Centennial Oration (4 July 1876) http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/robert_ingersoll/centennial_oration.html
Ex parte Castioni (1890), 60 L. J. Rep. (N. S.) Mag. Cas. 33.
Book VII, Ch. 1
Progress and Poverty (1879)
Speech at the Civil Rights Mass-Meeting Held at Lincoln Hall (22 October 1883), as quoted in The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass https://archive.org/stream/lifetimesoffrede1881doug/lifetimesoffrede1881doug_djvu.txt (1881).
1880s, Speech at the Civil Rights Mass Meeting (1883)
If we build strong and long, we must build upon moral principle.
1860s, The Good Fight (1865)
12th Annual Report to the Massachusetts State Board of Education http://www.tncrimlaw.com/civil_bible/horace_mann.htm (1848); published in Life and Works of Horace Mann Vol. III, (1868) edited by Mary Mann, p. 669
Context: Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, — the balance-wheel of the social machinery. I do not here mean that it so elevates the moral nature as to make men disdain and abhor the oppression of their fellow-men. This idea pertains to another of its attributes. But I mean that it gives each man the independence and the means by which he can resist the selfishness of other men. It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility towards the rich: it prevents being poor.
This they said, and this meant. They did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain; and it was placed in the Declaration, nor for that, but for future use. Its authors meant it to be, thank God, it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the proneness of prosperity to breed tyrants, and they meant when such should re-appear in this fair land and commence their vocation they should find left for them at least one hard nut to crack. I have now briefly expressed my view of the meaning and objects of that part of the Declaration of Independence which declares that "all men are created equal".
1850s, Speech on the Dred Scott Decision (1857)
1950s, Address at the Philadelphia Convention Hall (1956)
Context: So it is that the laws most binding us as a people are laws of the spirit—proclaimed in church and synagogue and mosque. These are the laws that truly declare the eternal equality of all men, of all races, before the man-made laws of our land. And we are profoundly aware that—in the world—we can claim the trust of hundreds of millions of people, across Africa and Asia—only as we ourselves hold high the banner of justice for all.
“Equal rights for all civilized men south of the Zambesi.”
Gordon Le Sueur, Cecil Rhodes the Man and His Work http://books.google.com/books?id=96AYdAqncoYC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=%22equal+rights+for+all+civilized+men%22&source=bl&ots=m1cSqKQE0h&sig=r1b3XeSqYuVKlAfdmkBZ32mP3ps&hl=en&ei=97xgS6r1CJTatgO2u8XGCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CCMQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q=%22equal%20rights%20for%20all%20civilized%20men%22&f=false (2009), pg. 76
Le Sueur states that Rhodes originally said, c. 1893: "Equal rights every white man south of the Zambesi", as reported in the press, and he later "clarified" it.
Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 44 - (Gandhi said the same thing in All men are brothers; Simone Weil too, at the beginning of L'enracinement (the translator).
“The rights of men to the use of land are not joint rights: they are equal rights.”
Part I : Declaration, Ch. III : "Social Statics" — The Right of Property
A Perplexed Philosopher (1892)
Context: The rights of men to the use of land are not joint rights: they are equal rights.
Were there only one man on earth, he would have a right to the use of the whole earth or any part of the earth.
When there is more than one man on earth, the right to the use of land that any one of them would have, were he alone, is not abrogated: it is only limited. The right of each to the use of land is still a direct, original right, which he holds of himself, and not by the gift or consent of the others; but it has become limited by the similar rights of the others, and is therefore an equal right.
