RIGHTS OF MAN
IN GENERAL
This law of nature, being co-eval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, and all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.
BLACKSTONE, WILLIAM, 1 Cooley's Blackstone 41
Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.
Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body?
DOUGLASS, FREDERICK, Fourth of July Oration, 1852
[D]espite the vigorous arguments against the doctrine [of natural rights], there remains the innate feeling and a general belief that society abridges individual rights instead of conferring them. In support of this notion may be cited the fact that the statutes of any state or nation are almost wholly restrictive or compulsory in character, and rarely, if ever, permissive. From the Decalogue down, the language of the law has been compulsive, “Thou shalt” and “Thou shalt not”’ and men generally act upon the theory that what society does not forbid by statute or custom the individual may do.
EMERY, LUCILIUS A., Concerning Justice, Chapter II, The Problem of Rights
[I]gnorance, neglect, or contempt of human rights, are the sole causes of public misfortunes and corruptions of government.
FRANCE, NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF, Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens, (1789)
[T]he correct question is not “What rights does the Constitution give to the American people” but rather “What powers does the Constitution grant to the government?” If a certain power is not enumerated, the government is not permitted to exercise it.
HORNBERGER, JACOB, Do Rights Come From the Constitution?
Since the Ninth Amendment speaks of “rights retained by the people,” it is obvious that the Constitution itself assumes that the people possess rights antecedently to the Constitution.
JAFFA, HARRY V., Storm Over the Constitution (1999)
No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this all from which the laws out to restrain him; every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of society; and this all the laws should enforce on him; and, no man having a natural right to be the judge between himself and another, it is his natural duty to submit to the umpirage of an impartial third.
JEFFERSON, THOMAS, Letter to F. W. Gilmer, 1816
No-one can compel me to be happy in accordance with his conception of the welfare of others, for each may seek his happiness in whatever way he sees fit, so long as he does not infringe upon the freedom of others to pursue a similar end which can be reconciled with the freedom of everyone else within a workable general law - i.e. he must accord to others the same right as he enjoys himself.
KANT, IMMANUEL, The Metaphysics of Morals
[W]hat we call Anglican liberty, are the guarantees...which experience has shown to be most exposed to the danger of attack by the strongest power in the state, namely, the executive, or as most important to a frame of government which will be least liable to generate these dangers.
LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter V
Anglican liberty...wherever the task which men have proposed to themselves is the suppression of liberty, these guarantees are sure to be the first objects of determined and persevering attack. It is instructive for the friend of freedom to observe how uniformly and instinctively the despots of all ages and countries have been in their attacks upon the different guarantees.
LIEBER, FRANCIS, On Civil Liberty and Self-Government (1853), Chapter XXIII
The law of nature stands as an eternal rule of all men, legislators as well as others.
LOCKE, JOHN, Two Treatises on Civil Government
I confess I have no idea of petitioning for rights. Whatever the rights of people are, they have a right to them, and none have a right either to withhold them, or to grant them.
PAINE, THOMAS, Letter Addressed to the Addressers, on the Proclamation
Liberty is a truly natural condition; for life itself is possible to a human being only by virtue of his capacity for independent action. If any living thing is subjected to absolute restraint, it dies. Human life is of an order transcending the deterministic necessity of physics; man exists by rational volition, free will. Hence the rational and natural terms of human association are those of voluntary agreement, not command.
Man’s rights are natural, i.e., their warrant is the laws of reality, not any arbitrary human decision; and they are inalienable, i.e., absolutes not subject to renunciation, revocation, or infringement by any person or group.
PEIKOFF, LEONARD, The Ominous Parallels
Far from being the ruler of man, the state, in the American conception, exists to prevent the division of men into rulers and ruled.
PEIKOFF, LEONARD, The Ominous Parallels
I learned that the concept of individual rights is far, far from self-evident, that most of the world does not grasp it, that the United States grasped it only for a brief historical moment and is now in the process of losing the memory.
RAND, AYN, The Lessons of Vietnam
Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
RAND, AYN, Man’s Rights in The Virtue of Selfishness
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).
RAND, AYN, Collectivized Rights
You are given a choice: either you accept the idea of a Creator as the endower of man’s rights, or you submit to the idea that the state is the endower of man’s rights. I double-dare any of you to offer a third alternative. We have forgotten the real source of our rights and are suffering the consequences.
READ, LEONARD E., The Essence of Americanism, 1961 Address
The idea of universal rights - the idea of rights that are universal to all people because they correspond to our natures as human beings, not to where we live or what our cultural background is - is an incredibly important one. This belief is being challenged by apostles of cultural relativism who refuse to accept that such rights exist. If you look at those who employ this idea, it turns out to be Robert Mugabe, the leaders of China, the leaders of Singapore, the Taliban, Ayaotollah Khomeini. It is a dangerous belief that everything is relative and therefore these people should be allowed to kill because it’s their culture to kill.
RUSHDIE, SALMAN, The Iconoclast, Reason, Aug/Sept. 2005
At the present time, the liberty of association is become a necessary guarantee against the tyranny of the majority. In the United States, as soon as a party has become preponderant, all the public authority passes under its control...the most distinguished partisans of the other side...require some means of establishing themselves upon their own basis, and of opposing the moral authority of the minority to the physical power which domineers over it. Thus a dangerous expedient is used to obviate a still more formidable danger.