Prior to the eighteenth century, nearly everyone accepted the idea that all rights resided in and originated from God and divine creation.

The common notion also was that God bestowed these rights exclusively upon a king, monarch, or emperor, who was thus God's de facto chosen representative and exclusive agent on earth.

This we now learn in our history classes, was the "divine right of kings".  The king (or pharoh, czar, or emperor) had exclusive possession of all rights and authority, and no one else had any rights at all.

Under this idea, the king and the king alone was "sovereign" over all persons and all property in his realm, and if you were not the king, you survived only by his sufferance. 

You lived because the king granted you the privilege of living.  At any time he pleased, he could take back that privilege.  In short, you were the "property" of the king.  The king was sovereign, a term that is often used synonomously with king or monarch.

We don't have nearly as many kings and monarchs sitting on thrones as we used to have, and yet the notion of omnipotent government as the repository, keeper, and grantor of both "rights" and "privilege" still persists.

From this mistaken idea grows and persists the notion that government, or more accurately, other individuals operating under the rubric of "government", may rightly seize any property it (or they) wishes to - to include the services of any human being, or even the life of any human being.

In short, the individual has only those rights (or privileges) which government and it's agents is pleased to grant, or pleased to let him retain.