Explore Freedom

Richard Cantillon

Suppose the Butchers on one side and the Buyers on the other. The price of Meat will be settled after some altercations, and a pound of Beef will be in value to a piece of silver pretty nearly as the whole Beef offered for sale in the Market is to all the silver brought there to buy Beef. This proportion ... [click for more]

William Henry Chamberlin

The proliferation of bureaucrats and its invariable accompaniment, much heavier tax levies on the productive part of the population, are the recognizable signs, not of a great, but of a decaying society. Historians know that both phenomena were especially marked in the declining eras of the Roman Empire in the West and of its successor state, the Eastern or ... [click for more]

Roy A. Childs

Libertarians themselves should take heart. Our hope lies, as strange as it may seem, not with any remnants from an illusory golden age of individualism, which never existed, but with tomorrow. Our day has not come and gone. It has never existed at all. It is our task to see that it will exist in the future. The choice ... [click for more]

Frank Chodorov

If we assume that the individual has an indisputable right to life, we must concede that he has a similar right to the enjoyment of the products of his labor. This we call a property right. The absolute right to property follows from the original right to life because one without the other is meaningless; the means to life ... [click for more]

Richard Cobden

The people of the two nations must be brought into mutual dependence by the supply of each other's wants. There is no other way of counteracting the antagonism of language and race. It is God's own method of producing an entente cordiale, and no other plan is worth a farthing. -- Richard Cobden, Letter to M. ... [click for more]

Edward Coke

Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing less than reason. -- Edward Coke, First Institute Edward Coke Wikipedia Sir Edward Coke: English Lawyer and Parliamentarian LaughterGeneaology.com The Classical Law of Tort by Amanda J. Owens and Charles K. Rowley Locke Institute Debates about the Petition of Right by Edward Coke Online Library of Liberty [click for more]

Benjamin Constant

First ask yourselves, Gentlemen, what an Englishman, a French-man, and a citizen of the United States of America understand today by the word 'liberty'. For each of them it is the right to be subjected only to the laws, and to be neither arrested, detained, put to death or maltreated in any way by the arbitrary will of one ... [click for more]

Thomas M. Cooley

The right is general. It may be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia; but this would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent. The militia, as has been explained elsewhere, consists of those persons who, under the laws, are liable ... [click for more]

Jefferson Davis

We feel that our cause is just and holy; we protest solemnly in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honour and independence; we ask no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the States with which we were lately confederated; all we ask is to be let alone; that ... [click for more]

Frederick Douglass

The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder ... [click for more]

Ralph Waldo Emerson

In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institution are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born: that they are not superior to the citizen: that every one of them was once the act of a single man: every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular case: that they all ... [click for more]

Adam Ferguson

Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design. -- Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society Adam Ferguson, 1723-1815 History ... [click for more]

Frank A. Fetter

The main advantage of foreign trade is the same as that of any other exchange. It is hardly necessary to review the explanation here: the increased efficiency of labor when it is applied in the way for which each country is best fitted; the liberation of productive forces for the best uses: the development of special branches of industry ... [click for more]

Stephen J. Field

The power to commit violence, perpetrate injustice, take private property by force without compensation to the owner, and compel the receipt of promises to pay in place of money, may be exercised, as it often has been, by irresponsible authority, but it cannot be considered as belonging to a government founded upon law.... From the decision of the Court ... [click for more]

John T. Flynn

The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine, and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilize savage and senile and paranoidal peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells or metal mines. -- John T. Flynn, As ... [click for more]

Benjamin Franklin

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania Benjamin Franklin Short Bio TheAmericanRevolution.org Benjamin Franklin: A Documentary History by J.A. Leo Lamay Benjamin Franklin: The Man Who Invented the American Dream by Jim Powell Foundation for Economic Education Ben Franklin on Liberty by ... [click for more]

Milton Friedman

Industrial progress, mechanical improvement, all of the great wonders of the modern era have meant relatively little to the wealthy. The rich in Ancient Greece would have benefited hardly at all from modern plumbing: running servants replaced running water. Television and radio? The Patricians of Rome could enjoy the leading musicians and actors in their home, could have the ... [click for more]

Garet Garrett

We have crossed the boundary that lies between Republic and Empire. If you ask when, the answer is that you cannot make a single stroke between day and night: the precise moment does not matter. There was no painted sign to say: 'You are now entering Imperium.' Yet it was a very old road and the voice of history ... [click for more]

William Lloyd Garrison

I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to ... [click for more]

Henry George

If to prevent trade were to stimulate industry and promote prosperity, then the localities where he was most isolated would show the first advances of man. The natural protection to home industry afforded by rugged mountains-chains, by burning deserts, or by seas too wide and tempestuous for the frail bark of the early mariner would have given us the ... [click for more]