 Until well into the 20th century, civil rights were sharply contrasted with political and social rights. Civil rights encompassed the rights to own property, enter into legally binding contracts, receive due process of law, bring private lawsuits, testify in court, and worship one’s religion. They also covered freedom of speech and the press (Amar 1998: 216–17). But they were traditionally conceived as excluding the right to vote or to hold public office, which were assigned to an entirely separate category, that of political rights, and conferred by law only on (some) adult males. Social rights concerned the domain of interactions deemed “private,” which encompassed not only personal relationships such as friendships but transactions between businesses and their clientele.