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Diderot on the nature of political authority (1751)
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Denis Diderot
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2017-09-14 |
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Guizot on liberty and reason (1851)
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François Guizot
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2017-09-04 |
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Herbert Spencer on “the seen” and “the unseen” consequences of the actions of politicians (1884)
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Herbert Spencer
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2017-01-09 |
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George Grote on the difficulty of public opinion alone in curbing the misuse of power by “the sinister interests” (1821)
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George Grote
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2015-04-13 |
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Gouverneur Morris on the proper balance between commerce, private property, and political liberty (1776)
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Gouverneur Morris
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2014-07-21 |
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Tocqueville on centralization as the natural form of government for democracies (1835)
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Alexis de Tocqueville
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2013-11-04 |
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David Hume believes we should assume all men are self-interested knaves when it comes to politics (1777)
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David Hume
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2013-03-11 |
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Germaine de Staël on the indestructible love of liberty (1818)
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Germaine de Staël
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2012-07-14 |
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Benjamin Constant on why the oppressed often prefer their chains to liberty (1815)
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Benjamin Constant
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2012-04-16 |
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Leggett on the tendency of the government to become “the universal dispenser of good and evil” (1834)
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William Leggett
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2011-12-14 |
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Socrates as the “gadfly” of the state (4thC BC)
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Plato
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2011-12-05 |
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Ferguson on the flourishing of man’s intellectual powers in a commercial society (1767)
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Adam Ferguson
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2011-11-21 |
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Spooner on the “knaves,” the “dupes,” and “do-nothings” among government supporters (1870)
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Lysander Spooner
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2011-10-03 |
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Jefferson on the right to change one’s government (1776)
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Thomas Jefferson
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2011-07-04 |
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Tocqueville on the spirit of association (1835)
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Alexis de Tocqueville
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2011-06-27 |
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Bastiat on the many freedoms that make up liberty (1848)
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Frédéric Bastiat
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2011-06-13 |
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Bastiat on the need for urgent political and economic reform (1848)
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Frédéric Bastiat
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2011-02-28 |
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Bastiat on the fact that even in revolution there is an indestructible principle of order in the human heart (1848)
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Frédéric Bastiat
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2011-02-14 |
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Shaftesbury on the need for liberty to promote the liberal arts (1712)
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Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury
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2010-11-29 |
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The State of New York declares that the people may “reassume” their delegated powers at any time they choose (1788)
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Jonathan Elliot
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2010-09-20 |
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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)
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Georg Jellinek
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2010-07-12 |
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Lord Acton on the destruction of the liberal Girondin group and the suicide of Condorcet during the French Revolution (1910)
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John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton
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2010-04-26 |
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The Abbé de Mably argues with John Adams about the dangers of a “commercial elite” seizing control of the new Republic and using it to their own advantage (1785)
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Gabriel Bonnot Abbé de Mably
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2009-10-05 |
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Samuel Smiles on how an idle, thriftless, or drunken man can, and should, improve himself through self-help and not by means of the state (1859).
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Samuel Smiles
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2009-09-14 |
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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)
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John Adams
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2009-08-23 |
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Benjamin Constant distinguished between the Liberty of the Ancients (“the complete subjection of the individual to the authority of the community”) and that of the Moderns (“where individual rights and commerce are respected”) (1816)
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Benjamin Constant
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2009-08-12 |
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Edward Gibbon called the loss of independence and excessive obedience the "secret poison" which corrupted the Roman Empire (1776)
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Edward Gibbon
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2009-08-03 |
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John Stuart Mill on the need for limited government and political rights to prevent the “king of the vultures” and his “minor harpies” in the government from preying on the people (1859)
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John Stuart Mill
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2009-04-20 |
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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)
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Mercy Otis Warren
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2009-03-16 |
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James Madison on the need for the “separation of powers” because “men are not angels,” Federalist 51 (1788)
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James Madison
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2008-09-22 |
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James Madison on the mischievous effects of mutable government in The
Federalist no. 62 (1788)
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James Madison
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2008-09-01 |
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Viscount Bryce reflects on how modern nation states which achieved their own freedom through struggle are not sympathetic to the similar struggles of other repressed peoples (1901)
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Viscount James Bryce
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2007-08-20 |
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Augustin Thierry laments that the steady growth of liberty in France had been disrupted by the cataclysm of the French Revolution (1859)
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Augustin Thierry
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2007-07-30 |
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Condorcet writes about the inevitability of the spread of liberty and prosperity while he was in prison awaiting execution by the Jacobins (1796)
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Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet
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2006-08-28 |
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Catharine Macaulay supported the French Revolution because there were sound "public choice" reasons for not vesting supreme power in the hands of one’s social or economic "betters" (1790)
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Catharine Macaulay
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2006-08-21 |
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Montesquieu was fascinated by the liberty which was enjoyed in England, which he attributed to security of person and the rule of law (1748)
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Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
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2006-05-01 |
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Edward Gibbon wonders if Europe will avoid the same fate as the Roman Empire, collapse brought on as a result of prosperity, corruption, and military conquest (1776)
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Edward Gibbon
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2006-03-27 |
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J.S. Mill was convinced he was living in a time when he would experience an explosion of classical liberal reform because “the spirit of the age” had dramatically changed (1831)
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John Stuart Mill
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2006-02-27 |
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The Australian radical liberal Bruce Smith lays down some very strict rules which should govern the actions of any legislator (1887)
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Bruce Smith
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2005-08-15 |
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William Emerson, in his oration to commemorate the Declaration of Independence, reminded his listeners of the “unconquerable sense of liberty” which Americans had (1802)
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William Emerson
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2005-03-14 |
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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)
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Andrew Fletcher
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2005-02-14 |
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Bernhard Knollenberg on the Belief of many colonial Americans that Liberty was lost because the Leaders of the People had failed in their Duty (2003)
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Bernhard Knollenberg
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2004-08-02 |
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Adam Smith on the Dangers of sacrificing one’s Liberty for the supposed benefits of the “lordly servitude of a court” (1759)
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Adam Smith
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2004-06-07 |
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Richard Price on the true Nature of Love of One’s Country (1789)
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Richard Price
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2004-05-24 |
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George Washington on the Difference between Commercial and Political Relations with other Countries (1796)
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George Washington
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2004-05-10 |