Words of Freedom

Thomas Rainborough at the Putney Debates (1647)

Thomas Rainborough was one of the English Levellers, who contended in the English civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century. This speech was delivered on October 28, 1647 during a debate on the merits of revolution and universal suffrage between ordinary soldiers and generals of the New Model Army formed by Oliver Cromwell. Its simple, stirring arguments are a precursor of those of John Locke.

For really I think that the poorest he that is in England has a life to live as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I think it's clear that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he has not had a voice to put himself under.... I do hear nothing at all that can convince me why any man that is born in England ought not to have his voice in election of burgesses….I do not find anything in the Law of God that a lord shall choose twenty burgesses, and a gentleman but two, or a poor man shall choose none. I find no such thing in the law of nature, nor in the law of nations.

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