Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

ights to popular government. There was nothing sacred about governments,
which on the contrary should be changed as required. The types of law
necessary in a country were to be discerned by man's reason investigating
the fundamental laws of man's nature. Against the arbitrary whim of the
ruler Sidney championed law as "written Reason" and as defense of life,
liberty, and property: "If there be no other law in a kingdom than the will
of a Prince, there is no such thing as liberty. Property also is an appendage
to liberty; and 'tis as impossible for a man to have a right to lands or goods,
if he has no liberty, and enjoys his life only at the pleasure of another, as it
is to enjoy either when he is deprived of them."
Although Sidney urged popular government as against monarchy, he was no
believer in the unlimited rights of Parliament. On the contrary, it was to be
subordinated to the individual rights of the people. Power, he warned, inevitably
corrupts and every institutional power must be guarded against. To
Sidney, government rested on a contract between government and governed.
When government fails to perform its role in the service of the people, it
deserves to be removed. Nor can a people give up their liberties permanently
or be bound to government by the dead hand of the past. In his
Dying Speech, Sidney proclaimed that "God has left nations the liberty of
setting up such governments as best please themselves." He thanked God
that he had now become a witness to the truth and to the "Old Cause" of
liberty against tyranny in "an age which makes truth pass for treason."
A liberal Republican and friend of Sir Henry Vane (the Massachusetts
champion of Anne Hutchinson), Sidney had been unhappy with Cromwell's
turn to tyranny and had spent the Republican years in retirement. He was
then forced to spend the bulk of the Restoration years in exile, until his
execution. Sidney's great classical model was Brutus and his stirring motto
Manus haec inimïca tyrranis ("This hand to tyrants ever sworn the foe," in
the translation of John Quincy Adams).
Algernon Sidney's widening impact on America during the eighteenth
century influenced the great liberal Massachusetts Congregational ministers
Andrew Eliot and Jonathan Mayhew. Eliot testified that this "martyr to
civil liberty" first taught him just principles of government. Indeed, the
defense of revolution by the martyred Sidney was far more inspiring to
Americans than the defense by the timorous John Locke. Sidney's historical
honor roll consisted of those who had helped their countrymen get rid of
tyrants. Injustice, to Sidney, made a government illegal. "Swords were given
to men that none be slaves but such as knew not how to use them," and "the
law that forbids injuries were of no use if no penalty might be inflicted on
those who will not obey it." Concluded Sidney: "Let the danger be never so
great, there is a possibility of safety whilst men have life, hands, arms, and
courage to use them, but the people must certainly perish, who tamely suffer
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