Political Thought
Our titles in political thought encompass the ideals of the classical liberal tradition, such as self-government, the rule of law, and constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and of the press. The collection includes foundational writings from such thinkers as John Locke, David Hume, Bernard Mandeville, and Alexis de Tocqueville, as well as twentieth-century perspectives from writers like Michael Oakeshott and Bertrand de Jouvenel. These titles represent thinkers from different times and contexts, offering the reader a variety of texts that have helped shape the ideas of liberty in today’s society.
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View of the Constitution of the United States
by St. George Tucker
/ Learn MoreSt. George Tucker’s View of the Constitution, published in 1803, was the first extended, systematic commentary on the United States Constitution after its ratification. Generations learned their Blackstone and their understanding of the Constitution through Tucker. Clyde N. Wilson is Professor of History and editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun at the University of South Carolina.
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A Vindication of Natural Society
by Edmund Burke
/ Learn MoreThis is a new edition of Edmund Burke’s first work, originally issued anonymously in 1756 as a letter attributed to “a late noble writer.” In 1757 Burke produced a revised version with a new preface but still did not attach his name to the work. This Liberty Fund edition is based on the 1757 revision. The Vindication is a political…
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The Virtue of Civility
by Edward Shils
/ Learn MoreEdward Shils was one of the leading intellectual defenders of freedom in the twentieth century. In these nine essays, he explores the importance of civility and tradition to a free society. The essays’ significance is enormous, for Shils was one of the first and assuredly one of the most courageous writers to examine the nature of civility and civil society…
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The Voice of Liberal Learning
by Michael Oakeshott
/ Learn MoreBy 1989, when Michael Oakeshott’s Voice of Liberal Learning was first published by Yale University Press, books that held a negative view of education in the United States had garnered a remarkable amount of attention. Oakeshott’s approach to the subject is subtle, comprehensive, and radical—in the sense of summoning readers to the root of the matter. That root, Oakeshott believed,…
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The Webster-Hayne Debate on the Nature of the Union
by Herman Belz
/ Learn MoreThe debates between Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina gave fateful utterance to the differing understandings of the nature of the American Union that had come to predominate in the North and the South by 1830. To Webster, the Union was the indivisible expression of one nation of people. To Hayne, the Union was the voluntary…
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Works of Fisher Ames
by Fisher Ames
/ Learn MoreFisher Ames was a leading New England Federalist and sublime critic of Jacobin Democracy and the French Revolution. During the presidency of George Washington, he was the leader of his party in the House of Representatives. Ames was active in public life from 1787 through 1807 and was instrumental in one drafting of the First Amendment to the Constitution. His…
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Writings on Standing Armies
by David Womersley
/ Learn MoreThe 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…
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