Compare And Contrast Republican And Lockean Liberalism

Republicanism applauded committed participation in public life by economically autonomous citizens as the essence of freedom. Republicans presupposed that just landowners possessed “virtue”, which was defined not simply as a private moral attribute but as the willingness to lesser egotism to the pursuit of the civic good. Namely, Republicans strived to grant rights to property-owning citizens. Their visions overlooked most of the people in North America. Propertied residents were mostly white men and excluded women and slaves. Whereas republican liberty had a public and social feature, liberalism was fundamentally individual and private. Besides, liberalism was amicable with large disparities in affluence and welfare. Lockean liberalism unlocked
the gate to the poor, women, and even slaves to challenge confines on their own liberty by declaring that every person has natural rights that no government may infringe. Republicanism and liberalism would someday come to be alternate senses of liberty. However, these logics of thought crossed and often supported each other. Both political viewpoints could stimulate a promise to constitutional government and checks on tyrannical rule. Both accentuated the security of property as a basis of liberty. Both mores were brought to eighteenth-century America. Notions of freedom introduced from Britain to the colonies would in time help to split the empire.