“For centuries there has been ceaseless struggle for freedom. In the strife for individual sovereignty against subservience to aristocracies, kings, and nations the proudest empires of time have been rocked to their foundations and the scepters of monarchs shaken from their grasp and trampled in the dust at their feet.
From the ancient idea of freedom, when the interest of the state was supreme and that of the individual secondary, has grown, or unfolded an enlarged conception of Liberty which has energized its champions to acts of exalted heroism and sublime self-endurance, immortalizing a long catalogue of heros who have lived, suffered, and died for liberty.”

taken from the Liberty periodical published december 1881
the history of human rights is longer than most remember, read on.

http://libertarian-labyrinth.org/liberty/01-11.pdf