The English Libertarian Heritage: From the Writings of John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon in the Independent Whig and Catos Letters

Cato’s Letters defended liberty and attacked tyranny with passion and eloquence. Reprinted hundreds of times in Colonial newspapers, they were perhaps the most widely read source for arguments for freedom of the press, and against arbitrary government power and taxation. Now back in print are the stirring words of those immortal English authors, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. This volume offers 42 essays from their enormously influential Cato’s Letters and The Independent Whig series originally published in the early 1720s. They inspired our Founding Fathers to strive for American Independence, and they will inspire you. “No one can spend any time in the newspapers, library inventories, and pamphlets of colonial America without realizing that Cato’s Letters rather than Locke’s Civil Government was the most popular, quotable, esteemed source of political ideas in the colonial period.” — Clinton Rossiter.