But tell us, O Men ! we pray you tell us what injuries have we committed to forfeit ? What Law have we broken, or what Cause given you, whereby you can pretend a Right to invade and violate our part, and natural Rights? (Thomas Tryon, The Country-Mans' Companion, 1684)
In consequence of the sensibility with which they are endowed, [animals] ought to partake of natural right. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, 1755)
The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. (Jeremy Bentham, 1780)
Where the mossy riv'let strays, /
Far from human haunts and ways,
All on Nature you depend, /
And life's poor season peaceful spend.
Or, if man's superior might /
Dare invade your native right,
On the lofty ether borne, /
Man with all his powers you scorn;
Swiftly seek, on clanging wings, /
Other lakes and other springs ;
And the foe you cannot brave, /
Scorn at least to be his slave.
(Robert Burns, 1787)
If we judge impartially, we shall acknowledge that there are the RIGHTS of a BEAST, as well as the RIGHTS of a MAN. And because man is considered as the Lord of this lower creation, he is not thereby licensed to infringe on the rights of those below him, any more than a King, or Magistrate, is licensed to infringe on the rights of his subjects." (Herman Daggett, 1791)
Experience plainly demonstrates the inefficacy of mere morality to prevent aggression, and the necessity of coercive laws for the security of rights. I therefore propose, that the Rights of Beasts be formally acknowledged by the state, and that a law be framed upon that principle, to guard and protect them from acts of flagrant and wanton cruelty, whether committed by their owners or others." (John Lawrence, 1796)
Animals are endued with a capability of perceiving pleasure and pain; and, from the abundant provision which we perceive in the world for the gratification of their several senses, we must conclude that the Creator wills the happiness of these his creatures, and consequently that humanity towards them is agreeable to him, and cruelty the contrary. This, I take it, is the foundation of the Rights of Animals, as far as they can be traced independently of scripture and is, even by itself, decisive on the subject, being the same sort of argument as that on which Moralists found the Rights of Mankind, as deduced from the Light of Nature. (Thomas Young, 1798)
Whilst you are pleading the rights of the animal creation, you will also promote the best interests of Christianity in the hearts of your children. (Legh Richmond, 1801).
Their freedom and enjoyments, when they cease to be consistent with our just dominion and enjoyments, can be no part of their natures; but whilst they are consistent, their rights, subservient as they are, ought to be as sacred as our own…Every other branch of our duties, when subject to frequent violation, has been recognised and inculcated by our laws, and the breaches of them repressed by punishments; and why not in this, where our duties are so important, so universally extended, and the breaches of them so frequent and so abominable ?" (Lord Erskine, 1809)
The wise man calls upon us to 'open our mouths' [for] the 'dumb,'…the unhappy victims of…lawless cruelty and oppression; wretches, who have no kind advocate to plead in behalf of their invaded rights; no helping hand to procure for them redress from their furious assailants; no friend to truth, ready, or willing, to expose the cunning devices wherewith they have been entrapped.—Well may they be called "dumb," since their tongues can be of no avail to them, when silenced by the imperiousness of wealth, the dread of irritating, by a vain appeal to justice, those under whose hands they have already groaned, to still further acts of violence, and their utter inability to baffle the false gloss with which the vile schemes of their adversaries have deluded them. (Clergyman of the Church of England, 1824
Animals have the same abstract Rights of Life and Personal Liberty with man." (Edward Nicholson, 1879)
"f 'rights' exist at all—and both feeling and usage indubitably prove that they do exist—they cannot be consistency awarded to men and denied to animals, since the same sense of justice and compassion apply in both cases. (Henry Salt, 1892)
To advocate the rights of animals is far more than to plead for compassion or justice towards the victims of ill-usage; it is not only, and not primarily, for the sake of the victims that we plead, but for the sake of mankind itself. Our true civilization, our race-progress, our humanity (in the best sense of the term) are concerned in this development; it is ourselves, our own vital instincts, that we wrong, when we trample on the rights of the fellow-beings, human or animal, over whom we chance to hold jurisdiction. (Henry Salt, 1892)
Above all, the sense of ridicule that at present attaches to the supposed 'sentimentalism' of an advocacy of animals' rights must be faced and swept away. The fear of this absurd charge deprives the cause of humanity of many workers who would otherwise lend their aid, and accounts in part for the unduly diffident and apologetic tone which is too often adopted by humanitarians. We must meet this ridicule, and retort it without hesitation on those to whom it properly pertains. The laugh must be turned against the true 'cranks' and 'crotchet-mongers'—noodles who can give no wiser reason for the infliction of suffering on animals than that it is 'better for the animals themselves'—the flesh-eaters who labour under the pious belief that animals were 'sent' to us as food—the silly women who imagines that the corpse of a bird is a becoming article of head-gear—the half-witted sportsmen who vow that the vigour of the English race is dependent on the practice of fox-hunting—and the half-enlightened scientists who are unaware that vivisection has moral and spiritual, no less than physical, consequences. (Henry Salt, Animals' Rights 1892)
In English law animals have legal rights corresponding to a reality embraced by every sound mind. They have rights therefore—animal rights. (Wilfrid Lescher, Why I Oppose Vivisection, 1896)
 Transcriber's Notes
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