• 8 • “A PROFOUND INFLUENCE ON REVOLUTIONARY IDEOLOGY”: 1755 EDITION OF TRENCHARD AND GORDON’S CATO’S LETTERS, “A CLASSIC FOR MANY AMERICANS” AND A POWERFUL INFLUENCE ON THE FOUNDING FATHERS 08(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (GORDON, Thomas) (TRENCHARD, John). Cato’s Letters: Or Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious, And other important Subjects. London, 1755. Four volumes. Small octavo, contemporary full brown speckled calf rebacked. $7500 1755 sixth edition of Trenchard and Gordon’s famed essays, a major influence on the American Revolution—”ranked with the treatises of Locke as the most authoritative statement on the nature of political” (Bailyn). A direct and important influence on many of the founding fathers and major writings of the American Revolution, and such seminal works as the Federalist, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. “Trenchard and Gordon were the most important disseminators of ideas to Americans in the pre-revolutionary generations” (Nash, Urban Crucible, 348). They first issued their “Cato’s Letters” in the London Journal and British Journal from November 1720 through December 1723. In these 144 essays, they developed revolutionary ideas of liberty with arguments that liberty was plagued by conspiracies of power-seekers and that executive political power and standing armies were pernicious. “It was Trenchard and Gordon who first gave unreserved endorsement to free speech as being indispensable to ‘Liberty, Property, true Religion, Arts, Sciences, Learning [and] Knowledge” (McDonald, 47). These important and influential essays “had a profound impact on Revolutionary ideology” in America (Library of Congress 3922). Issued in colonial newspapers, the Cato essays were so widely distributed, plagiarized and imitated that they “gave rise to what might be called a ‘Catonic’ image, central to the political theory of the time,” best exemplified by Washington’s public displays of virtue (Bailyn, 44). They directly influenced many of the founding fathers and the important writings of the American Revolution, including Franklin’s Silence Dogood, John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer, William Livingstone’s Independent Reflector, John Adam’s Novanglus, John Peter Zenger’s landmark defense against libel, the concept of “power” employed in The Federalist, and the popular vision of an agrarian republic. Their influence is also palpable in the rhetoric of conspiracy in the Declaration of Independence. In the course of American political development during the 18th century, Trenchard and Gordon were “the most important… spokesmen for extreme libertarianism” (Bailyn, 35). “Sixth Edition, corrected” stated on title pages. The first complete volume of Cato essays appeared soon after Trenchard’s death in December 1723, and all of the early editions are rare. Early owner ink signatures to title pages. Some mild toning and foxing to text, not affecting legibility. Expert restoration to bindings.. An extremely good and desirable copy in nicely restored contemporary calf.
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