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DEMOCRACY AND LIBERTY
LIBERTY FUND
CLASSICS ON LIBERTY
Essays in the History of Liberty Lord Action
The Servile State Hilaire Belloc
Democracy and Liberty William Hartpole Lecky
A Plea for Liberty Thomas Mackay, ed.
Popular Government Sir Henry Maine
Discourses Concerning Government Algernon Sidney
The Man Versus the State Herbert Spencer
On Liberty, Society, and Politics William Graham Sumner
Cato’s Letters: Essays on Liberty John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon
This book is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a foundation established to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.
The cuneiform inscription that serves as our logo and as a design element in Liberty Fund books is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.
Introduction © 1981 by William Murchison.
This eBook edition published in 2013.
eBook ISBNs:
978-1-61487-102-6
978-1-61487-220-7
CONTENTS
Introduction by William Murchison
English Representative Government in the Eighteenth Century
Diversities in the size of constituencies and qualification of electors
The founders of the American Republic aimed at the same ends
Rousseau's conception of government essentially different
Review of the French constitutions, 1789–1830
Ascendency of the middle class in France, 1830–1848
English Reform Bill of 1832—Its causes
Fears it excited not justified by the event
Place of the middle class in English government
Votes not always a true test of opinion
Motives that govern the more ignorant voters
Dangers of too great degradation of the suffrage
Growth of Rousseau's doctrine in England—The Irish representation
Taxation passing wholly under the control of numbers
Successful parliaments mainly elected on a high suffrage
