This conjecture becomes a certainty through Lafayette's own statement. In a place in his _Memoirs_, that has as yet been completely overlooked, Lafayette mentions the model that he had in mind when making his motion in the Constituent Assembly.[25] He very pertinently points out that the Congress of the newly formed Confederation of North American free states was then in no position to set up, for the separate colonies, which had already become sovereign states, rules of right which would have binding force. He brings out the fact that in the Declaration of Independence there are asserted only the principles of the sovereignty of the people and the right to change the form of government. Other rights are included solely by implication from the enumeration of the violations of right, which justified the separation from the mother country. The constitutions of the separate states, however, were preceded by declarations of rights, which were binding upon the people's representatives. _The first state to set forth a declaration of rights properly so called was Virginia._[26] The declarations of Virginia and of the other individual American states were the sources of Lafayette's proposition. They influenced not only Lafayette, but all who sought to bring about a declaration of rights. Even the above-mentioned _cahiers_ were affected by them. The new constitutions of the separate American states were well known at that time in France. As early as 1778 a French translation of them, dedicated to Franklin, had appeared in Switzerland.[27] Another was published in 1783 at Benjamin Franklin's own instigation.[28] Their influence upon the constitutional legislation of the French Revolution is by no means sufficiently recognized. In Europe until quite recently only the Federal constitution was known, not the constitutions of the individual states, which are assuming a very prominent place in modern constitutional history. This must be evident from the fact, which is even yet unrecognized by some distinguished historians and teachers of public law, that the individual American states had the first written constitutions. In England and France the importance of the American state constitutions has begun to be appreciated,[29] but in Germany they have remained as yet almost unnoticed. For a long time, to be sure, the text of the older constitutions in their entirety were only with difficulty accessible in Europe. But through the edition, prepared by order of the United States Senate,[30] containing all the American constitutions since the very earliest period, one is now in a position to become acquainted with these exceptionally important documents.