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
Violence and fraud can create no right.
[I]f vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.
The only ends for which governments are constituted, and obedience rendered to them, are the obtaining of and protection; and they who cannot provide for both give the people a right of taking such ways as best please themselves, in order to their own safety.
If his Majesty is resolved to have my head, he may make a whistle of my arse if he pleases.
If the public safety be provided, liberty and propriety secured, justice administered, virtue encouraged, vice suppressed, and the true interest of the nation advanced, the ends of government are accomplished . . .
Everyone sees they cannot well live asunder, nor many together, without some rule to which all must submit.
We cannot distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, or know what obedience we owe to the magistrate, or what we may justly expect from him, unless we know what he is, why he is, and by whom he is made to be what he is.... I cannot know how to obey unless I know in what, and to whom; nor in what unless I know what ought to be commanded; nor what ought to be commanded unless I understand the original right of the commander, which is the great arcanum.
That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed.
There may be a hundred thousand men in an army, who are all equally free; but they only are naturally most fit to be commanders or leaders, who most excel in the virtues required for the right performance of those offices.
No right can come by conquest, unless there were a right of making that conquest.
Many things are unknown to the wisest, and the best men can never wholly divest themselves of passions and affections... nothing can or ought to be permanent but that which is perfect.
Laws and constitutions ought to be weighed... to constitute that which is most conducing to the establishment of justice and liberty.
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.
The best Governments of the World have bin composed of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy.