History

Adam Ferguson notes that “implicit submission to any leader, or the uncontrouled exercise of any power” leads to a form of military government and ultimately despotism (1767)

Adam Ferguson observed that social structures of all kinds were “the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design” (1782)

Adam Ferguson on Factional Quarrels

Adam Ferguson on Love, Self-Interest, and Pleasure

Alexander Hamilton denounces the British for imposing “oppressive taxes” on the colonists which amount to tyranny, a form of slavery, and vassalage to the Empire (1774)

Alexander Hamilton on the Civil Balance of Power

Andrew Fletcher believed that too many people were deceived by the “ancient terms and outwards forms” of their government but had in fact lost their ancient liberties (1698)

Benjamin Franklin and the Need for Unity among the Colonies

Benjamin Franklin on killing and cooking a turkey with electricity (1748)

Benjamin Franklin on making the transition from slavery to civil liberty (1789)

Benjamin Franklin on the “superstructure” of Good Government (1736)

Benjamin Franklin on the trade off between essential liberty and temporary safety (1775)

Benjamin Franklin’s List of Virtues for “Clean” Living

Cobden argues that the British Empire will inevitably suffer retribution for its violence and injustice (1853)

Cobden on the complicity of the British people in supporting war (1852)

Cobden on the folly of using government force to “protect commerce” (1836)

Daniel Webster thunders that the introduction of conscription would be a violation of the constitution, an affront to individual liberty, and an act of unrivaled despotism (1814)

David Hume argued that Individual Liberty emerged slowly out of the “violent system of government” which had earlier prevailed in Europe (1778)

Edmund Burke on liberty as “social” not “individual” liberty (1789)

Edward Gibbon believed that unless public liberty was defended by “intrepid and vigilant guardians” any constitution would degenerate into despotism (1776)

Edward Gibbon called the loss of independence and excessive obedience the "secret poison" which corrupted the Roman Empire (1776)

Edward Gibbon gloomily observed that in a unified empire like the Roman there was nowhere to escape, whereas with a multiplicity of states there were always gaps and interstices to hide in (1776)

Edward Gibbon reveals the reasons why he wrote on the Decline of the Roman Empire, “the greatest, perhaps, and most awful scene in the history of mankind” (1776)

Ferguson on the flourishing of man’s intellectual powers in a commercial society (1767)

Frederick Douglass and his Desire to be Free

Frederick Douglass makes a New Year’s resolution to gain his freedom from slavery (1836)

Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation

Frederick Douglass on Religion and Slavery

Frederick Douglass on the Ballot Box, the Jury Box, and the Cartridge Box

Frederick Douglass on Women’s Right to Vote

Georg Jellinek argues that Lafayette was one of the driving forces behind the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789)

George Washington on the Difference between Commercial and Political Relations with other Countries (1796)

George Washington on the Whiskey Rebellion and the Pardon Power

George Washington warns that the knee jerk reaction of citizens to problems is to seek a solution in the creation of a “new monarch”(1786)

George Washington warns the nation in his Farewell Address, that love of power will tend to create a real despotism in America unless proper checks and balances are maintained to limit government power (1796)

Germaine de Staël on the indestructible love of liberty (1818)

Gouverneur Morris on the proper balance between commerce, private property, and political liberty (1776)

Guizot on how intellectual and political diversity and competition created a unique European civilization (1828)

Guizot on liberty and reason (1851)

Guizot on man’s unquenchable desire for liberty and free political institutions (1820-22)

Guizot on the legitimacy of state power and its limits (1851)

Gustave de Beaumont and Irish liberty (1839)

Harriet Martineau on the institution of slavery, “restless slaves”, and the Bill of Rights (1838)

Henry Parker on Parliament’s role in limiting the power of Kings (1642)

Hippolyte Taine on how the modern bureaucratic state destroys spontaneous and fruitful private cooperation (1890)

James Mackintosh on how constitutions grow and are not made (1799)

James Mackintosh on the relationship between justice and utility (1791)

James Madison argues that the Constitution places war-making powers squarely with the legislative branch; for the president to have these powers is the “the true nurse of executive aggrandizement” (1793)

James Madison on the “sagacious and monied few” who are able to “harvest” the benefits of government regulations (1787)

James Madison on the dangers of elections resulting in overbearing majorities who respect neither justice nor individual rights, Federalist 10 (1788)

James Madison on the mischievous effects of mutable government in The Federalist no. 62 (1788)

James Madison on the necessity of separating the power of “the sword from the purse” (1793)

James Madison on the need for the “separation of powers” because “men are not angels,” Federalist 51 (1788)

James Madison on the need for the people to declare war and for each generation, not future generations, to bear the costs of the wars they fight (1792)

James Otis on the right of the people to alter their government (1764)

Jefferson feared that it would only be a matter of time before the American system of government degenerated into a form of “elective despotism” (1785)

Jefferson on how Congress misuses the inter-state commerce and general welfare clauses to promote the centralization of power (1825)

Jefferson on Taxes and the General Welfare (1791)

Jefferson on the right to change one’s government (1776)

Jefferson tells Congress that since tax revenues are increasing faster than population then taxes on all manner of items can be “dispensed with” (i.e. abolished) (1801)

Jefferson warns about the rise of an “Anglo-Monarchio-Aristocratic party” in America (1797)

Jefferson’s list of objections to the British Empire in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence (1776)

Jefferson’s preference for “newspapers without government” over “government without newspapers” (1787)

John Adams argues that the British Empire is not a “true” empire but a form of a “republic” where the rule of law operates (1763)

John Adams on how absolute power intoxicates those who excercise that power (1814)

John Adams on Religion and the Constitution

John Adams predicts a glorious future for America under the new Constitution and is in “reverence and awe” at its future prospects (1787)

John Adams thought he could see arbitrary power emerging in the American colonies and urged his countrymen to “nip it in the bud” before they lost all their liberties (1774)

John C. Calhoun notes that taxation divides the community into two great antagonistic classes, those who pay the taxes and those who benefit from them (1850)

John Calhoun and the Unchecked Majority

John Calhoun on Concurrent Majorities

John Calhoun on Executive Power and Constitutional Order

John Calhoun on Slavery as a Positive Good

John Calhoun on the Nature and Purpose of Constitutions

John Calhoun on Unchecked Majorities

John Jay in The Federalist Papers discussed why nations go to war and concluded that it was not for justice but “whenever they have a prospect of getting any thing by it” (1787)

John Jay on the pretended as well as the just causes of war (1787)

John Lilburne on one’s duty to respect “the Right, Due, and Propriety of all the Sons of Adam, as men” (1646)

John Lilburne rails against his unjust imprisonment (1646)

John Lilburne shows defiance to the tyrants who would force him to pay tythes to the Church (1648)

John Thelwall on political sheep shearing (1795)

Leggett on the tendency of the government to become “the universal dispenser of good and evil” (1834)

Liberty in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789)

Livy on the irrecoverable loss of liberty under the Roman Empire (10 AD)

Lord Acton argues that civil liberty arose out of the conflict between the power of the Church and the Monarchy (1877)

Lord Acton on the destruction of the liberal Girondin group and the suicide of Condorcet during the French Revolution (1910)

Lord Acton on the storming of “the instrument and the emblem of tyranny” in Paris, the Bastille, on July 14, 1789 (1910)

Lord Acton writes to Bishop Creighton that the same moral standards should be applied to all men, political and religious leaders included, especially since “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (1887)

Macaulay and Bunyan on the evils of swearing and playing hockey on Sunday (1830)

Macaulay argues that “the main end” of government is the protection of persons and property (1839)

Macaulay argues that politicians are less interested in the economic value of public works to the citizens than they are in their own reputation, embezzlement and"jobs for the boys" (1830)

Macaulay wittily denounces a tyrannical priest as being an intermediate grub between sycophant and oppressor (1837)

Madame de Staël argues that Napoleon was able to create a tyrannical government by pandering to men’s interests, corrupting public opinion, and waging constant war (1817)

Madame de Staël on how liberty is ancient and despotism is modern (1818)

Madame de Staël on the tyrant Napoleon (1818)

Madison argued that war is the major way by which the executive office increases its power, patronage, and taxing power (1793)

Madison on “Parchment Barriers” and the defence of liberty I (1788)

Madison on “Parchment Barriers” and the defence of liberty II (1788)

Mercy Otis Warren asks why people are so willing to obey the government and answers that it is supineness, fear of resisting, and the long habit of obedience (1805)

Michel Chevalier on two kinds of political power in America, the Caesars and the Commissioners (1835)

Pufendorf on the danger of rulers confusing their own self-interest with that of the State (1695)

Richard Overton argues that to submit to the unjust rule by another is to violate one’s right of self ownership (1646)

Richard Overton shoots “An Arrow against all Tyrants” from the prison of Newgate into the prerogative bowels of the arbitrary House of Lords and all other usurpers and tyrants whatsoever (1646)

Richard Price on giving thanks for the principles of the Revolution of 1688 (1789)

Richard Price on how the “domestic enemies” of liberty have been more powerful and more successful than foreign enemies (1789)

Richard Price on the true Nature of Love of One’s Country (1789)

Robert Molesworth on the benefits of open borders and free immigration (1705)

Spooner states the importance of the 9th Amendment to the American Constitution which protects the natural rights of the people not enumerated in the first 8 Amendments (1886)

The ex-slave Frederick Douglass reveals that reading speeches by English politicians produced in him a deep love of liberty and hatred of oppression (1882)

Thierry on the need for songs about our lost liberties which will act as a barrier to encroaching power (1845)

Thomas Clarkson on the “glorious” victory of the abolition of the slave trade in England (1808)

Thomas Gordon compares the Greatness of Spartacus with that of Julius Caesar (1721)

Thomas Gordon on how people are frightened into giving up their liberties (1722)

Thomas Gordon on how the “Spirit of Party” substitutes party principles for moral principles, thus making it possible for the worst to get on top (1744)

Thomas Gordon on standing armies as a power which is inconsistent with liberty (1722)

Thomas Gordon on the nature of power to expand (1721)

Thomas Jefferson boasts about having reduced the size of government and eliminated a number of “vexatious” taxes (1805)

Thomas Jefferson’s First Draft of the Declaration of Independence denounced the slave trade as an “execrable Commerce” and slavery itself as a “cruel war against nature itself” (1776)

Thucydides on political intrigue in the divided city of Corcyra caused by the “desire to rule” (5thC BC)

Tocqueville on Centralised Government in Canada and Decentralised Government in America (1856)

William Walwyn wittily argues against state enforced religious conformity (1646)