Annie Besant 
Marriage, As It Was, As It Is, And As It Should Be 

The recognition of human rights may be said to be of modern growth, and even yet they are but very imperfectly understood. Liberty used to be regarded as a privilege bestowed, instead of as an inherent right; rights of classes have often been claimed: right to rule, right to tax, right to punish, all these have been argued for and maintained by force; but these are not rights, they are only wrongs veiled as legal rights. Jean Jacques Rousseau struck a new note when he cried: ’;Men are born free;’ free by birthright was a new thought, when declared as a universal inheritance, and this ’;gospel of Jean Jacques Rousseau’ dawned on the world as the sun-rising of a glorious daya day of human liberty, unrestrained by class. In 1789 the doctrine of the ’;Rights of Man’ received its first European sanction by law; in the August of that year the National Assembly of France proclaimed: ’;Men are born, and remain, free and equal in rights.