Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

To the objection that his theory allowed for frequent revolution, Locke
countered that "such revolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement
in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and
inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty will be borne by the
people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications,
and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the
people . . . tis not to be wondered that they should then rouse themselves.
.. ."
The third great influence on America, and perhaps the most widely cited
source in the colonies, was the works of John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon,
especially their Cato's Letters. We have already noted the influence of
the letters on the freedom of the press, as well as the strong influence of
Trenchard and Gordon's contemporaneous Independent Whig series, both
written in the early 1720s. Trenchard and Gordon were part of a small group
of Englishmen who during the eighteenth century kept alive the torch of
liberal Republican principles. This group was variously called "Commonwealthmen,"
"Real Whigs," or "true Whigs."
The great significance of Cato's Letters is that in them the wealthy John
Trenchard and his young protege Thomas Gordon greatly radicalized the
impact of Locke's libertarian creed. They did so by applying Lockean principles
to the concrete nature and problems of government, in a series of
powerfully argued and hard-hitting essays that were often cited and reprinted
and widely read throughout the American colonies. Cato's Letters
did more than merely restate Lockean doctrine. From the position that the
people have the right to revolt against a government destructive of liberty,
"Cato" proceeded to argue with great force that government is always and
everywhere the potential or actual aggressor against the rights and liberties
of the people. Liberty, the source of all the fruits of civilization and human
happiness, is ever liable to suffer the aggressions and encroachments of government,
of power, the source from which war, tyranny, and impoverishment
ever flow. Power always stands ready to conspire against liberty, and the
only salvation is for the public to keep government within strictly limited
bounds, and to be ever watchful, vigilant, and hostile to the inevitable tendencies
of government power to encroach upon liberty.
Expounding Lockean doctrine, "Cato" puts it thus:
All men are born free; Liberty is a gift which they receive from God himself;
nor can they alienate the same by consent, though possibly they may forfeit
it by crimes. . . . The right of the magistrate arises only from the right of
private men to defend themselves, to repel injuries, and to punish those who
commit them: that right being conveyed by the society to their public representative,
he can execute the same no further than the benefit and security
of that society requires he should. When he exceeds his commission, his acts
are as extrajudicial as are those of any private officer usurping an unlawful
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