Freedom of Speech

The American Republic is an excellent textbook for classroom use which provides, in a single volume, critical, original documents revealing the character of American discourse on the nature and importance of local government, the… more

This is Milton’s famous defense of freedom of speech and the press, in an edition based upon Sir Richard Jebb’s lectures at Cambridge in 1872, with extensive notes and commentaries. Mlton’s work was a protest against Parliament’s… more

Vol. 18 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains a number of Mill’s essays on politics, including his reviews of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and his book On Liberty.

Godwin’s best known work of political theory. Written in the early years of the French Revolution before the Terror had begun, Godwin provides a devastating critique of unjust government institutions and optimistically proposes that… more

In Defense of the Constitution refutes modern critics of the Constitution who assail it as “reactionary” or “undemocratic.” The author argues that modern disciples of Progressivism are determined to centralize political control in… more

Liberty Fund’s edition of Dicey’s most famous work on English constitutional law in which he defended the idea of the sovereignty of parliament under an independent judiciary and the rule of law.

A series of lectures Dicey gave at Harvard Law School on the rise of collectivism in England during the 19th century and its impact on legislation.

An anthology of primary sources which documents the first great party struggle in American history between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists over the proper construction of the new Constitution, political economy, the… more

One of the articles James Mill wrote for the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Liberty, Order, and Justice seeks to familiarize students with the basic principles of the Constitution, and to explain their origin, meaning, and purpose. Particular emphasis is placed on federalism and the separation of powers.… more

Mill had been somewhat coy about publishing The Subjection of Women during his lifetime because he feared the condemnation of his peers for daring to apply the general notions of individual liberty which he had clearly spelled out in… more

Spencer considered The Principles of Ethics to be his finest work. In the second volume he covers the ethics of social life (or justice), negative beneficence, positive beneficence, and a number of topics in several appendices (such… more

Spencer’s first major work of political philosophy in which he attempts to lay the basis for a limited state on a rigorous development of a doctrine of natural rights. He begins with a defense of his “first principle” ’that every… more

View of the Constitutionwas the first extended, systematic commentary on the United States Constitution after its ratification and later its amendment by the Bill of Rights. As Clyde N. Wilson notes, “Tucker is the exponent of… more