A Commentary and Review of Montesquieu’s ’Spirit of Laws’ | Online Library of Liberty
One of two books by the French liberal Destutt de Tracy which were translated and published by Thomas Jefferson.| oll.libertyfund.org
One of two books by the French liberal Destutt de Tracy which were translated and published by Thomas Jefferson.| oll.libertyfund.org
This is the first edition of Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population. In this work Malthus argues that there is a disparity between the rate of growth of population (which increases geometrically) and the rate of growth of agriculture (which increases only arithmetically). He then explores how populations have historically been kept in check.| oll.libertyfund.org
One copy of this text contains a note naming a certain “Dr. Sutcliffe” as the author. This text rebuts the idea that legislation is inseparable from taxation, asserting that practices affirmed by general understanding can sustain all such distinctions “for the powers of governors are just so much as, and can be no more than such compact gives them.” Citing the 40 shilling minimum to vote in England, and Locke on the social contract, the writer denies the authority to tax without repre...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
This essay was among the most rhetorically colorful of the responses to the writers in the pay of the British government, Samuel Johnson, John Shabbeare, and John Wesley. Taking a strong moral stance against taxation without representation, the text excoriates those who “prostitute their abilities and belie their consciences for HIRE.” The American colonies were simply resorting to the only means left to them when “kings and governors degenerate into tyrants.”| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
George Turnbull belongs with a group of early Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, including Francis Hutcheson, who found their native Calvinism too repressive. They sought to relocate religion within a context of reason and science and to establish a tolerant and humane ethic upon values rooted in classical ideals.| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
This text is notable for its reading of the Declaratory Act and the specific phrase, “in all cases whatsoever.” contending that such could only refer to constitutional means. It made the point that not every act of government constituted a precedent in law, observing “however successful” certain errors “may have proved for a time when men’s passions were heated,” nevertheless, “when reason resumed her empire” such mistakes “were rectified, and the constitution gathered sti...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
This essay countered the July 6, 1775, statement by the Congress in Philadelphia declaring “The Causes and Necessity of Their Taking up Arms.” Like other ministerial writings of that year, it based its case on the “universally admitted” need for “a supreme and uncontroullable power” to exist “somewhere in every State.” The pamphlet is notable in its denunciation of William Pitt, and the inconsistency of Americans who continued to “flatter” him, despite his party’s suppor...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
In this essay, points are drawn from Irish experience to contend that the necessities claimed for taxing the colonies cannot be well founded, but “it is evident that this is not the harvest-time there for a rapacious minister.” Understanding the implicit claim looming over his own realm, the writer hoped that the English Parliament in “her wisdom” would let Americans remain “dependent in every external relation, but let them experience internal liberty, and a security in their acqui...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
This piece argues against taxing the colonies, not on grounds of mere expediency but a prudential recognition that tensions always exist between lived experience and higher ideals. Not a denial of higher law, Burke critiques those who think they can execute policy even in the most delicate circumstances where principles seem to be in opposition: Parliament’s authority versus colonial rights. Such issues, he noted “can never be moved without shaking the foundations of the best governments.”| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
This piece defends Parliament’s right to tax by contending that no distinction in law can be maintained between regulation and taxation. Both arise from the same power to determine the disposition of property and precedent gives that power to Parliament alone. But the author recognizes the danger of permitting such authority when the properties of members of Parliament are not subject to the same duties. He argues that revenues from such taxes should only be for expenditures within the colo...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
This text makes a constitutional case for local self-government based on the historical precedents of the early dominions of Great Britain, arguing that the jurisdiction of Parliament over internal revenue was not extended to Ireland and was only exercised in Wales, once it achieved actual representation. Citing Locke, Molesworth and Sydney, he laid claim to real Whiggery, by which he did not mean “certain modern Whigs, who seem more fond of the word, than anything belonging to the characte...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
The text uses vituperative rhetoric rare even for other defenders of British policy. The author relies heavily on the analogy of the aggrieved parent and ungrateful child, with the American colonists exemplifying “Ingratitude…the disgrace of human Nature.” The main charge is an unwillingness to bear the expenses of their own defense. He also chastises American duplicity for holding slaves “because of their Complexion.” Such, he claims, “is an American Logic, unknown to the generou...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
This anonymous pamphlet addresses parliamentary representation and taxation, two preoccupations of the period. This text critiques virtual representation as new and asks what such a practice could possibly look like? The writer reasoned that Parliament would be obliged to receive all American petitions. Yet, “when the Stamp Bill was in agitation, not a single soul would present a petition from the poor Americans.” To the idea that revenue petitions were disallowed, the writer notes that e...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
Preaching before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in February of 1773, Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph, sought to ease tensions between Britain and her colonies by reminding both sides of their common Christianity, their interests in trade, the benefits of science and the principles of good governance, noting that the successes of the Americans in these endeavors “ought to be to us an ever memorable proof, that the true art of government consists in not governing too much...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
This text is among the most entertaining responses to Samuel Johnson and reveals a powerful link between a sense of natural justice on the one hand and pragmatic common sense on the other. Siding with the Americans in their right to self-government, the author nevertheless excoriated such popular radicals as John Wilkes as false patriots even while lambasting the high-born defenders of imperial administration, noting that “Human statutes, that run counter to the statutes of nature, are absu...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
The questions of where to locate, in whose hands to place, and how to exercise the state’s powers of deadly military force inform a perennial topic in political theory and coalesce into a recurrent problem in political practice. Liberty Fund presents Writings on Standing Armies, a newly collected, authoritative edition of the most important pamphlets on the “standing armies” controversy of 1697–98. In addition, these writings express a subtext that is of equal and enduring importance:...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
This essay is among the most articulate defenses of Parliament’s supremacy over the colonies on matters of trade and taxation. It defended the Stamp Act on both policy and constitutional grounds, advocating a late mercantilist position in favor of a “wise and proper use of the colonies” as being “the principal Object of a British Minister’s care.” Constitutionally, it argued that all subjects, regardless of location, were virtually represented by Parliament.| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
This essay inverts the Grenville administration’s arguments, asserting that a true understanding of the Atlantic trade proves that a reduction of income supporting the circulation of goods must reduce commerce overall. This was in addition to the fact that “as Liberty is the grand Incentive to Industry and Commerce…a Decay of both would ensue the Loss of it.” The writer then cautions that nullification of colonial charters might well eventuate in the loss of English liberty at home.| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
This text shows a strong familiarity with religious and legal thought, referencing England’s constitutional development, including the relationship of Parliament to Ireland as well as the evils arising from the management of India by the East India company. Grounded in the theological universalism of its day, the essay contended that “That just God, whom we have all so deeply offended, can hardly inflict a severer punishment, than by committing us to the natural consequences of our own co...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
This text presents a fusion of natural law, natural rights and contemporary Christian universalism, contending that the American colonies are deserving of their own governance on grounds of “the plain maxims of the law of nature, and the clearest doctrines of Christianity.” The primary end of the work is to show that “The Americans, in common with the whole race of man, have indisputably an inherent right to liberty,” and that the “the rights of sovereignty reside in the people them...| Recent Additions - Online Library of Liberty
The author of “America Vindicated” presented arguments and word choices very similar to an essay written by the American New York jurist William Smith (1728-1793). This piece presents a strong refutation of Parliamentary Supremacy and virtual representation on the grounds that actual representation must be considered a fundamental part of the British constitution: The text calls for reform by creating a general colonial parliament.| oll.libertyfund.org
The OLL is a curated collection of scholarly works that engage with vital questions of liberty. Spanning the centuries from Hammurabi to Hume, and collecting material on topics from art and economics to law and political theory, the OLL provides you with a rich variety of texts to explore and consider.| oll.libertyfund.org
This classic study is one of the few books to explore extensively the many facets of envy—“a drive which lies at the core of man’s life as a social being.” Ranging widely over literature, philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences, Professor Schoeck— a distinguished sociologist and anthropologist—elucidates both the constructive and destructive consequences of envy in social life. Perhaps most important, he demonstrates that not only the impetus toward a totalitarian regime b...| oll.libertyfund.org
Universal Economics shows the critical importance of property rights to the existence and success of market economies.| oll.libertyfund.org
