“To my mind the law is not our worst enemy. … Religious bigotry, marital jealousy, social prejudice, will operate in ostracism, contempt…and actual violence.” From Emil F. Ruedebusch, Mayville, Wis., ...

Paine explores the distinction between society and government and the impact the latter has on the former in this selection from Common Sense. SOME writers have so confounded society with government, ...

Yates (using the pseudonym “Brutus”) argues that the constitutional power to raise an army and borrow money will lead to an expansion of state power. The next powers vested by this constitution in the ...

Spooner argues in this radical essay that the Constitution, which he frames as a legal contract, is not binding. The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or ...

In Man Versus the State, Herbert Spencer argues that as the state tries to regulate more of our lives, it inches us closer to slavery. What is essential to the idea of a slave? We primarily think of ...

John Locke lays out the foundational arguments of liberalism: people have rights preexisting government, and government exists to protect those rights. Nicknamed the "Father of Liberalism," Locke's ...

There is perhaps no writer better at articulating the economic way of thinking and exposing the myths that plague political debate than the Frenchman Frédéric Bastiat. During his short life (1801-1850 ...

“His moral sensibilities led him into mistakes; he thought too well of the world, and his standard of ethics was fixed too high for practical purposes.” Nineteenth- century America was practically ...

“Plantain was resolved that he would now make himself King of Madagascar, and govern there with absolute Power and Authority.” Clement Downing served on a variety of ships in the Indian Ocean as an ...

In this excerpt from The Rights of Man, here Thomas Paine argues that the order naturally observed in human society is not the result of government. Great part of that order which reigns among mankind ...

Kant discusses his theory of the state, concluding, “Whatever a people cannot impose upon itself cannot be imposed upon it by the legislator either.” Immanuel Kant is considered to be one of the ...

Croce argued that the lifespans of particular regimes, tyrants and oppressors are limited, but history always and inevitably arcs toward Liberty. Benedetto Croce was born in Abruzzi, Italy in 1866 to ...