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 Rh of the globe, and not for the boundless family which nature has scattered over the entire earth as its habitation.

I propose that you remedy these defects by inserting several articles. These articles cannot fail to win for you the respect of nations, and they may also involve the difficulty of setting you at odds with kings forever. I admit this difficulty is not horrifying to me. Surely we—now that we have no desire to compound with kings—cannot be terrified by such a prospect. The four articles I propose are these:

1. The men of all lands are brothers and the various nations must aid each other in the same manner as must also the citizens of one and the same state.

2. Any man oppressing a nation thereby declares himself to be an enemy of all the nations.

3. Those who fall upon a nation with an army in order to prevent the advances of liberty and to destroy the rights of man must be combated by all the other nations, not as ordinary foes, but as murderers and rebellious brigands.

4. Kings, aristocrats and tyrants, whatever be the nation to which they belong, are slaves in rebellion against the sovereign of the earth, the human race, and against the Legislator of the Universe of Nature. …

—Speech delivered April 24, 1793.