The Political Economy of John Taylor of Caroline

 

Part III of a Five Part Series. Part I, Part II.

1. Republicanism and Liberalism Revisited
 
As noted previously, 18th-century Anglo-American opposition writers employed several political languages. One of these, classical republicanism, asserted reciprocal causal relations between power and property such that a republic secures stability and liberty by way of a “mixed constitution” resting on a broad class of independent proprietors. Critics of England’s post-1688 Whig Oligarchy and its state-financial revolution often deployed this language. This allows many historians to read such “republicans” as vaguely outlined “agrarians” futilely resisting inevitable capitalist development and social change.

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