 Christopher Schmidt argues that the standard idea is a 20th century development, deviating from the concept of civil rights that prevailed in the decades following the Civil War. He notes that the earlier concept referred to “the right to contract, own property, sue, testify in court, and the right to physical security,” all of which were regarded as “fundamental to citizenship” (2021: 30 and 52). But “[w]hen civil rights was [sic] reborn in the middle decades of the twentieth century,” a “novel” concept emerged that “centered on a sweeping nondiscrimination principle rather than on a bounded collection of fundamental rights” (135).