Aims of Government

       The following is from Cato's Letters, #63:
       While the people have common-sense left, they will easily see whether they are justly governed, and well or ill used;  whether they are protected or plundered:  They will know that no man ought to be the director of the affairs of all, without their consent;  that no consent can give him unlimited power over their bodies and minds;  and that the laws of nature can never be entirely abrogated by positive laws;  but that, on the contrary, the entering into society, and becoming subject to government, is only the parting with natural liberty, in some instances, to be protected in the enjoyment of it in others.

Brave for Liberty

       The following is from Cato's Letters #62:
       They who are used like beasts, will be apt to degenerate into beasts.  But those, on the contrary, who, by the freedom of their government and education, are comparing one man with another, that all men are naturally alike;  and that their governors, as they have the same face, constitution, and shape with themselves, and are subject to the same sickness, accidents, and death, with the meanest of their people;  so they possess the same passions and faculties of the mind which their subjects possess, and not better.  They therefore scorn to degrade and prostrate themselves, to adore those of their own species, however covered with titles, and disguised by power:  They consider them as their own creatures;  and, as far as they surround themselves, the work of their own hands, and only the chief servants of the state, who have no more power to do evil than one of themselves, and are void of every privilege and superiority, but to serve them and the state.  They know it to be a contradiction in religion and reason, for any man to have a right to do evil;  that not to resist any man's wickedness, is to encourage it;  and that they have the least reason to bear evil and oppression from their governors, who of all men are the most obliged to do them good.  They therefore detest slavery, and despise or pity slaves;  and, adoring liberty alone, as they who see its beauty and feel its advantages always will, it is no wonder that they are brave for it.

Partisanship and Limiting Power

      The following is from Cato's Letters #57:
       The honour of a party is to adhere to one another, right or wrong;  and though their chief be a knave and a traitor, their honour is engaged to be honest to him in all his rogueries and treason.  And this is a war of honour against honesty.
       The honour and bona fide of some princes have been of that odd and unprincely contexture, that they were never once restrained by the same, from decieving, plaguing, invading, robbing, and usurping upon their neighbours, and doing things which would have entitled a plain subject to the gibbet.  Their honour seems to have been deeply concerned to have no honour:  And though their faith was engaged to protect their subjects;  yet their honour, on the other side, was engaged to pillage and enslave them.  And here grew the royal war of honour against faith and equity!

These excerpts are from Cato's Letters #60:

       The experience of every age convinces us, that we must not judge of men by what they ought to do, but by what they will do;  and all history affords but few instances of men trusted with great power without abusin it, when with security they could.  The servants of society, that is to say, its magistrates, did almost universally serve it by seizing it, selling it, or plundering it;  especially when they were left by the society unlimited as to their duty and wages.  In that case these faithful stewards generally took all;  and, being servants, made slaves of their masters. .  .  .The only secret therefore in forming a free government, is to make the interests of the governors and of the governed the same, as far as human policy can contrive.  Liberty cannot be preserved any other way.  Men have long found, from the weakness and depravity of themselves and one another, that most men will act for interest against duty, as often as they dare.  So that to engage them to their duty, interest must be linked to the observance of it, and danger to the breach of it.  Personal advantages and security, must be the rewards of duty and obedience;  and disgrace, torture, and death, the punishment of treachery and corruption.
 

Public Thievery

     The following is from Cato's Letters #22:

     That no man who is not a thief, will be an advocate for a thief;  that rogues are best protected by their fellows;  and that the strongest motive which any man can have for saving another from the gallows, is the fear of the same punishment for the same crimes:  And though these, and a thousand other such unwarrantable imputations, ought not, and have not made the least impression upon one conscious of his own virtue;  yet it is every man's duty, as well as interest, to remove the most distant causes of suspicion from himself, when he can do it consistent with his publick duty;  and therefore we are equally sure of this great man's endeavours too for bringing over Mr. {Robert} Knight.

       And the following is from #29 of the same:

     Let us hang up publick rogues, as well as punish private blasphemers.  The observance of religion, and the neglect of justice, are contradictions.  Let any man ask himself, whether a nation is more hurt by a few giddy, unthinking, young wretches, talking madly in their drink;  or by open, deliberate, and publick depredations committed by a junto of veteran knaves, who add to the injury, and their own guilt, by a shew of gravity, and a canting pretence to religion?  The late directors all pretended to be good Christians.  I would ask one question more;  namely, whether it had not been better for England, that the late directors, and their masters, had spent their nights and their days in the Hell Fire Club, than in contriving and executing execrable schemes to ruin England?  Pray, which of the two is your greater enemy, he who robs you of all that you have, but neither curses nor swears at you;  or he who only curses you or himself, and takes nothing from you?

On Court Whigs

       The following are from Nos. 20 &21 of Cato's Letters .

       Liberty, being deserted by her old friends, fell of course into the hands of her enemies;  and so liberty was turned upon liberty:  By these means the discontents went on.  They had now got new tools to work with, just forged, arose and appeared upon the publick stage, who had never seen or felt the misfortunes which their fathers groaned under, nor believed more of them than what they had learned from their tutors:  So that all things seemed prepared for a new revolution;  when we were surprized by a voice from heaven, which promised us another deliverance.

The selection from #21 is spoken in the persona of John Ketch, royal hangman of note.

       I know that knaves of state require a great deal of form and ceremony before they are committed to my care;  so that I am not much surprized, that I have not yet laid my hands upon certain exalted criminals.  I hope, however, that, when they come, a good number will come at once.  But there is a parcel of notorious and sorry sinners, called brokers:  Fellows of so little consequence, that few of them have reputation enough to stand candidates for my place, were the same vacant (which God forbid!), and yet rogues so swollen with guilt, that poor Derwentwater and Kenmure (my two last customers) were babes and petty larceners to them.  Now these are the hang-rogues with whom I would be keeping my hand in use.

At Enmity with Truth

       The following is from Cato's Letters #15.

     "Freedom of speech is the great bulwark of liberty;  they prosper and die together:  And it is the terror of traitors and oppressors, and a barrier against them.  It produces excellent writers, and encourages men of fine genius.  Tacitus tells us, that the Roman commonwealth bred great and numerous authors, who writ with equal boldness and eloquence:  But when it was enslaved, those great wits were no more.  Postquam bellatum apud Actium;  atque omnem potestatem ad unum conferri pacis interfuit, magna illa ingenia cessere. Tyranny had usurped the place of equality, which is the soul of liberty, and destroyed publick courage.  The minds of men, terrified by unjust power, degenerated into all the vileness and methods of servitude:  Abject sycophancy and blind submission grew the only means of preferment, and indeed of safety;  men durst not open their mouths, but to flatter.
       Pliny the Younger observes, that this dread of tyranny had such effect, that the Senate, the great Roman Senate, became at last stupid and dumb:  Mutam ac sedentariam assentiendi necessitatem.  Hence, says he, our spirit and genius are stupified, broken, and sunk for ever.  And in one of his epistles, speaking of the works of his uncle, he makes an apology for eight of them, as not written with the same vigour which was to be found in the rest;  for that these eight were written in the reign of Nero, when the spirit of writing was cramped by fear;  Dubii sermonis octo scripset sub Nerone--cum omne studiorum genus paulo liberius & erectius periculosum servitus fecisset.
       All ministers, therefore, who were oppressors, or intended to be oppressors, have been loud in their complaints against freedom of speech, and the licence of the press;  and always restrained, or endeavoured to restrain, both.  In consequence of this, they have brow-beaten writers, punished them violently, and against law, and burnt their works.  By all which they shewed how much truth alarmed them, and how much they were at enmity with truth."

Salus Populi

     Here is a selection from Cato's Letters, #13.

       "In truth, every private subject has a right to watch the steps of those who would betray their country;  nor is he to take their word about the motives of their designs, but to judge of their designs by the event.
         This is the principle of a Whig, this the doctrine of liberty;  and 'tis as much knavery to deny this doctrine, as it is folly to ridicule it.  Some will tell us, that this is setting up the mob for statesmen, and for the censurers of states.  The word mob does not at all move me, on this occasion, nor weaken the grounds which I go upon.  It is certain, that the whole people, who are the publick, are the best judges, whether things go ill or well with the publick.  It is true, that they cannot all of them see distant dangers, nor watch the motions, and guess the designs, of neighbouring states:  But every cobbler can judge, as well as a statesman, whether he can fit peaceably in his stall;  whether he is paid for his work;  whether the market, where he buys his victuals, be well provided;  and whether a dragoon, or a parish-officer, comes to him for his taxes, if he pay any.
       Every man too, even the meanest, can see, in a publick and sudden transition from plenty to poverty, from happiness to distress, whether the calamity comes from war, and famine, and the hand of God;  or from oppression, and mismanagement, and the villainies of men.  In short, the people often judge better than their superiors, and have not so many biases to judge wrong;  and politicians often rail at the people, chiefly because they have given the people occasion to rail:  Those ministers who cannot make the people their friends, it is to be shrewdly suspected, do not deserve their friendship;  it is certain, that much honesty, and small management, rarely miss to gain it.  As temporal felicity is the whole end of government;  so people will always be pleased or provoked, as that increases or abates.  This rule will always hold.  You may judge of their affection, or disaffection, by the burdens which they bear, and the advantages which they enjoy.  Here then is a sure standard for the government to judge of the people, and for the people to judge of the government."

More Craft Than Kindness

        John Trenchard, and especially Thomas Gordon, were very anti-Catholic writers.  But their Cato's Letters are an interesting example of Whig writing from the elegant eighteenth.  The following is from Cato's Letters #62.

       Idiots and lunaticks indeed, who cannot take care of themselves, must be taken care of by others:  But whilst men have their five senses, I cannot see what the magistrate has to do with actions by which the society cannot be affected;  and where he meddles with such, he meddles impertinently or tyrannically.  Must the magistrate tie up every man's legs, because some men fall into ditches?  Or, must he put out their eyes, because with them they see lying vanities?  Or, would it become the wisdom and care of governors to establish a travelling society, to prevent people, by a proper confinement, from throwing themselves into wells, or over precipices;  or to endow a fraternity of physicians and surgeons all over the nation, to take care of their subjects' health, without being consulted;  and to vomit, bleed, purge, and scarify them at pleasure, whether they would or no, just as these established judges of health should think fit?  If this were the case, what a stir and hubbub should we soon see kept about the established potions and lancets?  Every man, woman, or child, though ever so healthy, must be a patient, or woe be to them!  The best diet and medicines would soon grow pernicious from any other hand;  and their pills alone, however ridiculous, insufficient, or distasteful, would be attended with a blessing.
       Let people alone, and they will take care of themselves, and do it best;  and if they do not, a sufficient punishment will follow their neglect, without the magistrate's interposition and penalties.  It is plain, that such busy care and officious intrusion into the personal affairs, or private actions, thoughts, and imaginations of men, has in it more craft than kindness;  and is only a device to mislead people, and pick their pockets, under the false pretence of the publick and their private good.  To quarrel with any man for his opinions, humours, or the fashion of his clothes, is an offense taken without being given.  What is it to a magistrate how I wash my hands, or cut my corns;  what fashion or colours I wear, or what notions I entertain, or what gestures I use, or what words I pronounce, when they please me, and do him and my neighbour no hurt?  As well may he determine the colour of my hair, and control my shape and features.
       True and impartial liberty is therefore the right of every man to pursue the natural, reasonable, and religious dictates of his own mind;  to think what he will, and act as he thinks, provided he acts not to the prejudice of another;  to spend his own money himself, and lay out the produce of his labour his own way;  and to labour for his own pleasure and profit, and not for others who are idle, and would live and riot by pillaging and oppressing him, and those that are like him.
        So that civil government is only a partial restraint put by the laws of agreement and society upon natural and absolute liberty, which might otherwise grow licentious:  And tyranny is an unlimited restraint put upon natural liberty, by the will of one or a few.  Magistracy, amongst a free people, is the exercise of power for the sake of the people;  and tyrants abuse the people, for the sake of power.  Free government is the protecting the people in their liberty by stated rules:  Tyranny is a brutish struggle for unlimited liberty to one or a few, who would rob all others of their liberty, and act by no rule but lawless lust.