Commonwealthmen

The Commonwealthmen were late seventeenth-and eighteenth-century British political writers [Page 248]who championed the cause of limited government and individual freedom following the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689. Sometimes referred to as “real whigs” or “old whigs,” Commonwealthmen urged constant vigilance against those in power. They drew primarily upon the political ideas of republican writers such as James Harrington, John Milton, Henry Neville, and Algernon Sidney in developing an ideology of protest against concentrations of power in government and the economy. As a result, they promoted institutional reforms to limit ministerial influence over Parliament, the modification of mercantilist policies, and the protection of individual rights to freedom of speech, thought, and religion, including increased toleration for dissenters. Even though they failed to get many of their reforms adopted because they never formed an organized party, their ideas had a significant impact on the political thought of the American Revolution beginning with the Stamp Act Crisis of 1765.

Prominent Commonwealthmen in the early eighteenth century included critics such as Walter Moyle, Robert Molesworth, John Toland, and especially John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, who coauthored Cato's Letters, a widely reprinted set of essays named after the Roman hero who opposed Julius Caesar's rule. The most notable Commonwealthmen later in the century included radical philosophers like Richard Price and Joseph Priestley, the political reformer James Burgh, and the historian Catharine Macaulay. Despite important political, religious, and ideological differences, Commonwealthmen were typically anticlerical writers who warned against the corrupting influence of power and favored strict adherence to the rule of law and balance in government to safeguard liberty. In many respects, their ideas corresponded to the seventeenth-century “country” tradition of opposition to the excessive power associated with a corrupt “court” that aims to keep legislative representatives subservient to the king or his ministers.

The seventeenth-century English republican James Harrington's fictionalized Commonwealth of Oceana was a touchstone for many Commonwealthmen. The single most important lessons they took away from Harrington concerned the link between the independence and the liberty of citizens. A strong proponent of the idea that property relations form the basis of political power, Harrington argued that the independence of citizens ultimately depends on their ownership of sufficient land and use of their own arms. In order to prevent tyranny arising from abuses of power or concentrations of wealth, Harrington recommended a balanced, or mixed, government of law, not of men. Inspired by these and other ideas found in Harrington's work, Commonwealthmen generally opposed the establishment of a standing army; favored the use of the secret ballot; supported the exclusion of “placemen,” or office-holders, from membership in Parliament; and advocated rotation in office, preferably through annual elections.

Commonwealthmen in the early decades of the eighteenth century advocated many of these reforms in direct response to practices of the newly emerging Cabinet government led by England's first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Much like their republican forebears, they were deeply suspicious of executive power and looked to the legislature as the guardian of the people's liberties. Commonwealthmen in this period decried Walpole's attempts to extend his influence over Parliament through control over elections, the awarding of government pensions, and the use of patronage as corrupt and unconstitutional intrusions on the independence of the legislature. In their view, liberty was endangered whenever the property or position of an individual depended on the favor of government. Their conception of corruption was not limited to outright attempts at bribery. It included any form of interference with the political and economic independence of citizens or their representatives. They urged the people to be ever-vigilant against the first signs of corruption and looked to civic virtue as a remedy against the social and political ills afflicting the political system. Writers like Trenchard and Gordon also stressed the importance of definite legal and constitutional rules to limit the powers of government.

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