Charles Merriam's Timeline: Life, Photos, and Key Events

"Considering the question as one of principle, it is evident that much depends on one?s political theory. If we believe that government has no jurisdiction over men unless they have consented to it, and that every man is entitled to equal civil and political rights, regardless of his fitness for them, then it follows that to deprive any man of the suffrage for any cause, or any people of self-government for any cause, is a departure from democratic principles . . . . If on the other hand, it is b"

"Rights are considered to have their source not in nature, but in law."

"In speaking of natural rights, therefore, it is essential to remember that these alleged rights have no political force whatsoever, unless recognized and enforced by the state.?[Progressive]"

"The exigencies of modern industrial and urban life have forced the state to intervene at so many points where an immediate individual interest is difficult to show, that the old doctrine has been given up for the theory that the state acts for the general welfare. It is not admitted that there are no limits of the action of the state, but on the other hand it is fully conceded that there are no natural rights which bar the way. The question is now one of expediency rather than principle.?[Progre"

"It is denied that any limit can be set to governmental activity.?[Progressive]"

"The present tendency, then, in American political theory is to disregard the once dominant ideas of natural rights and the social contract, although it must be admitted that the political scientists are more agreed upon this point than is the general public.?[Progressive]"

"[R]ights do not belong to men simply as men, but because of the superior qualities, physical, intellectual, moral or political, which are characteristic of certain individuals or races.?[Progressive]"

"[N]ot only are men created unequal?but this very inequality must be regarded as one of the essential conditions of human progress . . . . This fundamental fact that individuals or races are unequal is not an argument against, but rather in favor of, social and political advancement.?[Progressive]"

"[F]rom the standpoint of modern political science the slave holders were right in declaring that liberty can be given only to those who have political capacity enough to use it, and they were also right in maintaining that two greatly unequal races cannot exist side by side on terms of perfect equality.[Progressive]"

"[T]he influence of the German school is most obvious in relation to the contract theory of the origin of the state and the idea of the function of the state. The theory that the state originates in an agreement between men was assailed by the German thinkers and the historical, organic, evolutionary idea substituted for it.?[Progressive]"