The Essential Rothbard - Ludwig von Mises Institute

The Essential Rothbard 57
His grim judgment in part rests on the detailed account in the
preceding volume of the persecution of the antinomian Anne
Hutchinson. He recommends Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker’s
The Puritan Oligarchy139 as “brilliant and deeply critical.” 140
Much more to Rothbard’s liking was the other tradition:
The other was optimistic, individualist, libertarian, and even
deistic, and was reflected in the Levellers, and in such
escapees from Massachusetts as Anne Hutchinson and Roger
Williams, and later in Charles Chauncy and Jonathan Mayhew.
141
He stresses the influence of “Algernon Sidney, John Locke, and
Trenchard and Gordon of Cato’s Letters. Each made a profound
contribution to the growth and development of libertarian thought
in America.” 142
He views Locke as in essence a radical libertarian:
There were two strains in Locke’s Essay: the individualist and
libertarian, and the conservative and majoritarian, and examples
of caution and inconsistency are easy to find. But the
individualist view is the core of the argument. . . . Locke was
an extraordinarily secretive and timorous writer on political
affairs. . . . Hence it is not unreasonable to assume that the
conservative strain in Locke was a camouflage for the radically
libertarian core of his position. 143
139 Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, The Puritan Oligarchy (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947).
140 Conceived in Liberty, vol. I, p. 516.
141 Ibid., vol. II, p. 188.
142 Ibid.
143 Ibid., p. 190. Willmoore Kendall, whom we shall soon encounter,
interpreted Locke as a majoritarian; Rothbard’s criticism of Kendall can
be seen as a radical Lockean assault on a conservative Lockean.