Human Rights In The 19th Century

According to Hunt, new types of individual experiences of empathy were created, during the eighteenth century; consequently, making the invention of human rights possible. Many of the advances in the founding of human rights that were made in the late 18th century were undone in the 19th and 20th century. As illustrated in the book, there was a new wave of racism, sexism, xenophobic and nationalist discrimination.
The rights of humans in society are one of the most important distinctions that Hunt makes. Dutch Calvinist jurist, Hugo Grotius defined “natural rights” of human rights in society as something “self-possessed and conceivable separately from God’s will. People could use their rights – unaided by religion – to establish the contractual …show more content…
A declaration was linked to sovereignty and the act of declaration signified the intent to seize sovereignty. The idea that rights came from the nature of humans themselves was formed. American colonists and French citizens proclaimed their natural rights by formal declaration. They continued to maintain rights as citizens of their respective motherlands; however, they declared that they had rights that were God given; to all men and that a reigning monarch had no authority to restrict these basic rights. Hunt describes how John Adams feared that there would be no end this so called human rights if this was the case. The questions of who was included in these rights began to be formed. Did these rights include different religions, poor men, criminals, women and children? Did this mean that they could all now vote and take place in the political process as well? The book delves into an explanation of a natural course of events happening where eventually every one of all religions, sex, slaves would all gain their freedoms and be considered equal. As we can see today in society, we have come a long way in terms of human rights, but unfortunately still have a ways to