James Harrington

James Harrington 1611-77, English political writer. His Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) pictured a utopian society in which political authority rested entirely with the landed gentry. Harrington advocated definite agrarian reforms, however, in order to achieve a greater equality of power. He sought to abolish primogeniture and to limit the amount of land an individual could hold. He also advocated division of the powers of government, a written constitution, and the principle of rotation in office. Penn's government in Pennsylvania is said to owe much to the Oceana. Harrington's ideas can be seen in the doctrines of the American Revolution and the French Revolution.

Bibliography: See studies by C. Blitzer (1960, repr. 1970) and H. F. Russell-Smith (1971).

Harrington, James (1611–77). Political philosopher. His Commonwealth of Oceana (1656), though dedicated to Cromwell, implicitly censured the Protectorate. Its central doctrine was that the distribution of property in a state determined its form of government. Where one ruler disposes of all the land, absolute monarchy results; where an aristocracy holds most of it, mixed monarchy is the natural form; but where property is widely distributed, only a republic can provide stable government.

Harrington, James (or James Harington), (1611–77), published his great republican work The Commonwealth of Oceana in 1656 and wrote several tracts in defence of this work, and other political works (The Prerogative of Popular Government, 1657–8; The Art of Law-Giving, 1659; Aphorisms Political, 1659). In all these he expounds his concept of a republic or commonwealth, advocates the ballot, rotation of officers, indirect elections, etc. In 1659 he founded the Rota, a coffee-house academy. In 1661 he was arrested and imprisoned on a charge of treason, defended himself ably, and was later released. Harrington has never been considered a great stylist but he had many admirers, including Wordsworth and Coleridge, and his shrewd historical analysis and political projections have increasingly attracted attention.