Natural rights are rights that believe it is important for all humans and animals to have out of (natural law.) These rights are often viewed as inalienable, meaning they can almost never be taken away.

As Secretary to Lord Shaftesbury, Secretary of the Lord Proprietors of Carolina (1668-71), Secretary to the Council of Trade and Plantations (1673-4), and member of the Board of Trade (1696-1700), Locke was one of the six or eight men who closely invigilated and helped to shape the old colonial system during the …

Locke starts out with the idea of the property of person–each person owns his or her own body, and all the labor that they perform with the body. When an individual adds their own labor, their own property, to a foreign object or good, that object becomes their own because they have added their labor.

Natural rights are often said to be granted to people by “natural law.” Legal rights are rights granted by governments or legal systems. As such, they can also be modified, restricted or repealed. In the United States, legal rights are granted by the legislative bodies of the federal, state and local governments.

Natural rights are those that are not dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and are therefore universal and inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws).

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and John Locke (1632–1704) in England, and Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) in France, were among the philosophers who developed a theory of natural rights based on rights to life, liberty, and property (later expanded by Jefferson to “the pursuit of happiness”) that individuals would have in …