“All tyrannies,” wrote Algernon Sidney, “had their beginnings from corruption.”
He drew most of his illustrations in Discourses Concerning Government from the Roman experience, which, in little over a hundred years, fell from the heights of ancient
“All tyrannies,” wrote Algernon Sidney, “had their beginnings from corruption.”
He drew most of his illustrations in Discourses Concerning Government from the Roman experience, which, in little over a hundred years, fell from the heights of ancient liberty and virtue into the basest tyranny. The reward for high public service in republican Rome were honors typically bestowed upon victorious generals by a grateful people.
Sidney related the Roman’s steadfast attention to the rule of law. Prior acts of selflessness for the public good did not cancel out subsequent crimes against the public good, “and none can be exempted from the penalties of them.” He who did not bend to the law “shakes off the equality of citizenship and usurps a power above the law.”
Like our Framers, Sidney didn’t believe imperfect men could design a perfect government. He wrote:
But, men have an inclination to run into all manner of crimes when the means invite and there is no power to deter.
As the ways of empire supplanted those of the republic, Sidney described a horrid society in decline in which the emperor enriched his partisans at the expense of confiscations through fraud and rapine of his adversaries. Per Sidney, “His creatures, having no knowledge of good nor a will of their own, or other dangerous qualities, resigned themselves to doing as commanded. Justice was perverted, military discipline neglected, public treasures exhausted, new tricks and projects invented to raise more money.”
To these ends, emperors sent out swarms of spies, informers and false witnesses to circumvent the most eminent men. The law became a snare, as parasitic judges ensured no man brought before them escaped. Should evidence be wanting, diligent prosecutors supplied the defects. Factions developed between honesty and knavery, sobriety and lewdness, virtue and vice. Every man’s conversations showed to which party he belonged.
Tyrants establish themselves with the help of the worst and the slaughter of the best. Since men cannot serve their lusts while they continue in their integrity, it was the emperor’s business to destroy those who shunned corruption. Wise men responded positively to the sort of corruption rewarded by the emperor. The men who didn’t paid with their lives.
Those who rule for their benefit and wealth aren’t limited to the ancient or medieval absolutist. In recent decades, some chief executives in America and other western nations viewed the