Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778, French Philosopher, The Social Contract, 1762
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Hopkins was complaining about the fact that England could tax the colonies and thereby take their property without their consent made the American colonists in the “miserable condition of slaves.” Essentially the fundamental complaint of the Americans was this and in a decade it would erupt as the American Revolution. At the same time, Hopkins was a slave owner and yet saw nothing wrong with that.
He was making a generalization based on his historical study of nations and societies.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic and educational thought.