> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Weekend Words: Rights
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/weekend-words-rights/
- Published: 2014-06-08T14:32:05.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:33:22.000Z
- Description: Two-hundred twenty-five years ago today, James Madison proposed twelve amendments to the United States constitution. Three and a half months later, ten of the twelve were ratified, and have since become known as the Bill of Rights.
- Author: Weekend Editors
- Tags: Opinion, Weekend, Weekend Words, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:03 (2014, 2015, part 1)

![liberty](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2014/05/liberty.jpg)

Hendrick de Keyser, “Liberty” (1614–20). Bronze. height 173 cm. Nieuwe Kerk, Delft. (Image via Web Gallery of Art)

Two-hundred twenty-five years ago today, James Madison [proposed](http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/billofrights.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) twelve amendments to the United States constitution. Three and a half months later, ten of the twelve were ratified, and have since become known as the Bill of Rights.

> “What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.”  
>  
> **—H. L. Mencken**

> “So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we’ll be called a democracy.”  
>  
> **—Roger Baldwin**

> “We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for a hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law.”  
>  
> **—Lyndon Johnson, speech to Congress, 1963**

> “The extension of women’s rights is the basic principle of all social progress.”  
>  
> **—Charles Fourier, *Theory of Four Movements*, 1808**

> “The price of championing human rights is a little inconsistency at times.”  
>  
> **—David Owen, speech in Parliament, 1977**

> “The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.”  
>  
> **—J. Paul Getty**

> “The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved.”  
>  
> **—Emma Goldman**