Patrick Shaw
Richard Price
I. "Richard Price was born at Tyn-ton in the parish of Llangeinor near Bridgend in the county of Glamorgan on February 23, 1723. His father, Rice Price, was a Dissenting minister who had been an assistant to Samuel Jones, founder of the Academy at Brynllywarch. By all the accounts that have survived, Rice Price was a strict Calvinist who maintained an austere discipline in the home. Richard, however, rebelled against his father's theology at an early age, and though he upheld the puritan values inculcated by his parents, his religious beliefs became much more liberal and much more rationalist."
After his birth in 1723, Richard Price attended Joseph Simmon's Academy, (1735) Vavasour Griffiths's Academy, (1739) and Moorfields Academy in 1740. He entered the ministry at Stoke Newington in 1744 and did not marry until June 16, 1757, when he espoused Sarah Blundell. In 1758 he wrote A Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals. The following year he wrote Britain's Happiness, and the Proper Improvement of it. In 1767 he authored Four Dissertations. Shortly afterward in 1769 he received his Doctor of Divinity at Marischal College, Aberdeen. In 1771 he wrote Observations on Reversionary Payments, and in 1772 he penned An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt. Moving into the advent of the American Revolution, in February of 1776, Price wrote Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, and in 1777, he authored Additional Observations, which clarifies some of his earlier observations. In 1778, he was actually invited by the American Congress to become a citizen of the United States which he did do. Price's writings continued each year, however, I will only mention three important works. Price wrote Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution, in 1784. In 1787, he wrote The Evidence for a Future Period of Improvement in the State of Mankind. His final major work was in 1789, when he wrote A discourse on the Love of our Country. After a life of political, moral, and religious works, Richard Price died on April 19, 1791
II. Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty: The Nature of Liberty in General.
A. Liberty to every member of Society is a natural and unalienable title
B. Liberty can be divided into four general divisions: physical liberty, moral liberty, religious liberty, and civil liberty.
C. Physical liberty is, ". . . That principle of spontaneity, or self-determination, which constitutes us agents, or which gives us a command over our actions, rendering them properly ours, and not effects of the operation of any foreign cause." (Thomas, pg. 22.)
D. "Moral liberty is the power of following, in all circumstances, our sense of right and wrong, or of acting in conformity to our reflecting and moral principles, without being controlled by any contrary principles." (Thomas, pg. 22)
E."Religious liberty signifies the power of exercising, without molestation, that mode of religion which we think best, or of making the decisions of our own consciences respecting religious truth, the rule of our conduct, and not any of the decisions of our fellowmen." (Thomas pg. 22)
F."Civil liberty is the power of a civil society or state to govern itself by its own discretion or by laws of its own making, without being subject to the impositions of any power in appointing and directing which the collective body of the people have no concern and over which they have no control."
G.The general principle of liberty includes self-direction and self government.
111. Of Civil Libertv and The Principles of Government
A. Civil government, as far as it can be denominated free, is the creature of the people.
B. Liberty is too imperfectly defined when it is said to be "a government by laws, and not by men."
C. Members of a state should appoint representatives in their behalf.
D. Powers of legislation must be subject to restrictions the members of the state have previously set fort
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