# Who first used the term "human rights" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 31, 2006, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-first-used-the-term-human-rights/350732 "2006-03-31T18:13:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-first-used-the-term-human-rights/350732/1 "2006-03-31T18:13:28Z")
So? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-first-used-the-term-human-rights/350732/2 "2006-03-31T19:21:16Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-first-used-the-term-human-rights/350732/3 "2006-03-31T19:52:52Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-first-used-the-term-human-rights/350732/4 "2006-03-31T19:59:25Z")
As a popualrizer, one I’m sure Paine was familiar with, France’s [Declaration of the Rights of Man](http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/rightsof.htm) was passed in 1789. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-first-used-the-term-human-rights/350732/5 "2006-03-31T20:10:29Z")
[QUOTE=Crandolph] As a popualrizer, one I’m sure Paine was familiar with, France’s [Declaration of the Rights of Man](http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/rightsof.htm) was passed in 1789. [/QUOTE] 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”. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-first-used-the-term-human-rights/350732/6 "2006-04-01T19:37:30Z")
[QUOTE=samclem] 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. [/QUOTE] Thanks for all the replies. I was wondering what newspaper you found the reference in? ---
**Author:** ![Lynwood\_Slim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Lynwood\_Slim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynwood_Slim)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-first-used-the-term-human-rights/350732/7 "2006-04-02T00:29:19Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-first-used-the-term-human-rights/350732/8 "2006-04-03T13:39:34Z")
[QUOTE=Lynwood Slim] 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. [/QUOTE] Could you elaborate on this? Thanks ---
**Author:** ![cdickens27](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/919ad9/32.png) [@cdickens27](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cdickens27)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-first-used-the-term-human-rights/350732/9 "2013-08-20T03:37:26Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-first-used-the-term-human-rights/350732/10 "2013-08-20T05:10:41Z")
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: > [@](#): > > For there is no other right than divine right, that is, all right in the world, of whatever sort, is derived from God. And that what we call human right is that right which God gives us, but administered by the hands of men, therefore called human. We have a divine right to our liberty and property, insomuch as whoever invades these unjustly, is guilty of a sin against God, even our governors are answerable to God, if they deprive us of life without just cause. > > But of all right, the right of dominion and government is most expressly from God, for who can give one man dominion over another but God? No man has power over his own life, or to give that power to another, or over his liberty or property, as Mr. Locke has confessed and proved in what I before quoted out of him. Are all men equal by nature? They must then keep so, for none can give the dominion of himself to another. But are men born in subjection, and have parents any authority by nature? Even that is from God, who is the God of nature. The dominion of parents, and husbands, and masters is all from God, it is all _jure divino_, and so must that of kings be, there is no other way possible. 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). ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-first-used-the-term-human-rights/350732/11 "2013-08-20T05:28:10Z")
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: > [@](#): > > If you consider the Americans as endued with the same feelings, and vested with the same human rights by the God who is our common maker, you will then perceive, nay, feel, that a violation of those rights must be atrocious to them as to you.