“The civil state regarded purely as a lawful state, is based on the following a priori principles:
- The freedom of every member of society as a human being.
- The equality of each with all the others as a subject.
- The independence of each member of a commonwealth as a citizen.
“These principles are not so much laws given by an already established state, as laws by which a state can alone be established in accordance with pure rational principles of external human right. ”
Immanuel Kant, Theory and Practice (1791)