legal rights quotes

As soon as I go out into the world, I belong, in a way, to everyone else. It’s legal to follow me. It’s legal to stalk me at the beach. And I can’t call the police or ask them to leave.

I don’t think marriage is a civil right, but I think that being able to transfer property is a civil right.

Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts.

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter – and to write it in the books of law.

The legal right of the Southern people to reclaim their fugitives I have constantly admitted. The legal right of Congress to interfere with their institution in the states, I have constantly denied.