Harrington’s Conception of Liberty

Abstract

James Harrington’s Commonwealth of Oceana¹¹ followed Machiavelli in attributing Rome’s loss of liberty to insufficient rotation in office, and the absence of a stable agrarian law.² But he dismissed Machiavelli’s assumption that conflict between the senate and people had been a necessary element in Rome’s success.³ Harrington concluded that liberty arises from the orderly division of power between the ”debating part“ of the commonwealth (the senate), the “resolving part” (the people), and the “executive part” (or magistracy).⁴ The secret of good government is to prevent “liquorishness in a popular assembly to debate.”⁵ Harrington quoted Cicero’s oration for Flaccus to show that Greece had been ruined by the intemperance of its comitia, or assemblies of the people.⁶ He believed that liberty as the “right of a free people”⁷ requires the people to be the final “guards of liberty” who ultimately approve all legislation,⁸ but only after a proposal and proper deliberation by the senate.⁹