THE CONCEPT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN FAMOUS AMERICAN INTELLECTUALS’ WRITINGS FROM PURITAN TO MODERN ERA

Abstract

This paper intends to trace the appearance of the human rights concepts and/or issues appearing from the Puritan era into the modern era, especially in early years of the twentieth century. The study is focused on some writings, precisely nonfiction writings, from famous American intellectuals that have been compiled in two volumes entitled The American Intellectual Tradition (2011) by David Hollinger and the friends. It is clearly seen that the concept and issue of human rights have already appeared since the early times of American civilization. Regardless of the uniqueness of human rights’s idea in Puritan era, human rights had become stepping stones of how the American society should built up. Therefore, it is no wonder if the United States truly lays all aspects on the human rights, the liberal one, in particular. It now becomes the pioneer of the human rights.