Harrison Searles traces how Patriots during the American Revolution used intimidation, disarmament, confiscation, conscription, and even execution against fellow Americans who resisted their cause, ...

Ayn Rand and Max Stirner argued different versions of egoism. Conscious egoism, as opposed to any number of what Stirner calls “fixed ideas,” must be the only adhesive holding individuals to the union ...

Early anarchist thinkers blurred the line between socialist and capitalist. Libertarians’ interest in anarchism is complicated by anarchism’s historic association with the radical left. Read more ...

Andrew Jackson conflated his own will with the will of the people, and ran roughshod over the Constitution’s constraints on his power in pursuit of goals that were often contemptible. Editor’s Note ...

While Karl Marx hated Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and his philosophy of mutualism, a libertarian can find in it much to appreciate. Proudhon’s conception of federalism permits us a fuller understanding of ...

Having previously discussed abolitionist black women, Presley highlights some of the white women in the movement to end slavery. The valiant efforts of abolitionist men like William Lloyd Garrison, ...

The origin of the idea that liberty could be preserved through the separation of powers endures through the arguments of Polybius. Any American high schooler can tell you that the separation of powers ...

Larry Reed revisits “I, Pencil” with reflections on the global market. This essay is an initiative of Liberty International (previously known as the International Society for Individual Liberty).

How a group of veterans restored democracy to a small town. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” is a quote commonly, and incorrectly, attributed to Thomas Jefferson. It was, in fact, never ...

Nick Wilson compares the political, social, and moral thought of Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois. Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in 1856. He published his autobiography, Up from ...

On Liberty is not merely a political text explaining the intricacies of how the state ought to act. It is a love letter to the individual virtues of intellectual curiosity, tolerance, and ...

Locke wanted to prove that the world is not a mere amalgam of violence and arbitrary authority and that there is something that separates a legitimate from an illegitimate government. It is impossible ...