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The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records.
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“The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records.”

Alexander Hamilton

Source
The Farmer Refuted, 23 February 1775
Date
1775
Meaning

Meaning of “The sacred rights of mankind are not to…”

Hamilton argues that fundamental rights do not depend merely on locating an old charter or inherited documentary privilege.

Source context

Where does it come from?

The Farmer Refuted, February 23, 1775, preserved by Founders Online / National Archives. Hamilton makes the statement in a revolutionary-era pamphlet defending natural-rights arguments against Samuel Seabury. It is a historical political position and should not be treated as current constitutional or legal advice.

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EqualityFreedomThought-Provoking Quotes That Invite ReflectionJusticePoliticsPowerRights
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This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.
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“This Fourth of July is yours, not mine.”

Frederick Douglass · What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? · 1852
Meaning & context

Douglass exposes the exclusion within a national celebration of liberty when enslaved people are denied the freedom and rights being publicly commemorated.

Source details

Frederick Douglass, Oration delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, July 5, 1852, reviewed against the public-domain Wikisource transcription of the original oration. 'This Fourth July is yours, not mine' follows Douglass's contrast between the audience's national independence and the exclusion of enslaved Black Americans; it remains abolitionist indictment, not generic patriotism.

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Society in equality is its normal state.
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“Society in equality is its normal state.”

John Stuart Mill · The Subjection of Women · 1869
Meaning & context

Mill contrasts relations organized around command and obedience with equal association, presenting equality as the normal direction of an improving society.

Source details

The Subjection of Women (1869), Chapter II, printed page 79, Project Gutenberg #27083. Mill contrasts command-and-obedience relations with equal association and states that society in equality is the normal state toward which improving social relations should move.

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I contend for the rights of men and the liberty of reason.
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“I contend for the rights of men and the liberty of reason.”

Mary Wollstonecraft · A Vindication of the Rights of Men · 1790
Meaning & context

The line joins political rights with intellectual liberty: the argument is not merely for a different ruler but for people’s capacity to reason without inherited deference.

Source details

A Vindication of the Rights of Men, opening letter to Edmund Burke; Wollstonecraft frames the pamphlet as a defense of human rights and the liberty of reason.

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The a priori presumption is in favour of freedom and impartiality.
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“The a priori presumption is in favour of freedom and impartiality.”

John Stuart Mill · The Subjection of Women · 1869
Meaning & context

Mill places the burden of proof on restrictions and unequal privilege rather than treating inherited inequality as self-justifying.

Source details

The Subjection of Women (1869), Chapter I, printed page 3, Project Gutenberg #27083. Mill places the burden of proof on restrictions and unequal privilege, stating that the a priori presumption is in favour of freedom and impartiality.

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If all Men are born Free, how is it that all Women are born Slaves?
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“If all Men are born Free, how is it that all Women are born Slaves?”

Mary Astell · Some Reflections Upon Marriage · 1706
Meaning & context

Astell turns the language of natural freedom back on a social order that treats women as naturally subordinate, exposing a contradiction between political liberty and domestic domination.

Source details

Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Appendix in the fourth-edition text represented by Project Gutenberg #61143. The edition states that the preceding edition’s extended Preface was moved to the end as an Appendix; there Astell asks, “If all Men are born Free, how is it that all Women are born Slaves?” while challenging claims of natural male supremacy. It is early-modern feminist political-religious polemic, not a literal equation of every form of historical slavery.

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Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
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“Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”

John Stuart Mill · On Liberty · 1859
Meaning & context

Mill draws a boundary around mature individual self-government: social power requires justification when it coerces a person in matters that principally concern that person rather than preventing harm to others.

Source details

On Liberty, Chapter I, Project Gutenberg #34901. This sentence follows Mill’s harm-principle formulation and belongs to a political-philosophical argument about the legitimate limits of social and legal interference. It is not a claim that every private action has no effects or obligations toward other people.