Letter to Francis W. Gilmer (27 June 1816); The Writings of Thomas Jefferson edited by Ford, vol. 10, p. 32
1810s
Context: Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him; every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is 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. When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions, and the idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into society we give up any natural right.
“If conquest constitutes a natural right on the part of the few, the many have only to gather sufficient strength in order to acquire the natural right of reconquering what has been taken from them.”
Letter to Robert Applegarth (3 December 1869)
Source: The Abolition of Landed Property http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1869/12/03.htm (3 December 1869)
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Karl Marx 290
German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and … 1818–1883Related quotes
Speech to the Birmingham Artisans' Association at Birmingham Town Hall (5 January 1885), quoted in ‘Mr. Chamberlain At Birmingham.’, The Times (6 January 1885), p. 7.
1880s
Fourth State of the Union Address (6 December 1880)
“Der Mensch ist ein abschätzendes Tier.”
Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), pp. 38-39.
Aucun homme n'a recu de la nature le droit de commander aux autres. La liberté est un présent du ciel, et chaque individu de la meme espèce a le droit d'en jouir aussitòt qu'il jouit de la raison.
Article on Political Authority, Vol. 1, (1751) as quoted in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker
Variant translation: No man has received from nature the right to command his fellow human beings.
L'Encyclopédie (1751-1766)
2000s, Bush's Lincolnian Challenge (2002)
Source: Cannibals All!, or Slaves Without Masters (1857), pp. 102-103