Algernon Sidney
Algernon Sidney
Algernon Sidney or Sydneywas an English politician and member of the Long Parliament. A republican political theorist, colonel, and commissioner of the trial of King Charles I of England, he opposed the king's execution. Sidney was later charged with plotting against Charles II, in part based on his work, Discourses Concerning Government, used by the prosecution as a witness at his trial. He was executed for treason. After his death, Sidney was revered as a "Whig patriot–hero and martyr"...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth14 January 1653
[A]ll popular and well-mixed governments [republics] . . . are ever established by wise and good men, and can never be upheld otherwise than by virtue: The worst men always conspiring against them, they must fall, if the best have not power to preserve them. . . . [and] unless they be preserved in a great measure free from vices . . . .
Nay, all laws must fall, human societies that subsist by them be dissolved, and all innocent persons be exposed to the violence of the most wicked, if men might not justly defend themselves against injustice by their own natural right, when the ways prescribed by publick authority cannot be taken.
All the nations they had to deal with, had the same fate.
The truth is, man is hereunto led by reason which is his nature.
This submission is a restraint of liberty, but could be of no effect as to the good intended, unless it were general; nor general, unless it were natural.
A general presumption that Icings will govern well, is not a sufficient security to the People... those who subjected themselves to the will of a man were governed by a beast.
'Tis hard to comprehend how one man can come to be master of many, equal to himself in right, unless it be by consent or by force.
To depend upon the Will of a Man is Slavery.
If vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.
The common Notions of Liberty are not from School Divines, but from Nature.
The general revolt of a Nation cannot be called a Rebellion.
The best Governments of the World have bin composed of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy.
Such as have reason, understanding, or common sense, will, and ought to make use of it in those things that concern themselves and their posterity, and suspect the words of such as are interested in deceiving or persuading them not to see with their own eyes.
Men lived like fishes; the great ones devoured the small.