The book investigates the political thought of Algernon Sidney (1623-1683), a historical character of the English civil wars, republic, protectorate, and Rump Parliament, who faced his trial and execution during the Exclusion Crisis. In his writings, Sidney mixed hugely different traditions of political philosophy: the modern natural rights, which were predominant in England in his generation, and the republicanism of Machiavelli. This volume will interest researchers in political philosophy, history of political thought and, particularly, republican theory. Its contribution to these topics explores the specificities of a thought that uses the language of natural rights and social contract and, on the other hand, the tumults, expansion and virtues of the republics.

This book discusses whether democracy and republicanism are identical, complementary, or contradicting ideas. The rediscovery of classic republicanism a few decades ago made it clear how profoundly modern notions of democracy had been shaped by the republican tradition. But defining these two concepts remains difficult, and the views diverge widely. The overarching aim of this book is to discuss the extent to which democracy and republicanism are identical, complementary or mutually contradicting ideals / ideas. Pursuing this open approach to the subject means calling into question a widely used formula according to which modern democracy is composed of liberal principles such as individualism, the rule of law and human rights, on the one hand, and of republican principles such as focusing on the common good and popular sovereignty, on the other. This book will appeal to students, researches, and scholars of political science interested in a better understanding of political theory and political history.

This study locates the philosophical origins of the Anglo-American political and constitutional tradition in the philosophical, theological, and political controversies in seventeenth-century England. By examining the quarrel it identifies the source of modern liberal, republican and conservative ideas about natural rights and government in the seminal works of the Exclusion Whigs Locke, Sidney, and Tyrrell and their philosophical forebears Hobbes, Grotius, Spinoza, and Pufendorf. This study illuminates how these first Whigs and their diverse eighteenth-century intellectual heirs such as Bolingbroke, Montesquieu, Hume, Blackstone, Otis, Jefferson, Burke, and Paine contributed to the formation of Anglo-American political and constitutional theory in the crucial period from the Glorious Revolution through to the American Revolution and the creation of a distinctly American understanding of rights and government in the first state constitutions.

The significance of Machiavelli's political thinking for the development of modern republicanism is a matter of great controversy. In this volume, a distinguished team of political theorists and historians reassess the evidence, examining the character of Machiavelli's own republicanism and charting his influence on Marchamont Nedham, James Harrington, John Locke, Algernon Sidney, John Trenchard, Thomas Gordon, David Hume, the Baron de Montesquieu, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton. This work argues that while Machiavelli himself was not liberal, he did set the stage for the emergence of liberal republicanism in England. By the exponents of commercial society he provided the foundations for a moderation of commonwealth ideology and exercised considerable, if circumscribed, influence on the statesmen who founded the American Republic. Machiavelli's Liberal Republican Legacy will be of great interest to political theorists, early modern historians, and students of the American political tradition.

The first full-scale study of this influential political writer for over a century.

This book aims to contribute to current debates on republicanism by examining the relationship between republican theory and practice in a variety of contexts.