English politician and member of the middle part of the Long Parliament
Not to be confused with Algernon Sydney Sullivan.
Algernon Sidney
Sidney in 1647
Born
15 January 1623
Baynard's Castle, London, England
Died
7 December 1683 (1683-12-08) (aged 60)
Tower Hill, London, England
Era
17th-century philosophy (Modern philosophy)
Region
Western philosophy
School
Republicanism
Main interests
Political philosophy
Notable ideas
That individuals have the right to choose their own form of government and that, if that government became corrupt, the people retained the power to abolish it and form another
Portrait of Sidney on the frontispiece of the French translation Discours sur le gouvernement (Discourses Concerning Government), The Hague, 1702
Algernon Sidney or Sydney (15 January 1623 – 7 December 1683) was an English politician, republican political theorist and colonel. A member of the middle part of the Long Parliament and commissioner of the trial of King Charles I of England, he opposed the king's execution. Sidney was later charged with plotting against Charles II, in part based on his most famous work, Discourses Concerning Government, which was used by the prosecution as a witness at his trial. He was executed for treason.[1] After his death, Sidney was revered as a "Whig patriot—hero and martyr".
The works of Algernon Sidney, along with those of contemporary John Locke, are considered a cornerstone of western thought. Discourses Concerning Government cost Sidney his life. However, the ideas it put forth survived and ultimately culminated in the Glorious Revolution in England and the founding of the United States. Sidney directly opposed the theory of divine right of kings by suggesting ideas such as limited government, voluntary consent of the people and the right of citizens to alter or abolish a corrupt government. Discourses Concerning Government has been called "the textbook of the American revolution."[1][2]
AlgernonSidney or Sydney (15 January 1623 – 7 December 1683) was an English politician, republican political theorist and colonel. A member of the middle...
AlgernonSidney Crapsey (1847–1927) was an American Episcopal clergyman who in 1906 was defrocked after a celebrated heresy trial. AlgernonSidney Crapsey...
manuscript written in the early 1680s by the English Whig activist AlgernonSidney who was executed on a treason charge in 1683. It is one of the treatises...
AlgernonSidney Buford (January 2, 1826 – May 6, 1911) was a Virginian businessman, politician, and lawyer best known for his 22-year presidency of the...
(Cutler) Sullivan. He was named in honor of the British politician, AlgernonSidney. His father was a lawyer, held the rank of Major in the War of 1812...
AlgernonSidney Gray (8 January 1814 – 29 September 1878) was an attorney, colonel in the antebellum Virginia militia (Rockingham County), delegate to...
assassination, aligning much of the West group's discussion with the plans of AlgernonSidney, in particular, and the more aristocratic country party members making...
AlgernonSidney Gilbert (December 28, 1789 – June 29, 1834) was a merchant best known for his involvement with Latter-day Saint history and his partnership...
aristocrats there. She briefly became the mistress of Robert Sidney, brother of AlgernonSidney. In May 1648, Walter managed to meet and charm Prince Charles...
AlgernonSidney Paddock (November 9, 1830 – October 17, 1897) was an American politician who was a Republican secretary of Nebraska Territory and U.S...
§ "H. AlgernonSidney (1622–1683)", cites Jonathan Scott’ AlgernonSidney and the English Republic, 1623–1677 (1988): "Scott shows that 'Sidney not only...
liberty." It was written c. 1660 by the English soldier-statesman AlgernonSidney, who was an opponent of Charles II and who was later executed for treason...
was the target of numerous Whig attempts at rebuttal, including AlgernonSidney's Discourses Concerning Government, James Tyrrell's Patriarcha Non Monarcha...
Algernon Sydney Thelwall (1795 in Newchurch, Isle of Wight – 1863, in St Giles, London) was an evangelical Church of England clergyman and teacher of elocution...
Kingsford, Charles (1891). "Henry V (1387–1422)" . In Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney (eds.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 26. London: Smith, Elder...
success, and King Charles I was executed. In England James Harrington, AlgernonSidney, and John Milton became some of the first writers to argue for rejecting...
of government. Its main participants were John Milton, John Locke, AlgernonSidney and James Harrington. Their thinking became the basis of the radical...
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