Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generation which preceded it... Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow... Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. —Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (Source: The Life & Major Writings of Thomas Paine, ed. by Philip S. Foner, p. 251)