Sovereignty and the Sword: Harrington, Hobbes, and Mixed Government in the English Civil WarsThe English civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century produced two political thinkers of genius: Thomas Hobbes and James Harrington. They are known today as spokesmen of opposite positions, Hobbes of absolutism, Harrington of republicanism. Yet behind their disagreements, argues Arihiro Fukuda, there lay a common perspective. For both writers, the primary aim was the restoration of peace and order to a divided land. Both men saw the conventional thinking of the time as unequal to that task. Their greatest works — Hobbes's Leviathan of 1651, Harrington's Oceana of 1656 — proposed the reconstruction of the English polity on novel bases. It was not over the principle of sovereignty that the two men differed. Fukuda shows Harrington to have been, no less than Hobbes, a theorist of absolute sovereignty. But where Hobbes repudiated the mixed governments of classical antiquity, Harrington's study of them convinced him that mixed government, far from being the enemy of absolute sovereignty, was its essential foundation. |
Contents
Polybius and Mixed Government | 8 |
Fortescue and Parker | 17 |
Introduction | 23 |
Philip Hunton and Henry Ferne | 29 |
Conscience and the Constitution | 35 |
Equality and Sovereignty | 41 |
29 | 47 |
LEVIATHAN AND THE ENGLISH REPUBLIC | 66 |
HARRINGTONS THEORY OF BALANCED | 91 |
Faction and Equality | 102 |
HARRINGTONS THEORY OF BALANCED | 111 |
Sovereignty and Mixed Government | 123 |
The Absorption of Ancient within Modern Prudence | 134 |
Appendices | 141 |
Toleration and Sovereignty | 150 |
Mutual Fear and Commonwealth by Institution in Hobbes | 162 |
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Sovereignty and the Sword: Harrington, Hobbes, and Mixed Government in the ... Arihiro Fukuda No preview available - 1997 |
Common terms and phrases
absolute sovereignty agrarian law anarchy ancient prudence Answer argued aristocracy army Art of Lawgiving authority believed bicameral legislature binding force chapter Cive civil wars common interest common power Commonwealth of Oceana concern conqueror conquest constitutional arrangements covenant doctrine Elements of Law England English civil wars English constitution equal commonwealth factions Ferne forms of government Fortescue Fortescuian Harringtonian Henry Ferne Hobbes of Leviathan Hobbes's Hobbes's theory Hobbesian Hunton Ibid idea of mixed James Harrington king king-in-parliament Lacedaemon land liberty of conscience Lords Machiavelli ment military power mixed government mixed monarchy modern prudence mutual fear neo-Harringtonians Nineteen Propositions nobility notion obedience Oceana peace and order Pocock political theory Polybian idea Polybius Popular Government Prerogative of Popular private interests private judgement question republican resistance Restoration Richard Tuck Roman Roman republic Rome Rump Parliament senate Sidney sovereign subjects theory of mixed theory of sovereignty Thomas Hobbes tion tyranny unto Venice Wren writers