Who first used the term "human rights"

Factual Questions
1

So?

2

The American Anti-Slavery Society published a journal with the title “Human Rights” between 1835 and 1839. However, I suspect that the phrase was used earlier.

Thomas Paine’s work “The Rights of Man” was published in 1791.

3

The online OED shows Tom Paine from 1791 as first, but I can find the phrase being used by others at the same time. Very common in that time frame.

I even found a 1764 cite in an Irish newspaper.

4

As a popualrizer, one I’m sure Paine was familiar with, France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man was passed in 1789.

5

Yes, and his terms “the rights of man” translated (in part) the original title of that document, “La Déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du citoyen”.

6

Thanks for all the replies. I was wondering what newspaper you found the reference in?

7

As one might infer, “human rights” also went under the name “rights of man”, which itself is discussed under “natural rights” theory. If you are looking of the idea, then of course it is much older than Thomas Paine.

8

Could you elaborate on this? Thanks

9

Everyone keeps mentioning Thomas Paine for his use of "The Rights of Man’ but the question was specifically for “human rights”.

While I do not know a name or date, I can perhaps narrow it down for you.

Frederick Douglass included a poem at the end of his autobiography that included the term “human rights”. He did not give a name but said the poem was written some years earlier (autobiography published in 1845) by a Methodist preacher.

Hope this helps.

10

Ok. It gets kind of tricky. First off, the earliest use of the term “human right” that I can find is from the sermons of the sixteenth century Anglican priest Richard Hooker, but he doesn’t use it the way we’re using it. He’s using it to talk about where kings derive power, and he distinguishes human right from divine right . . .the idea that kings derive the right to power because people put them there versus God putting them there.
However, and here’s my best cite…or the one that fits best for the term, is from a copy of Charles Leslie’s Jacobite newspaper “The Rehearsal”, from 1706. Leslie is criticizing a Whig newspaper, and he says:

It seems like Leslie is using the term “human right” similar to the way we’d use it (and using it to justify divine right of kings).

11

But you certainly see it by the 1770s. Here is from a speech by Arthur Lee (one of the Virginia Lees, and part of the colonial delegation sent to London), that he hoped to give to the House of Commons: