Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in 1856. He published his autobiography, Up from Slavery, in 1901. The word “up” implies rising from lower to higher. In his writings, Washington frequently ...

Libertarians believe that, in politics, liberty is the most important value. Almost everyone wants freedom for themselves, but a libertarian also seeks to protect and expand the freedom of others.

Spooner argues in this radical essay that the Constitution, which he frames as a legal contract, is not binding. The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or ...

Andrew Jackson conflated his own will with the will of the people, and ran roughshod over the Constitution’s constraints on his power in pursuit of goals that were often contemptible. Miles Smith IV ...

“The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.” In 1958, ...

An exploration of how the idea of individual freedom has shaped not only politics and economics but also the arts—from pop music to poetry, from Star Trek to the blues, and from Western novels to ...

Vincent Geloso is an assistant professor of economics at George Mason University. He holds a Ph.D. in Economic History from the London School of Economics. He is the author of Du Grand Rattrapage au ...

Alex Nowrasteh makes compelling evidence- based counter arguments to the most common objections to immigration. From “immigrants are going to take American jobs” to “they’re going to commit crimes” or ...

Limited government is one of the central tenets of modern libertarianism. However, it is one libertarians share with many of their political opponents. The idea of limited government, although seldom ...

Paul Meany is the editor for intellectual history at Lib er tar i an ism .org, a project of the Cato Institute. Most of his work focuses on examining thinkers who predate classical liberalism but ...

The emergence of freedom of speech as an essential value of Western civilization is inseparable from the emergence of individual religious liberty in the 17th and 18th centuries. For generations ...