“What is the meaning of the doctrine that we all enjoy "equality of political rights"? Only this -- that the state has no regard for my person, that to it I, like every other, am only a man, without having another significance that commands its deference. I do not command its deference as an aristocrat, a nobleman's son, or even as heir of an official whose office belongs to me by inheritance (as in the Middle Ages countships, etc., and later under absolute royalty, where hereditary offices occur). Now the state has an innumerable multitude of rights to give away; the right to lead a battalion, a company, etc.; the right to lecture at a university, and so forth; it has them to give away because they are its own, namely, state rights or "political" rights.”