Equal Rights

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Marshall’s piece exemplifies the complexity of citizenship and equality. According to his article, Marshall believes that rights can be broken down and deconstructed as civil, political and social; each one subsequently leading into the other. Civil rights in the US came first, they were understood to mean freedom in the grandest of terms and developed during the eighteenth century. This right to freedom was extended to every man and set the foundations for most philosophical work that would explore the boundaries of these implications. Slavery was deemed acceptable under the circumstances but there were questions about what every man had a right to. The political rights movement sought to expand the pool of individuals who would be considered a part of the society so that they too could voice their opinions politically. What this meant was that those who had rights as citizens pursued a way to secure these rights politically. Political power directly impacted civil liberties in its potential to secure them or jeopardize them. This ordeal to gain political equality would make the difference in the development of social rights.“But the normal method of establishing social rights is by the exercise of political power, for social rights imply an absolute right to a certain standard of civilization which is conditional only on the discharge of the general duties of citizenship. Their content does not depend on the economic value of the individual claimant.” In this way the development of each right paved the way for the other. Civil to political, and political to social. 

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