Algernon Sidney

Posts in The Copybook credited to ‘Algernon Sidney’

Algernon Sidney (1622-1683) was a Parliamentarian in the Civil War and a member of the republican Council of State in 1653 and 1659, but refused to serve under Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate. Pardoned by Charles II in 1677, he nonetheless kept up a vigorous opposition to Charles’s claims (the norm in Europe at the time) of absolute power, and was executed in 1683 for his supposed involvement in the Rye House Plot. Five years later, Charles’s brother James II was deposed in the Glorious Revolution, and a new Constitution brought in that echoed Sidney’s demands for limits on the powers of Government, and for government with the consent of the people. His writings subsequently became popular among radical champions of liberty and independence, and were much admired by those who framed the US Constitution in 1776.

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Imperfect Government by Algernon Sidney

Politicians who demand that everyone in the country unite behind their vision of society are standing in the way of real progress.

In the 1680s, many feared that after Charles II died his brother James would take England and Scotland into a European league of Roman Catholic kingdoms, led by Louis XIV of France. Algernon Sidney could not see how countries and peoples so diverse could possibly require the same laws, or how anyone would think such hidebound uniformity could lead to progress.

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Clay Lane The Copybook