this country.

27. The foreigners who reside in the state of the Caraccas, becoming naturalized and holding property, shall enjoy all the rights of citizenship.

Duties of Man in Society.

1. The rights of others, in relation to each individual, have their limit in the moral principle which determines their duties, the fulfilment whereof is the necessary effect of the respect due to the rights of each of the individuals. Their basis are these maxims:- -"Render to others the good which you would they should render unto you.' "Do not unto another that which you do not wish to be done unto you.'

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2. The duties of every individual with respect to society, are; to live in absolute submission to the laws-to obey and respect the legal acts of the constituted authorities to maintain liberty and equality-to contribute to the public expences-to serve the country in all its exigencies-and, if it becomes necessary, to render to it the sacrifice of property and life; in the exercise of these virtues consists genuine patriotism.

3. Whoever openly does violence to the laws-whoever endeavours to elude them-declares himself an enemy to society.

4. No one can be a good citizen, unless he be a good parent, a good son, a good brother, a good friend, and a good husband.

5. No man can be a man of worth, unless he be a candid, faithful, and religious observer of the laws; the exercise of private and domestic virtues is the basis of public virtue.

Duties of the Social Body. 1. The duty of society with respect to its individual members is the social

guarantee. This consists in the obligation on the whole to secure to every individual the enjoyment and preservation of his rights, which is the foundation of the national sovereignty

2. The social guarantee cannot exist, unless the law clearly determines the bounds of the powers vested in the functionaries; nor when the responsibility of the public functionaries has not been expressly determined and defined.

3. Public succour is a sacred duty of society; it ought to provide for the subsistence of unfortunate citizens, either by insuring employment to those who are capable, or by affording the means of support to such as are unfit for labour.

Declaration of Independence of the Province of Venezuela.

In the Name of the Most High.

We, the representatives of the fede. ral provinces of Caraccas, Cumana, Barinas, Mergalta, Barcelona, Merida, and Truxillo, constituting the confederation of Venezuela, on the southern continent of America, in congress assembled; considering, that we have been in the full entire possession of our natural rights since the 19th of April, 1810, which we re-assumed in consequence of the transaction at Bayonne, the abdication of the Spanish throne, by the conquest of Spain, and the accession of a new dynasty, established without our consent: while we avail ourselves of the rights of men, which have been held from us by force for more than three centuries, and to which we are restored by the political revolutions in human affairs, think it becoming to state to the world the reasons by which we are called to the free exercise of the sovereign autho. rity.

We deem it unnecessary to insist upon the unquestionable right which every conquered country holds to restore itself to liberty and independence: we pass over, in a generous silence, the long series of afflictions, oppressions, and privations, in which the fatal law of conquest has indiscriminately involved the discoverers, conquerors, and settlers, of these countries; whose condition has been made wretched by the very means which should have promoted their felicity; throwing a veil over three centuries of Spanish dominion in America, we shall confine ourselves to the narration of recent and well-known facts, which prove how much we have been afflicted; and that we should not be involved in the commotions, disorders, and conquests which have divided Spain.

The disorders in Europe had increased the evils under which we before suffered, by obstructing complaints, and frustrating the means of redress; by authorising the governor placed over us by Spain, to insult and oppress us with impunity, leaving us without the protection or support of the laws.

It is contrary to the order of nature, impracticable in relation to the government of Spain, and has been most afflicting to America, that territories so much more extensive, and a population incomparably more numerous, should be subjected and dependent on a peninsular corner of the European continent.

The cession and abdication made at Bayonne, the transactions at the Escurial and at Aranjuez, and the orders issued by the Imperial Lieutenant, the Marshal Duke of Berg, to America, authorised the exercise of those rights, which till that period the Americans had sacrificed to the preservation and integrity of the Spanish nation.

The people of Venezuela were the

first who generally acknowledged, and who preferred that integrity; never forsaking the interests of their European brethren, while there remained the least prospect of salvation.

America had acquired a new existence; she was able and was bound to take charge of her own safety and prosperity; she was at liberty to acknowledge or to reject the authority of a king who was so little deserving of that power as to regard his personal safety more than that of the nation over which he had been placed.

All the Bourbons who concurred in the futile stipulations of Bayonne, having withdrawn from the Spanish territory contrary to the will of the people, abrogated, dishonoured, and trampled upon all the sacred obligations which they had contracted with the Spaniards of both worlds, who with their blood and treasures had placed them on the throne, in opposition to the efforts of the house of Austria: such conduct has rendered them unfit to rule over a free people, whom they disposed of like a gang of slaves.

The intrusive government, which have arrogated to themselves the authority which belongs only to the national representation, treacherously availed themselves of the known good faith, the distance, and effects which ignorance and oppression had produced among the Americans, to direct their passions against the new dynasty which had been imposed upon Spain; and, in opposition to their own prin ciples, kept up the illusion amongst us in favour of Ferdinand, but only in or der to baffle our rational hopes, and to make us with greater impunity their prey; they held forth to us promises of liberty, equality, and fraternity, in pompous discourses, the more effectually to conceal the snare which they were insidiously laying for us by an inefficient and degrading shew of representation.

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