Rebuplican Liberty Vs. Liberal Liberty

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Liberty was central to two sets of political ideas that blossomed in Colonial America. One was Republicanism, which literally meant “a government without a king”. Republicanism espoused active participation in public life by property owning, independent citizens as the backbone of liberty. Republicanism held that man reached his highest fulfillment in public service. It also stressed the political role of the independent landowner and warned against the tendency of political power to encroach upon liberty. A republic demanded a virtuous citizenry and thus a high moral code to ensure continued freedom. The founders thought that luxury, factionalism, and other vices were ever-present dangers, seeds of destruction that lurked in the souls of their fellow citizens and within themselves.(1) Additionally, a man's investment in luxuries signaled to his fellow Americans that he might support the ideas of aristocracy and monarchy instead of republicanism. Therefore republicanism called for thriftiness, simplicity and plainness in all things, be it fashion or food. Only by closely adhering to republican values could men guard against greed and corruption within others and within themselves. The second set and opposing political idea being birthed at this time was the idea of Liberalism. Whereas republican liberty had a civic and social responsibility, liberalism focused on privacy and the rights of the individual. It defined itself as striving to maximize individual liberty through a democratic system of rights under law. Under Classical Liberalism, societies were determined by the outcome of open competitive process, including economic competition, freedom of thought, and political declaration. This idea was first proposed by John Locke in 1690. An English philosopher who wrote
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