Excellencie of a Free-State [1656]
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The Online Library of Liberty A Project Of Liberty Fund, Inc. Marchamont Nedham, Excellencie of a Free-State [1656] The Online Library Of Liberty This E-Book (PDF format) is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a private, non-profit, educational foundation established in 1960 to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. 2010 was the 50th anniversary year of the founding of Liberty Fund. It is part of the Online Library of Liberty web site http://oll.libertyfund.org, which was established in 2004 in order to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. To find out more about the author or title, to use the site's powerful search engine, to see other titles in other formats (HTML, facsimile PDF), or to make use of the hundreds of essays, educational aids, and study guides, please visit the OLL web site. This title is also part of the Portable Library of Liberty DVD which contains over 1,000 books and quotes about liberty and power, and is available free of charge upon request. The cuneiform inscription that appears in the logo and serves as a design element in all Liberty Fund books and web sites 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, in present day Iraq. To find out more about Liberty Fund, Inc., or the Online Library of Liberty Project, please contact the Director at [email protected]. LIBERTY FUND, INC. 8335 Allison Pointe Trail, Suite 300 Indianapolis, Indiana 46250-1684 Online Library of Liberty: Excellencie of a Free-State Edition Used: Excellencie of a Free-State: Or, The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth, edited and with an Introduction by Blair Worden (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2011). Author: Marchamont Nedham Editor: Blair Worden Editor: David Womersely About This Title: This edition brings back into print, after two and a half centuries, the pioneering work of English republicanism, Marchamont Nedham’s The Excellencie of a Free-State, which was written in the wake of the execution of King Charles I. First published in 1656, and compiled from previously written editorials in the parliamentarian newsbook Mercurius Politicus, The Excellencie of a Free-State addressed a dilemma in English politics, namely, what kind of government should the Commonwealth adopt? One possibility was to revert to the ancient constitution and create a Cromwellian monarchy. The alternative was the creation of parliamentary sovereignty, in which there would be a “due and orderly succession of supreme authority in the hands of the people’s representatives.” Nedham was convinced that PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 2 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/2449 Online Library of Liberty: Excellencie of a Free-State only the latter would “best secure the liberties and freedoms of the people from the encroachments and usurpations of tyranny.” PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 3 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/2449 Online Library of Liberty: Excellencie of a Free-State About Liberty Fund: Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. Copyright Information: The copyright to this edition, in both print and electronic forms, is held by Liberty Fund, Inc. Fair Use Statement: This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit. PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 4 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/2449 Online Library of Liberty: Excellencie of a Free-State Table Of Contents The Thomas Hollis Library Preface Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction Marchamont Nedham and the English Republic Nedham and Mercurius Politicus Nedham and the Excellencie (1656) The Republication of the Excellencie (1767) The Reception of the Republication Nedham and His Classical Sources The Text and the Notes The Excellencie of a Free-state To the Reader. An Introduction to the Following Discourse. The Right Constitution of a Commonwealth. All Objections Against the Government of the People, Answered. The Original of All Just Power Is In the People. Errours of Government; and Rules of Policie. Appendix A: the Edition of 1656 Textual Emendations Advertisement Appendix B: the Edition of 1767 Title Page The Preface Textual Adjustments Appendix C: Corresponding Passages of Mercurius Politicus The Endnotes Three Other Editorials Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, inspiring the English republic to maritime greatness. PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 5 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/2449 Online Library of Liberty: Excellencie of a Free-State [Back to Table of Contents] THE THOMAS HOLLIS LIBRARY Thomas Hollis (1720-74) was an eighteenth-century Englishman who devoted his energies, his fortune, and his life to the cause of liberty. Hollis was trained for a business career, but a series of inheritances allowed him to pursue instead a career of public service. He believed that citizenship demanded activity and that it was incumbent on citizens to put themselves in a position, by reflection and reading, in which they could hold their governments to account. To that end for many years Hollis distributed books that he believed explained the nature of liberty and revealed how liberty might best be defended and promoted. A particular beneficiary of Hollis’s generosity was Harvard College. In the years preceding the Declaration of Independence, Hollis was assiduous in sending to America boxes of books, many of which he had had specially printed and bound, to encourage the colonists in their struggle against Great Britain. At the same time he took pains to explain the colonists’ grievances and concerns to his fellow Englishmen. The Thomas Hollis Library makes freshly available a selection of titles that, because of their intellectual power, or the influence they exerted on the public life of their own time, or the distinctiveness of their approach to the topic of liberty, comprise the cream of the books distributed by Hollis. Many of these works have been either out of print since the eighteenth century or available only in very expensive and scarce editions. The highest standards of scholarship and production ensure that these classic texts can be as salutary and influential today as they were two hundred and fifty years ago. David Womersley PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 6 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/2449 Online Library of Liberty: Excellencie of a Free-State [Back to Table of Contents] PREFACE The republican writings of Marchamont Nedham are a landmark in Western political thought. Writing in the years following the execution of King Charles I and the abolition of the monarchy in 1649, Nedham proposed an alternative to the improvised and short-lived constitutional expedients that followed the overthrow of the monarchy. Instead of clinging to remnants of the native constitution, urged Nedham, his countrymen should recover the principles and forms of republican rule that had prospered in classical antiquity. A disciple of Niccolò Machiavelli, whose methods of argument he imitated and whose reasoning he adapted to an English setting, Nedham opened the way for the more-searching or learned republican thinking of his contemporaries James Harrington, Henry Neville, and Algernon Sidney. The Excellencie of a Free-State, published in 1656, is the most coherent expression of Nedham’s republican thought. Nedham was no abstract political analyst. He was a hired journalist. Like his close friend and frequent literary ally John Milton, he published tracts in order to influence events. From 1650 to 1653 he wrote for the Commonwealth, which had replaced King Charles’s rule. From 1653 onward he wrote for the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. Yet behind his outward enthusiasm for the new governors of England lay sharp criticisms of their characters and measures. To recover his meanings we need to probe the political contexts of his writings and to explore his relations with the rulers who employed him. My introduction will attempt those tasks. It will also explore the circumstances that led to the republication of The Excellencie in 1767, the version in which it has been primarily known. The reappearance of the work, under the sponsorship of the wealthy English bibliophile and “commonwealthman” Thomas Hollis, belonged to a literary enterprise that has had substantial consequences for political argument on both sides of the Atlantic. Liberty Fund, the publisher of the present volume, was founded by the widely read businessman Pierre Goodrich, with the aim of promoting understanding of ideas of liberty. Hollis had the same purpose. In pursuit of it he arranged the reproduction and dissemination of seventeenth-century writings that have become known as a canon of Whig literature. Although Hollis did not claim, or achieve, for Nedham a standing equal to that of Milton, Sidney, or Harrington, he maintained that Nedham’s writing deserved attention alongside theirs. Modern perspectives on the history of political thought vindicate his assertion. Blair Worden PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 7 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/2449 Online Library of Liberty: Excellencie of a Free-State [Back to Table of Contents] ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Editors need the aid of experts and colleagues and are gladdened when, as in my case, it comes with kindness and generosity. I warmly thank Laura Goetz and David Womersley, my guides at Liberty Fund; Susan Halpert of the Houghton Library at Harvard and Colin Higgins of the Library of Christ’s College, Cambridge; and scholars Rodney Allan, Harald Braun, Justin Champion, Mark Greengrass, Rachel Hammersley, Alan Houston, Paul Rahe, and David Wootton.