What did the founders learn from Algernon Sidney?

0:06Algernon Sidney. Sidney was an English political philosopher and political activist who actually was also killed by a king, executed by Charles II, who accused him of treason against the crown. Actually, he was, I think falsely charged with being complicit in a plot to kill the king. But his political philosophy was one that stressed the right of people to choose their form of government. This is sometimes called republicanism. He was a critic of the concept of the divine right of kings and kings tend to like the concept of the divine right of kings.

0:51This made Sidney rather unpopular among kings. Although Sidney himself, this is one of the ironies of history. Sidney himself had opposed the execution of Charles II father, Charles I. Little interesting historical irony there, and Charles II ends up executing him. As you can see, that the founders as partisans of the idea of republican government would look to somebody like Sidney as a theorist of republican government. After all, once the Americans pulled off the miracle, the American revolutionaries pulled off the miracle of overthrowing British power and it really wasn't a miracle. Britain was the most powerful military force on earth. The odds were overwhelming almost that the Americans would lose. That a lot of those leaders of

1:40the revolution and what their lives on the end of a rope. But when they pulled off the miracle and the revolution was successful, then they had, of course, the next big question. Well, now what do we replace British rule with? What kind of government do we establish here? Do we establish another monarchy, but with a better king? They had a great possibility of George Washington, almost the ideal king.

2:03The fact that he didn't want the job, didn't want to be king, made him an even better candidate for king because that's your perfect king, the guy who doesn't want to be king. But no, they opted instead for republican government as opposed to monarchy, what we would today call democracy but the founders did not favor that term. Democracy is something that they feared. They identified that with the rule of the mob. After all, remember it was the Athenian democracy that killed Socrates. Philosophers are not going to be really thrilled about the concept of democracy. They favoured instead that concept of republican government. A form of government that does like democracy, involve participation of the people in their own government. But one that is

2:50not a direct democracy, one that has checks on even the power of the people. There are checks and balances, there are structural constraints on the exercise even if democratic authority. When they've decided that they would not go for a monarchy and try to find a better king, but instead go to republican government, they go to Sidney for ideas about what that means.