Every man having been born free and master of himself, no one else may under any pretext whatever subject him without his consent. To assert that the son of a slave is born a slave is to assert that he is not born a man.

JeanJacques Rousseau
About This Quote

This quote is one of the most famous and widely quoted in the American Revolution. It’s a legal opinion from a Virginia Court of Appeals, written by Robert Carter in 1769. In it, Carter explains that men are born free and therefore no one has the right to enslave them. To do so would be to deny their humanity.

Source: The Social Contract

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