The New Hampshire Gazette

4. The mechanism of the press is unrestrained and free, under responsibility, to the law for any violation of the public tranquility, the opinions, property and honor of the citizen.

5. The object of the law is to regulate this manner in which the citizens ought to act upon occasions when reason requires that they should conduct themselves not merely by their individual 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 reason, but obeys 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 when 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 & tranquility of society.

8. The citizens shall be ranged in two classes; the one with the right of suffrage, the other without it. 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 nevertheless, enjoy 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, all 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 rigor 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 dispose of it at will, unless his will be contrary to a previous compact, or to law.

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

21. 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 deposites of the public authority is in no case can be withheld, nor confined to any particular citizen.

23. There is individual oppression whenever one member of society is oppressed there is also the oppression of one member, When the special body is so Proceeded. 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, unless in cases of conflagration, deluge or application, 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 authorities 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 authorizing such visitation 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 always, 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 Caraccas, becoming naturalized, and holding property, shall enjoy all the rights of citizenship.

DUTIES OF MAN IN SOCIETY
ARTICLE FIRST.

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 is 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.

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 expenses: to serve the country in all its exigencies; and if it become 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 endeavors 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 one can be a man of worth, unless he be a candid, faithful and religious observer of the law; the exercise of private and domestic virtues is the basis of public virtue.

DUTIES OF THE SOCIAL BODY.
ARTICLE FIRST.

The duties 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.

3. Public succour is a sacred duty of society; it ought to provide for the subsistence of the unfortunate citizens, either by ensuring employment to those who are capable of acquiring means of subsistence, as well by affording the means of support to such as cannot acquire it by labor.

4. Instruction is necessary for all; society ought to promote with all the means in its power, the enlightenment of the public mind, and place instruction within the attainment of every individual.

This our solemn declaration, is to be communicated to the supreme executive power in order to be proclaimed for the information of all, by such means as it may judge most expedient.

Given at the palace of the government of Venezuela, on the first day of July, 1811.

(Signed by the functionaries as usual.)