19th Century American Liberalism

Liberalism
Liberalism can trace its origins back to the Age of the Enlightenment, and to figures like John Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau and, later, John Stuart Mill. It was a school of thought that emphasised individual liberty and happiness over outside interference. To the liberal, it was important that all individuals were allowed to live a happy life doing more or less as they pleased. Mill built on the ideas of Jeremy Bentham to create a school of thought called Utilitarianism, which stressed that happiness ought to be maximised wherever possible.
In political terms, the liberals started out with broad support of individual freedom, but with a strong justice system and with state control over the courts, infrastructure etc. The United Kingdom is probably the best example of a liberal country. In the 19th century, its politics were dominated by the Whigs; the Liberal Party. The U.S. also started off as a liberal country (the Revolution was a liberal revolution), but ultimately, the issues of slavery and manifest destiny turned the U.S. into an altogether different beast.
Towards the end of the 19th century, Liberals began to support state-run social programs in
Mutualists believe in free trade and the free market, but they believe that the working class ought to own the machinery they operate on and businesses ought to be structured as workers' co-operatives, in order to share the profits and maintain equality. I believe some forms are also fundamentally against the use of capital as a means of exchange, instead preferring some sort of barter economy. Left-libertarianism, therefore, can be distinguished from mainstream socialism by the fact that it is an incredibly decentralised economy. But make no mistake, left-libertarians absolutely do not consider themselves to be capitalists and would feel insulted if categorised alongside