 The idea of free and equal citizenship emerged over the course of several centuries in Western societies that would become modern representative democracies. The idea can be traced back to 17th century English egalitarians and liberals, such as Lilburne (1649) and Locke (1690/1952), and it received dramatic expression during the French Revolution with its “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” (1789) and the overthrow of the entrenched hierarchies and absolutist rule of the ancien régime. But until well into the 20th century, racist and sexist assumptions about which human beings had the capacity to be fully contributing members of society led to an unduly constricted view of who could legitimately claim the rights of a free and equal citizen. Those assumptions have been largely eliminated from philosophical discourse, although they persist in some segments of society.