The classics of the ancient world are everywhere in the literature of the Revolution, but thet are everywhere illustrative, not determinative, of thought

Never had Parliament or the crown, or both together, operated in actuality as theory indicated sovereign powers should.

The fact that the ministerial conspiracy against liberty had risen from corruption was of the utmost importance to the colonists.

At first the relevance of chattel slavery to libertarian ideals was noted only in individual passages of isolated pamphlets.

The wielders of power did not speak for it, nor did they naturally serve it. Their interest was to use and develop power, no less natural and necessary than liberty but more dangerous.

Defiance to constituted authority leaped like a spark from one flammable area to another, growing in heat as it went.

Incorporating in their colorful, slashing, superbly readable pages, the major themes of the "left" opposition under Walpole, these libertarian tracts, emerging first in the form of denunciations of standing armies in the reign of William III, left an indelible imprint on the "country" mind everywhere in the English-speaking world.