The assembly had acquired the entire power; the corporations depended on it; the national guards obeyed it. It was divided into committees to facilitate its operations, and execute them. The royal power, though existing of right, was in a measure suspended, since it was not obeyed, and the assembly had to supply its action by its own. Thus, independently of committees entrusted with the preparation of its measures, it had appointed others to exercise a useful superintendence without. A committee of supply occupied itself with provisions, an important object in a year of scarcity; a committee of inquiry corresponded with the corporations and provinces; a committee of researches received informations against the conspirators of the 14th of July. But finance and the constitution, which the past crises had adjourned, were the special subjects of attention. After having momentarily provided for the necessities of the treasury, the assembly, although now become sovereign, consulted, by examining the _cahiers_, the wishes of its constituents. It then proceeded to form its institutions with a method, a liberal and extensive spirit of discussion, which was to procure for France a constitution conformable with justice and suited to its necessities. The United States of America, at the time of its independence, had set forth in a declaration the rights of man, and those of the citizen. This will ever be the first step. A people rising from slavery feels the necessity of proclaiming its rights, even before it forms its government. Those Frenchmen who had assisted at the American revolution, and who co-operated in ours, proposed a similar declaration as a preamble to our laws. This was agreeable to an assembly of legislators and philosophers, restricted by no limits, since no institutions existed, and directed by primitive and fundamental ideas of society, since it was the pupil of the eighteenth century. Though this declaration only contained general principles, and confined itself to setting forth in maxims what the constitution was to put into laws, it was calculated to elevate the mind, and impart to the citizens a consciousness of their dignity and importance. At Lafayette's suggestion, the assembly had before commenced this discussion; but the events at Paris, and the decrees of the 4th of August, had interrupted its labours; they were now resumed, and concluded, by determining the principles which were to form the table of the new law, and which were the assumption of right in the name of humanity.