Democratic Authority: Algernon Sidney

Today we hear nothing about the English political theorist Algernon Sidney, but he was highly regarded by the "Founding Fathers". John Adams praised his discourses on government. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison believed that students at the University of Virginia should study his works along with the works of John Locke. Sidney's chief contribution concerned his rebuttal of the "divine right" theory of political authority proposed by Sir Robert Filmer, according to which the king was appointed by God and was above the law for both the good of his subjects and to preserve their liberties. In his Discourses Concerning Government, Sidney argued sarcastically against this "divine right" theory, and forcefully in favor of the theory that the government's authority ultimately rested upon the will of the people. Here are a few excerpts from his Discourses:

SECTION 5 To depend upon the Will of a Man is Slavery.

...."But there is more than ordinary extravagance in his [Filmer's] assertion, that the greatest liberty in the world is for a people to live under a monarch, when his whole book is to prove, that this monarch hath his right from God and nature, is endowed with an unlimited power of doing what he pleaseth, and can be restrained by no law. If it be liberty to live under such a government, I desire to know what is slavery."....

SECTION 20 All just Magistratical Power is from the People.

SECTION 21 It cannot be for the good of the People that the Magistrate have a power above the Law: and he is not a Magistrate who has not his power by Law.

...."But nothing can be more absurd than to say, that one man has an absolute power above law to govern according to his will, for the people’s good, and the preservation of their liberty: For no liberty can subsist where there is such a power; and we have no other way of distinguishing between free nations and such as are not so, than that the free are governed by their own laws and magistrates according to their own mind, and that the others either have willingly subjected themselves, or are by force brought under the power of one or more men, to be ruled according to his or their pleasure."....

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