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 acquisitions.”

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.”

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 colonies.

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 character.”

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 generous Briton.”

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 earlier petitions against the cyder tax were accepted and the right of petitioning was “never once questioned.”

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 but also the egalitarian impulse in democratic societies are alike in being rooted in envy.

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.”

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 absurd.”

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: the transforming effects exerted by the prolonged possession of power on individuals and administrations.