In constitutional Law, too, no less than in criminal and civil Law, the eighteenth century tends to preface certain laws with universal moral principles, and to establish by formal law that the former are derived from the latter. The Declaration of Independence of the United States in July, 1774, says: We consider the following truths self-evident: that all men are born equal; that the Creator has bestowed upon them inalienable rights, amongst which are the right to life, to freedom, to the pursuit of happiness, etc. So before these rights are guaranteed by the Law, they are announced to belong by birth and nature to man, to be independent of any particular and express bestowal by the law-giver, and beyond all dispute or even argument. Of the thirteen States which formed the original Union, ten accompanied their constitution by a Bill of Rights which repeated the essential contents of the Declaration of Independence of July, 1774; seven of them placed them as an introduction before their fundamental law, and three of them incorporated them in the latter. Two others, New York and Georgia, distributed them among various articles of their constitution. Rhode Island alone refrained from a general declaration. The States which joined the Union later, with few exceptions followed the example of their predecessors and built up their constitution on the foundation of an explicit statement of the natural rights of man. The French Revolution followed the course which the United States had indicated, and began its constitution of 1791 with the "Declaration of the rights of men and citizens," which is not a law in the technical sense of the word, but is superior to all positive Law, constitutes the latter's standard and touchstone, and straightway makes all laws invalid which are not animated by its spirit or which contradict it.