First published 1975
Conceived in Liberty
Conceived in Liberty by Murray N. Rothbard is available as a free PDF, EPUB, and MOBI download at freecapitalists.org, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. The file here is the Mises Institute single-volume edition, 2011.
- Murray N. Rothbard
- First published
- 1975
- Edition here
- Mises Institute single-volume edition, 2011
- Format
- PDF, EPUB, and MOBI
- Pages
- 1,616
- ISBN
- 978-1-933550-98-5
- Publisher
- Ludwig von Mises Institute
- License
- Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Murray Rothbard's history of colonial America and the Revolution, told as a struggle between liberty and power. This is the single-volume edition, about 1,600 pages, that combines the four volumes Arlington House first published between 1975 and 1979: A New Land, A New People (the seventeenth-century colonies), "Salutary Neglect" (the first half of the eighteenth century), Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775, and The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784.
Rothbard rejects both the conservative reading of 1776 as a defense of inherited order and the leftist reading of it as a proto-socialist uprising. He follows an accelerating libertarian radicalism from the first settlements through the Stamp Act, the Boston Tea Party and the war itself, and asks at the end whether the Revolution was radical. A fifth volume, The New Republic, 1784-1791, was edited from Rothbard's manuscript by Patrick Newman and published in 2019; it is a separate book in this archive.
Which edition this is
The file served here is the Mises Institute's single-volume edition of 2011, which combines the four volumes Arlington House first published as A New Land, A New People (1975), "Salutary Neglect" (1975), Advance to Revolution (1976) and The Revolutionary War (1979). The Mises Institute reissued them as a four-volume hardback in 1999 and as this single volume in 2011. Rothbard's fifth volume, The New Republic, 1784-1791, was edited by Patrick Newman and published in 2019; it is a separate book in this archive.
The Mises Institute published the single-volume edition under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence, stated on the PDF's own copyright page. The EPUB and MOBI carry the older 1999 "all rights reserved" notice on their volume copyright pages; the licence comes from the 2011 edition's PDF.
Source: the hosted single-volume PDF's copyright and contents pages, the four volume copyright pages of the hosted EPUB, and the mises.org library page for the book. Verified 2026-09-29.
Also here, free
Floy Lilley reads the whole book aloud: 262 recordings, one per chapter, about 81 hours in all. Stream or download any of them.
- Volume I: A New Land, A New People: 66 recordings, 27.8 hours
- Volume II: "Salutary Neglect": 43 recordings, 14.1 hours
- Volume III: Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775: 72 recordings, 17.1 hours
- Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784: 81 recordings, 22.1 hours
Also in Rothbard's Conceived in Liberty
Chapter by chapter
What's in Conceived in Liberty
266 chapters. Page numbers are this edition's. 262 of them have a free audiobook recording.
- Front matter
-
Preface
Rothbard defends adding another survey by restoring narrative fact, and names his organizing theme: history as a contest between liberty and state power, not between economic classes. He frames the seventeenth century as the colonists’ first round of resisting power, and credits Mises, Acton and Nock.
Listen: Preface Murray N. Rothbard, 11:20
- Volume I: A New Land, A New People: The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century · Part I: Europe, England, and the New World
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Europe at the Dawn of the Modern Erap. 5
Traces how Italian-centered Mediterranean commerce, strangled by fourteenth-century statism in England and France and by the Mongol collapse, pushed Portugal, Spain and later England toward ocean routes. Follows the mercantilist Tudor state and its monopoly companies as they sponsor Gilbert, Raleigh and the Virginia charters.
Listen: 1. Europe at the Dawn of the Modern Era Murray N. Rothbard, 2:02:17
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New World, New Landp. 36
Asks who should own America’s vast unsettled land, and answers that the pioneer who first works it has the natural claim, while the state’s claim to a public domain to hand out is the threat. English feudal habits pointed toward grants to companies, whose hunger for profit Rothbard says soon eroded land monopoly.
Listen: 2. New World, New Land Murray N. Rothbard, 13:06
- Volume I: A New Land, A New People: The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century · Part II: The Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century
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The Virginia Companyp. 43
Shows the Virginia Company inheriting Irish plantation policy, monopoly trade and tobacco taxation from a mercantilist Crown, then nearly dying under communal labor and Dale’s martial laws. Survival came from Yeardley’s property reforms, the 1619 Assembly and tobacco, whose headrights and large grants built a planter elite.
Listen: 3. The Virginia Company Murray N. Rothbard, 43:54
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From Company to Royal Colonyp. 55
Covers the Crown’s 1624 annulment of the Virginia Company charter, which left planters’ land titles intact and produced a royal colony with a king-appointed governor, a Council and elected burgesses. Rothbard notes the resulting thin, scattered settlement and the governor’s command over courts, militia and local officials.
Listen: 4. From Company to Royal Colony Murray N. Rothbard, 6:06
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The Social Structure of Virginia: Planters and Farmersp. 57
Portrays a society ruled by a small oligarchy of big tobacco planters who filled the Council, most burgess seats and county offices, above a mass of independent yeomen. Falling tobacco prices squeezed small farmers, while planters like William Byrd II pursued learning yet stayed hard-working businessmen, not idle aristocrats.
Listen: 5. The Social Structure of Virginia: Planters and Farmers Murray N. Rothbard, 9:14
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The Social Structure of Virginia: Bondservants and Slavesp. 60
Describes indentured servitude, fed by redemptioners, kidnapped children, convicts and political prisoners, and the servant revolts crushed in the 1660s. Then traces how Negro slavery hardened into law, denies that masters’ capital interest made it mild, and shows Virginia’s planter oligarchy resting on coerced labor.
Listen: 6. The Social Structure of Virginia: Bondservants and Slaves Murray N. Rothbard, 28:19
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Religion in Virginiap. 68
Finds Virginia’s Anglican establishment loosened by distance and the hunt for settlers, with vestries of leading planters running parishes as self-perpetuating local oligarchies. Rothbard also records the persecution of Catholics through heavy fines, loyalty oaths and bans on priests, laws often unenforced and left to lapse after the Restoration.
Listen: 7. Religion in Virginia Murray N. Rothbard, 8:31
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The Royal Government of Virginiap. 71
Recounts colonists’ resistance to their governors: the 1635 ousting of Governor Harvey amid the Claiborne-Baltimore quarrel over Kent Island, Berkeley’s early reforms, and the Assembly’s defiance of Parliament after Charles I’s execution. Virginia bargained for liberal terms and briefly claimed supreme power in 1659.
Listen: 8. The Royal Government of Virginia Murray N. Rothbard, 18:30
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British Mercantilism over Virginiap. 77
Details how the Navigation Acts, tobacco monopolies and export rules tied Virginia to English shipping and customs revenue, wrecking the tobacco market and adding taxes. Berkeley’s clique, the Arlington-Culpeper feudal grant and the 1673 Surry tax protest pile up the grievances that Rothbard sees leading to revolt.
Listen: 9. British Mercantilism over Virginia Murray N. Rothbard, 26:28
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Relations with the Indiansp. 85
Follows white and Indian relations from early trade and rescue, through Opechancanough’s 1622 attack and Virginia’s brutal retaliation, to treaty land cessions and Berkeley’s wars of the 1660s and 1670s. Rothbard condemns the colonists’ aggression and Berkeley’s costly forts, which set off the frontier revolt led by Bacon.
Listen: 10. Relations with the Indians Murray N. Rothbard, 28:22
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Bacon’s Rebellionp. 93
Rejects both the torchbearer and demagogue readings of Nathaniel Bacon, treating 1676 as a broad rising against a privileged ruling caste, not a class war, that advanced liberty despite its leader’s motives. Narrates the Indian raids, Jamestown seizures, Bacon’s despotic turn and death, and Berkeley’s vengeful executions.
Listen: 11. Bacon's Rebellion Murray N. Rothbard, 39:18
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Marylandp. 104
Studies Maryland as the first proprietary colony, a feudal palatinate of manors and quitrents under Lord Baltimore that hampered growth even while granting religious liberty. Covers the Claiborne dispute, Puritan and Catholic clashes of the 1650s, the Assembly’s gains, and tobacco-price fixing to ease the quitrent burden.
Listen: 12. Maryland Murray N. Rothbard, 24:32
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The Carolinasp. 111
Explains the 1663 grant of Carolina to eight courtiers and the Shaftesbury and Locke Fundamental Constitutions, a planned hereditary feudal hierarchy that the Assembly refused and abundant land undermined. Albemarle, later North Carolina, emerges as a tolerant, turbulent settlement of small farmers resisting proprietary claims.
Listen: 13. The Carolinas Murray N. Rothbard, 15:58
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The Aftermath of Bacon’s Rebellion in the Other Southern Coloniesp. 116
Traces how unrest spread beyond Virginia: Maryland’s Davyes-Pate and Fendall-Coode plots against Baltimore’s taxes and quitrents, and Albemarle’s Culpeper Rebellion against the tobacco tax of 1673 and the proprietors’ agent Miller. Sothel’s later plunder shows the tyranny the rebels feared.
Listen: 14. The Aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion in the Other Southern Colonies Murray N. Rothbard, 15:50
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The Glorious Revolution and its Aftermathp. 121
Shows the Glorious Revolution as an opening for colonial revolt: Coode’s Protestant Association topples Baltimore’s proprietary in Maryland, yet Anglican establishment and penal laws replace old toleration. In the Carolinas, Sothel’s ouster, Archdale’s reforms and a new Anglican establishment fuel Dissenter and Quaker conflict.
Listen: 15. The Glorious Revolution and its Aftermath Murray N. Rothbard, 47:59
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Virginia After Bacon’s Rebellionp. 134
Follows Virginia through Culpeper’s tobacco-cartel schemes and the plant-cutters riots, Lord Howard’s prerogative rule, and the governors Andros and Nicholson with James Blair’s faction. Rothbard stresses land engrossing by planters such as Byrd, the move to Williamsburg, and the recurring slave conspiracies.
Listen: 16. Virginia After Bacon's Rebellion Murray N. Rothbard, 33:45
- Volume I: A New Land, A New People: The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century · Part III: The Founding of New England
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The Religious Factorp. 147
Explains why the Northern colonies were settled by Dissenters: Puritans sought to purify the state-made Anglican church, Separatists fled to Holland, and James I rebuffed the Millenary Petition. Sets up Gorges’ 1620 Council for New England, a monopoly grant of northern land and fisheries that stood behind later settlement.
Listen: 17. The Religious Factor Murray N. Rothbard, 7:50
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The Founding of Plymouth Colonyp. 150
Follows the Pilgrims from Leyden to Plymouth on the Mayflower, where the Compact let the Pilgrim minority keep control over servants and other passengers. Starvation under company-enforced communism ended with private plots in 1623 and land division in 1627, leaving a self-governing but oligarchic colony beside rivals like Morton’s Merrymount.
Listen: 18. The Founding of Plymouth Colony Murray N. Rothbard, 16:42
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The Founding of Massachusetts Bayp. 155
Presents the Great Migration as a reaction to a Stuart-made depression, cloth monopolies and mounting persecution of Puritans, which drove East Anglians to the Massachusetts Bay Company’s 1629 charter. Winthrop’s colony became self-governing, ruled by a narrow oligarchy that fought town tax revolts, Stoughton’s protest and English attempts to revoke the charter.
Listen: 19. The Founding of Massachusetts Bay Murray N. Rothbard, 30:32
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The Puritans “Purify”: Theocracy in Massachusettsp. 164
Depicts Massachusetts as a Puritan theocracy: deportation of Anglicans, destruction of Morton’s Merrymount, church-member suffrage, ministers as state officials, indoctrinating schools, informers, and laws on Sabbath, dress and idleness. Rothbard argues the burden fell hardest on servants and the poor, whom the rulers openly justified subjecting.
Listen: 20. The Puritans "Purify": Theocracy in Massachusetts Murray N. Rothbard, 27:53
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Suppressing Heresy: The Flight of Roger Williamsp. 172
Recounts Roger Williams’ clash with the Bay authorities: he held that magistrates may not punish religious dissent and that the king could not grant land owned by Indians, striking at both theocracy and charter. His flight founds Providence, where liberty of conscience begins to reach beyond religion into civil affairs.
Listen: 21. Suppressing Heresy: The Flight of Roger Williams Murray N. Rothbard, 26:14
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Suppressing Heresy: The Flight of Anne Hutchinsonp. 180
Tells how Anne Hutchinson’s inner-light antinomianism split Boston, won over Cotton, Vane and Wheelwright, then lost at the 1637 election, her trial before the General Court, banishment and excommunication. Her exiles founded Portsmouth on Aquidneck, where Coddington’s oligarchy was resisted, and she died at Indian hands in 1643.
Listen: 22. Suppressing Heresy: The Flight of Anne Hutchinson Murray N. Rothbard, 22:49
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The Further Settlement of Rhode Island: The Odyssey of Samuell Gortonp. 187
Follows Samuell Gorton, a freethinking individualist hounded out of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Portsmouth and Providence, whose Shawomet settlement Massachusetts attacked until he won English protection through the Earl of Warwick. The 1644 charter and united 1647 code follow, with Gorton’s presidency yielding a dead-letter law against slavery.
Listen: 23. The Further Settlement of Rhode Island: The Odyssey of Samuell Gorton Murray N. Rothbard, 44:05
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Rhode Island in the 1650s: Roger Williams’ Shift from Libertyp. 200
Traces Williams’ English success against Coddington and for the charter, then his turn from liberty as Rhode Island’s president: compulsory military service, central power over the towns, stiffer morals laws and prosecution of William Harris’s anarchist Baptist followers. Rothbard weighs the causes, including power’s corruption and Cromwell’s favor.
Listen: 24. Rhode Island in the 1650s: Roger Williams' Shift from Liberty Murray N. Rothbard, 30:36
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The Planting of Connecticutp. 208
Traces Connecticut’s settlement by Dutch traders, Plymouth and Bay colonists, the Saybrook lords and Hooker’s dissenters, who framed the 1639 Fundamental Orders as a federation of towns. Rothbard shows the colony stayed as intolerant as Massachusetts, while New Haven’s stricter Bible commonwealth drew protest from its outlying towns.
Listen: 25. The Planting of Connecticut Murray N. Rothbard, 20:16
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The Seizure of Northern New Englandp. 214
Shows how northern New England, settled by fishermen and Anglicans, threw off Mason’s proprietary claim in New Hampshire but not Gorges’ in Maine, then was annexed piece by piece by expansionist Massachusetts by 1652. The towns kept home rule, and New Hampshire escaped the church-membership test for voting.
Listen: 26. The Seizure of New England Murray N. Rothbard, 8:26
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Joint Action in New England: The Pequot Warp. 217
Narrates the 1636-37 war on the Pequots as the New England colonies’ first joint action: collective punishment after Oldham’s murder, Endecott’s raid, Wethersfield’s broken promise to Sequin, and Mason’s burning of a Pequot camp. Rothbard condemns the massacre and enslavement of survivors as typical of white treatment of Indians.
Listen: 27. Joint Action in New England: The Pequot War Murray N. Rothbard, 8:20
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The New England Confederationp. 220
Describes the 1643 Confederation of the United Colonies, formed by Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven under commissioners, each colony keeping a veto, and the exclusion of Rhode Island and Maine. It also aided return of runaway servants, and Massachusetts blocked its Dutch war, in Rothbard’s view for trade reasons.
Listen: 28. The New England Confederation Murray N. Rothbard, 21:15
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Suppressing Heresy: Massachusetts Persecutes the Quakersp. 227
Chronicles Massachusetts’ suppression of dissent after Hutchinson: Dr. Child’s 1646 petition for civil rights was crushed, then Quakers were whipped, mutilated and, from 1659, hanged, among them Mary Dyer and Leddra, until the Restoration forced restraint. Rothbard ends with Baptists, whose persecution likewise swelled their numbers.
Listen: 29. Suppressing Heresy: Massachesetts Persecutes the Quakers Murray N. Rothbard, 47:51
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Economics Begins to Dissolve the Theocracy: Disintegration of the Fur Monopolyp. 241
Shows that private traders, not the Puritan rulers, built New England’s fur trade, and that Plymouth’s monopoly, which its oligarchs granted themselves in return for the colony’s debt, collapsed once Massachusetts competed. Licensing and price rules favored connected men like Pynchon, until scarce furs turned interest toward land and farming.
Listen: 30. Economics Begins to Dissolve the Theocracy: Disintegration of the Fur Monopoly Murray N. Rothbard, 8:16
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Economics Begins to Dissolve the Theocracy: The Failure of Wage and Price Controlp. 244
Recounts Massachusetts’ repeated maximum-wage laws from 1630, repealed as unenforceable and then reimposed, along with price controls and compulsory labor, and the similar failures in Connecticut and New Haven. Rothbard argues the controls worsened labor shortages, bred further coercion, and were dropped once even Winthrop conceded they did not work.
Listen: 31. Economics Begins to Dissolve the Theocracy: The Failure of Wage and Price Controls Murray N. Rothbard, 18:23
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Mercantilism, Merchants, and “Class Conflict”p. 250
Attacks the habit of lumping merchants into one class, arguing that state privilege, not the market, creates conflicting interests, and that farmers and merchants, or creditors and debtors, have no fixed opposition. Drawing on Mises, Rothbard says classes or castes arise only from state action, as with feudal landlords.
Listen: 32. Mercantilism, Merchants, and "Class Conflict" Murray N. Rothbard, 6:46
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Economics Begins to Dissolve the Theocracy: The Failure of Subsidized Productionp. 253
Details how the 1640 crisis and the fading fur trade led merchants and magistrates to seek state help: debtor-relief laws with inflated appraisals and forced barter, then subsidies and monopolies for iron, textiles, hemp and salt. Rothbard shows these mercantilist bids for self-sufficiency failing against costs and market realities.
Listen: 33. Economics Begins to Dissolve the Theocracy: The Failure of Subsidized Production Murray N. Rothbard, 12:08
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The Rise of the Fisheries and the Merchantsp. 257
Explains how farmer-fishermen communities and London-linked merchants, not government subsidy, built New England’s fisheries, carrying trade and mast-timber business, aided by Cromwell-era contracts for merchants holding office. Rothbard shows the rising, often non-Puritan merchants forming a worldly, relatively liberal force that eroded Puritan zeal.
Listen: 34. The Rise of the Fisheries and the Merchants Murray N. Rothbard, 11:33
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Theocracy Begins to Wither: The Half-Way Covenantp. 261
Describes how Puritan theocracy weakened from within: liberal English Puritans urged toleration, and church-membership rules softened because only members could vote. The synods of 1657 and 1662 adopted the Half-Way Covenant, giving baptized partial members political rights and thereby diluting oligarchic rule.
Listen: 35. Theocracy Begins to Wither: The Half-Way Covenant Murray N. Rothbard, 3:34
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The Decline and the Rigors of Plymouthp. 263
Charts Plymouth’s decline after its fur trade vanished: the 1645 Vassall petition for full religious liberty was blocked by the oligarchy, which then adopted a taxed state church and persecuted Quakers, notably through constable Barlow. Public resistance, converts like Isaac Robinson and Cudworth’s protest finally restored Quaker rights in the 1670s.
Listen: 36. The Decline and Rigors of Plymouth Murray N. Rothbard, 10:29
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The Restoration Crisis in New Englandp. 267
Follows New England’s response to Charles II’s Restoration: Connecticut’s charter that swallowed New Haven, Rhode Island’s charter and the Narragansett dispute, and the 1664 royal commission that Massachusetts defied. Rothbard adds the new Navigation Acts, which Massachusetts merchants largely evaded and turned to their profit.
Listen: 37. The Restoration Crisis in New England Murray N. Rothbard, 45:00
- Volume I: A New Land, A New People: The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century · Part IV: The Rise and Fall of New Netherland
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The Formation of New Netherlandp. 283
Explains New Netherland’s origin in a Dutch republic split between liberal Republican merchants favoring peace and free trade, and the militarist Calvinist Orange party, which won the coup and created the West India Company as a governing monopoly. Rothbard notes the American colony was one of that company’s least valued holdings.
Listen: 38. The Formation of New Netherland Murray N. Rothbard, 17:02
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Governors and Governmentp. 288
Portrays the despotic company rule of New Netherland: Minuit’s feudal patroonships and serflike tenants, then directors Van Twiller, Kiefft and Stuyvesant. Kiefft’s needless Indian war brought ruin and petitions for representation, and Stuyvesant answered critics such as Melyn and Kuyter with prosecution.
Listen: 39. Governors and Government Murray N. Rothbard, 46:35
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The Dutch and New Swedenp. 301
Recounts the rise and fall of New Sweden, launched by Minuit’s company at Fort Christina and harassed by Dutch and New Haven rivals until Stuyvesant conquered it. Stuyvesant’s regime sold exemptions from regulations he created, and later Amsterdam’s control of the Delaware settlers proved more restrictive still.
Listen: 40. The Dutch and New Sweden Murray N. Rothbard, 21:40
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New Netherland Persecutes the Quakersp. 308
Shows Stuyvesant and the Reformed clergy persecuting Lutherans and Quakers, using torture, fines and imprisonment against Robert Hodgson and the Flushing protesters, while the tolerant English towns founded by Lady Deborah Moody’s followers resisted. John Bowne’s case ended the persecution when the company ordered freedom of conscience.
Listen: 41. New Netherland Persecutes the Quakers Murray N. Rothbard, 9:56
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The Fall and Breakup of New Netherlandp. 311
Explains why England conquered New Netherland in 1664: it was a free-trade loophole in the Navigation Acts and a rival for English settlers, and the Duke of York got the grant. Stuyvesant’s subjects preferred English rule, but Nicolls’ Duke’s Laws, appointed officials and trade limits soon bred Long Island and Dutch grievances.
Listen: 42. The Fall and Breakup of New Netherland Murray N. Rothbard, 27:15
- Volume I: A New Land, A New People: The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century · Part V: The Northern Colonies in the Last Quarter of the Seventeenth Century
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The Northern Colonies, 1666-1675p. 321
Surveys the Northern colonies of 1666-75: New York under Lovelace, with abolished burgher castes, a cartmen’s monopoly and Long Island resistance to taxation without an assembly, New Jersey’s quitrent revolt against Governor Carteret, and the brief Dutch reconquest of 1673. It ends with the Byllinge, Fenwick and Penn division of the Jerseys.
Listen: 43. The Northern Colonies, 1666-1675 Murray N. Rothbard, 26:58
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The Beginning of Andros’ Rule in New Yorkp. 328
Sir Edmund Andros reaches New York in 1674 and forces Long Island towns and Dutch burghers to accept loyalty oaths, land-title fees and quitrents while denying an assembly, a demand that spreads to merchants. Carteret restores proprietary control in East Jersey, and Rothbard notes an alliance of Quakers, Catholics and high Anglicans.
Listen: 44. The Beginning of Andros' Rule in New York Murray N. Rothbard, 10:06
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Further Decline of the Massachusetts Theocracyp. 331
Describes the Massachusetts theocracy fading as prosperous Boston merchants, many not Puritans, replaced zeal with worldliness, while ministers such as Increase Mather lamented luxury and lax Sabbaths. The 1673 Navigation Act, aimed at New England’s evasions, and Shaftesbury’s fall prepare England’s move against Massachusetts’ self-rule.
Listen: 45. Further Decline in the Massachusetts Theocracy Murray N. Rothbard, 8:45
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King Philip’s Warp. 334
Argues King Philip’s War grew from decades of white encroachment and Plymouth’s rumor-based harassment of Massasoit’s sons Alexander and Philip, and became a near-extermination of the Wampanoags, Nipmucs and Narragansetts. Rothbard also treats Rhode Island’s Quaker peace policy and its collapse, and Andros’ attempted seizure of Connecticut.
Listen: 46. King Philip's War Murray N. Rothbard, 40:13
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The Crown Begins the Takeover of New England, 1676-1679p. 345
Shows Charles II turning to absolutism after 1675, sending career bureaucrat Edward Randolph through the Lords of Trade to break Massachusetts’ evasion of the Navigation Acts. The 1678 hearings found grounds to void its charter, the Popish Plot delayed action, and New Hampshire was made a royal colony.
Listen: 47. The Crown Begins the Takeover of New England Murray N. Rothbard, 18:57
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The Crown Takes over New Hampshire, 1680-1685p. 351
Narrates Cranfield’s rule as royal governor of New Hampshire: Cutt and Waldron’s short-lived resistance, Barefoot’s arrest, Mason’s quitrent and timber claims, contraband prosecutions and open plunder. Tax revolt and Gove’s rising follow, and even Randolph turns on Cranfield, who leaves for the West Indies.
Listen: 48. The Crown Takes over New Hampshire, 1680-1685 Murray N. Rothbard, 19:34
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Edward Randolph Versus Massachusetts, 1680-1684p. 357
Chronicles Randolph’s customs campaign in Boston, where juries acquitted nearly every ship he seized and magistrates obstructed him, until Massachusetts’ resistance crumbled in 1681 under Mather, Dudley and Stoughton despite Danforth’s lone warning. Randolph and Dudley then draft a plan for royal rule over New England.
Listen: 49. Edward Randolph Versus Massachusetts, 1680-1684 Murray N. Rothbard, 21:23
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The Re-Opening of the Narragansett Claims, 1679-1683p. 363
Shows how Randolph, Culpeper and Andros backed the Atherton Company’s claim to the Narragansett Country once King Philip’s War emptied it, and how the rigged 1683 commission, chaired by Cranfield and staffed by partners, overturned Rhode Island’s jurisdiction. Rothbard stresses the bribes and land-grab motives.
Listen: 50. The Re-Opening of the Narragansett Claims, 1679-1683 Murray N. Rothbard, 4:43
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The Rule of Joseph Dudley and the Council of New Englandp. 365
Describes the Lords of Trade’s plan for a governor and appointed Council with no assembly, and the 1686 Dudley-Randolph regime, a Council of pro-English opportunists ruling the new Dominion. Massachusetts withheld consent, Atherton proprietors seized Narragansett lands, and Andros’ arrival then brought sharper centralization.
Listen: 51. The Rule of Joseph Dudley and the Council of New England Murray N. Rothbard, 16:15
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New York, 1676-1686p. 370
Shows how Andros and then Dongan turned New York into a web of monopolies: Albany’s fur traders, New York City’s flour, port and carting privileges, plus heavy taxes, quitrents and feudal manors like Livingston’s, at the expense of farmers and Long Island. Grievances forced an assembly in 1683, while Dongan’s Catholicism fed suspicion.
Listen: 52. New York, 1676-1686 Murray N. Rothbard, 33:56
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Turmoil in East New Jersey, 1678-1686p. 380
Recounts East New Jersey’s struggle with New York, where Andros, seeking a port monopoly, seized Governor Carteret in 1680 and claimed jurisdiction until the Duke recalled him. Scottish and Quaker proprietors later tried to enforce quitrents, and the Assembly and towns resisted, refusing taxes to fund officials they did not choose.
Listen: 53. Turmoil in East New Jersey, 1678-1686 Murray N. Rothbard, 23:36
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The Development of West New Jerseyp. 387
Praises West New Jersey’s 1677 Concessions and Agreements, a Leveller-influenced charter written by Byllinge and Penn: no taxation without consent, secret ballots, jury trials, religious liberty, restitution for theft and wide land distribution. Rothbard follows the fights with Andros and Byllinge’s claim to govern, ending in Jennings’ revolt.
Listen: 54. The Development of West New Jersey Murray N. Rothbard, 15:01
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“The Holy Experiment”: The Founding of Pennsylvania, 1681-1690p. 392
Explains Penn’s 1681 charter, Frame of Government, religious liberty, cheap land, peaceful dealing with Indians and rapid Quaker settlement. Rothbard’s distinctive claim is that from 1684 Pennsylvanians drifted into de facto anarchism, resisting taxes, quitrents and Blackwell’s effort to rebuild a state, until Penn sided with them.
Listen: 55. "The Holy Experiment": The Founding of Pennsylvania, 1681-1690 Murray N. Rothbard, 35:34
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The Dominion of New Englandp. 402
Depicts Andros’ Dominion of New England as absolute rule: strict Navigation Acts, heavy fees, taxes and quitrents on reconfirmed land titles, Ipswich’s tax revolt under Rev. Wise, and annexation of Plymouth, Connecticut, New York and the Jerseys. Its unintended effect, Rothbard says, was to end the Puritan establishment and its schools.
Listen: 56. The Dominion of New England Murray N. Rothbard, 37:44
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The Glorious Revolution in the Northern Colonies, 1689-1690p. 413
Shows how news of England’s Glorious Revolution set the northern colonies against the Dominion: the 1689 Boston coup against Andros, restored charter governments, and turmoil in New Hampshire. In New York, Leisler’s militia rising displaces Nicholson but soon reproduces the very power it opposed.
Listen: 57. The Glorious Revolution in the Northern Colonies, 1689-1690 Murray N. Rothbard, 51:50
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The Glorious Revolution in the Northern Colonies, 1690-1692p. 428
Follows the war with France and its fur-trade roots, the Schenectady raid, and Leisler’s slide into taxes, arrests and a failed invasion of Canada, ending in his 1691 execution by the returning oligarchy. Then comes Massachusetts’ new charter, a compromise that ended Puritan theocracy and absorbed Plymouth.
Listen: 58. The Glorious Revolution in the Northern Colonies, 1690-1692 Murray N. Rothbard, 51:42
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Aftermath in the 1690s: The Salem Witch-Hunt and Stoughton’s Rise to Powerp. 442
Argues that Stoughton and Dudley used the 1692 Salem witch-hunt, built on spectral evidence, to rally Puritan hardliners against the moderate Phips-Mather coalition. Phips halted the trials but was left politically weak and later recalled, and Stoughton then built a pro-royal clique as England tightened enforcement of the Navigation Acts.
Listen: 59. Aftermath of the 1690s: The Salem Witch-Hunt and Stoughton's Rise to Power Murray N. Rothbard, 45:00
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The Liberalism of Lord Bellomont in the Royal Coloniesp. 454
Surveys Massachusetts, New York and New Hampshire under Tory oligarchs Stoughton, Usher and Fletcher, whose bribes, land grants and pirate protection Rothbard details, until the liberal Earl of Bellomont arrives. He attacks the grants and backs the Leislerians, but enforcing the Navigation Acts costs him support.
Listen: 60. The Liberalism of Lord Bellomont in the Royal Colonies Murray N. Rothbard, 21:44
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The Aftermath of Bellomontp. 461
Traces the northern colonies after Bellomont’s death in 1701: the liberals lose Massachusetts to Joseph Dudley, New Hampshire’s proprietary claim collapses despite Usher, and New York’s factions clash under Cornbury and Hunter. The governor-versus-Assembly pattern takes shape, while feudal land monopoly persists in New York.
Listen: 61. The Aftermath of Bellomont Murray N. Rothbard, 22:52
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Rhode Island and Connecticut After the Glorious Revolutionp. 468
Shows Rhode Island and Connecticut keeping their charters after 1689. Rhode Island’s Quaker-led government ignored taxes, oaths and schooling and rebuffed Massachusetts, New York and Dudley over militia and admiralty powers, while Connecticut under Winthrop and Saltonstall turned to church establishment and the Presbyterian Saybrook Platform.
Listen: 62. Rhode Island and Connecticut After the Glorious Revolution Murray N. Rothbard, 18:07
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The Unification of the Jerseysp. 474
Follows the Jerseys after the Dominion: the proprietors and a society of West Jersey investors, Hamilton’s revived quitrent collection, juries siding with settlers, Morris’s rebellion and tax revolts. The Crown ends proprietary rule in 1702 and unifies the two as one royal colony, with proprietors keeping their land claims.
Listen: 63. The Unification of the Jerseys Murray N. Rothbard, 38:03
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Government Returns to Pennsylvaniap. 485
Follows Pennsylvania’s Quaker resistance to taxes and government after Blackwell: Thomas Lloyd’s minimal rule, Delaware’s secession and compromise, Keith’s schism, Fletcher’s royal interlude, Markham’s self-made frame, and Penn’s 1699 return with the Charter of Privileges. Logan’s proprietary party finally ends Quaker pacifism, though the Assembly keeps fighting.
Listen: 64. Government Returns to Pennsylvania Murray N. Rothbard, 42:59
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The Colonies in the First Decade of the Eighteenth Centuryp. 497
Closes the volume by showing the colonies converging by 1710 on similar royal or proprietary systems, with governors, appointed councils, favored oligarchs and elected assemblies, after failed revolts and futile invasions of Canada. Rothbard notes that quitrents proved uncollectable, feudal tenure survived only in New York, and imperial rule now drew popular opposition.
Listen: 65. The Colonies in the First Decade of the Eighteenth Century Murray N. Rothbard, 16:43
- Volume I: A New Land, A New People: The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century
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Bibliographical Essayp. 502
Reviews the literature behind the volume, complaining that rich narrative history has been squeezed out by thin textbooks, and recommends works by region and topic, from Hawke and Chitwood on the colonies to Bronner on Pennsylvania and Hall on Randolph. Rothbard says the citations do not endorse the authors’ viewpoints.
- Volume II: “Salutary Neglect”: The American Colonies in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century
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Introduction: The Colonies in the Eighteenth Centuryp. 511
Frames the volume: after the Glorious Revolution era, the colonies settle into a stable pattern from about 1710, and shared governing institutions, a spreading libertarian ideology and common religious movements bind once-diverse settlements together, laying the ground for later united action.
Listen: Introduction: The Colonies in the Eighteenth Century Murray N. Rothbard, 7:06
- Volume II: “Salutary Neglect”: The American Colonies in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century · Part I: Development in theSeparate Colonies
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Liberalism in Massachusettsp. 515
Puritan rule weakens as the Assembly wins control of the governor’s pay, wage controls collapse, and Harvard falls to liberals, while ministers like Willard and Mather defend servitude and Sewall and John Wise argue for natural liberty.
Listen: 1. Liberalism in Massachusetts Murray N. Rothbard, 26:57
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Presbyterian Connecticutp. 523
Presents Connecticut as the new stronghold of rigid Calvinism, moving to a virtually Presbyterian church through the Saybrook Platform and founding Yale as a rival to liberal Harvard, yet forced to exempt Anglicans, Quakers and Baptists from church taxes.
Listen: 2. Presbyterian Connecticut Murray N. Rothbard, 2:06
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Libertarianism in Rhode Islandp. 524
Finds Rhode Island still the most libertarian colony, with no established church, minimal taxes, voluntary militia and defiance of trade rules, though it slides toward conformity with Sunday enforcement at Westerly, a ban on Catholic office-holding and a freehold voting requirement.
Listen: 3. Libertarianism in Rhode Island Murray N. Rothbard, 4:45
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Land Tenure and Land Allocation in New Englandp. 526
Explains how New England towns were settled by joint proprietors dividing land, then distorted by magistrates’ own grants and by advance sales to speculators. Rothbard cites Grant’s study of Kent to reject the picture of a class war between speculators and frontier farmers.
Listen: 4. Land Tenure and Land Allocation in New England Murray N. Rothbard, 11:35
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New Hampshire Breaks Freep. 530
Follows the contest between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, ended when the Privy Council fixed the boundary in 1737 and gave New Hampshire its own governor, Benning Wentworth, who then distributed the New Hampshire Grants in Vermont while rewarding himself and his family.
Listen: 5. New Hampshire Breaks Free Murray N. Rothbard, 4:45
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The Narragansett Plantersp. 532
Describes the Narragansett Country as a plantation society inside New England, where large landholders using heavy Negro and Indian slavery, harsh slave codes and a high property requirement for voting created a tight local oligarchy after Rhode Island won the territory in 1726.
Listen: 6. The Narragansett Planters Murray N. Rothbard, 4:09
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New York Land Monopolyp. 534
Portrays New York as the one colony where feudal manors survived, built on governors selling and giving themselves huge land grants; manor lords such as the Livingstons and Philipses dominated politics, provoked tenant revolts and border fights, and crushed the Palatine refugees at Schoharie.
Listen: 7. New York Land Monopoly Murray N. Rothbard, 29:09
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Slavery in New Yorkp. 542
Recounts New York’s slave repression, from laws against assembly and flight to the 1708 and 1712 revolts and the 1741 conspiracy panic, whose torture-driven confessions, burnings and hangings Rothbard likens to the Salem witch trials.
Listen: 8. Slavery in New York Murray N. Rothbard, 8:36
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Land Conflicts in New Jerseyp. 545
Traces the New Jersey land war in which East and West Jersey proprietors led by Lewis Morris tried to enforce titles and quitrents, and settlers rioted, rescued prisoners and won through an Assembly-backed defiance that made the proprietors abandon their feudal claims by 1752.
Listen: 9. Land Conflicts in New Jersey Murray N. Rothbard, 21:05
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The Ulster Scotsp. 551
Describes the Ulster Scots, the largest eighteenth-century immigrant group, fleeing English oppression to squat on frontier land in Pennsylvania, the Shenandoah Valley and the Carolinas, while New England Puritans and New York’s Cornbury received them with hostility. Rothbard praises their customary settlement law.
Listen: 10. The Ulster Scots Murray N. Rothbard, 11:41
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The Pennsylvania Germansp. 555
Portrays the Pennsylvania Germans as sober, productive farmers who lived apart from the Scotch-Irish, treated Indians fairly, and pioneered ironworks, rifles and Conestoga wagons, and notes the Moravians and the founding of Princeton, the Academy and King’s College.
Listen: 11. The Pennsylvania Germans Murray N. Rothbard, 4:09
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Pennsylvania: Quakers and Indiansp. 557
Shows Quaker Pennsylvania keeping peace with the Indians without forts or militia, then losing ground as the Anglican Penns, Governor Thomas and Ulster Scots pushed for war, and as the Assembly resisted with its purse, the walking purchase and George Croghan’s fort scheme.
Listen: 12. Pennsylvania: Quakers and Indians Murray N. Rothbard, 17:48
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The Emergence of Benjamin Franklinp. 562
Deflates Franklin’s reputation, arguing that he built his career on government patronage such as public printing and paper money, whipped up war fear with a militia association, and led Quakers to abandon pacifism and back taxes, a militia and war spending.
Listen: 13. The Emergence of Benjamin Franklin Murray N. Rothbard, 32:59
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The Paxton Boysp. 571
Covers the 1763 slaughter of the peaceful Conestoga Indians by the Scotch-Irish Paxton Boys and their march on Philadelphia against Moravian Indians, with Franklin’s mild handling, plus the frontier’s grievance over underrepresentation and the Mason-Dixon boundary settlement.
Listen: 14. The Paxton Boys Murray N. Rothbard, 8:19
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The Virginia Land Systemp. 574
Explains how Virginia’s headright system and unlimited headright purchases fed land engrossment, how Governor Spotswood dropped land reform to grant himself 85,000 acres, and how Gooch’s grants and Lord Fairfax’s six-million-acre Northern Neck decision entrenched large landholders.
Listen: 15. The Virginia Land System Murray N. Rothbard, 11:14
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The Virginia Political Structurep. 578
Argues that Virginia’s democratic forms disguised oligarchy: a few interlinked planter families monopolized Council and Burgesses seats, and open oral voting before an appointed sheriff kept elections in their hands, illustrating Mosca’s law of the organized ruling minority.
Listen: 16. The Virginia Political Structure Murray N. Rothbard, 7:08
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Virginia Tobaccop. 581
Virginia planters answer falling fortunes with state cartels to restrict tobacco output and debtor-relief laws the Crown struck down, while Rothbard defends the Scottish and London merchants as competitive middlemen who did not exploit planters.
Listen: 17. Virginia Tobacco Murray N. Rothbard, 7:36
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Slavery in Virginiap. 584
Documents Virginia’s slave regime as brutal ownership backed by torture, no legal marriage and killing with impunity, and shows how repeated plots and revolts in 1722, 1729, 1730, 1755 and 1767 led governors and the Assembly to tighten controls even on free Negroes.
Listen: 18. Slavery in Virginia Murray N. Rothbard, 9:17
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Indian War in North Carolinap. 587
Recounts the Tuscarora war, sparked by land encroachment and Indian kidnapping, in which South Carolina forces under Barnwell and Moore, mostly Indian allies, crushed the tribe, with Barnwell seizing Indians at a false parley to sell into slavery.
Listen: 19. Indian War in North Carolina Murray N. Rothbard, 4:08
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The North Carolina Proprietaryp. 589
Traces North Carolina’s proprietary decline: fights over paying quitrents in commodities, governors selling blank patents to favorites, the Everard and Burrington feuds, the 1729 sale to the Crown, and the armed revolt against Lord Granville’s agents that ended his proprietary claims.
Listen: 20. The North Carolina Proprietary Murray N. Rothbard, 9:46
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Royal Government in North Carolinap. 592
Shows royal governor Johnston losing his quitrent campaign and, in a dispute over unequal representation, moving the capital south, which drove Albemarle to tax refusal and near-anarchy until the Crown backed the north in 1754, as Ulster Scots settled the Piedmont.
Listen: 21. Royal Government in North Carolina Murray N. Rothbard, 7:05
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Slavery in South Carolinap. 595
Links South Carolina’s rice and subsidized indigo plantations to a slave majority and constant revolt: plots, Spanish-Florida flight, the Stono rising and Charleston fires, met with executions, better rations, a slave-import tariff and Indians hired against runaways.
Listen: 22. Slavery in South Carolina Murray N. Rothbard, 14:54
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Proprietary Rule in South Carolinap. 599
Explains how abuses by white traders sparked the Yamassee war, after which reform demands and hatred of Trott and Rhett’s proprietary clique led militia to overthrow the proprietors in 1719, and the Crown accepted South Carolina as a royal province.
Listen: 23. Proprietary Rule in South Carolina Murray N. Rothbard, 9:34
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The Land Question in South Carolinap. 602
Describes royal South Carolina’s fight over revived giant proprietary land claims, which the Assembly validated in 1731 and defended by jailing critics such as Thomas Cooper and St. John, and shows a handful of intermarried planter families monopolizing the governorship.
Listen: 24. The Land Question in South Carolina Murray N. Rothbard, 7:38
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Georgia: The “Humanitarian” Colonyp. 605
Treats Georgia as a humanitarian experiment that turned into central planning: Oglethorpe’s trustees, with no assembly, capped land, banned rum and slaves, forced silk, and used the colony as a military buffer against Spain until it failed and passed to the Crown in 1752.
Listen: 25. Georgia: The "Humanitarian" Colony Murray N. Rothbard, 50:18
- Volume II: “Salutary Neglect”: The American Colonies in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century · Part II: Intercolonial Developments
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Inflation and the Creation of Paper Moneyp. 621
Explains paper money as an inflationary privilege, not a cure for a scarcity of money: from Massachusetts’ first issues and land-bank schemes through the reckless Rhode Island and Maryland loans, Rothbard shows who gained and who lost, and how the Crown, English creditors and hard-money men like Douglass resisted.
Listen: 26. Inflation and Paper Money Murray N. Rothbard, 1:12:18
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The Communication of Ideas: Postal Service and the Freedom of the Pressp. 639
Traces how the Crown’s postal monopoly and licensing, seditious libel and legislative privilege hobbled the colonial press, and argues the Zenger verdict did far less for press freedom than its reputation says, given assembly persecutions of printers and critics.
Listen: 27. The Communication of Ideas: Postal Service and the Freedom of the Press Murray N. Rothbard, 53:08
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Religious Trends in the Coloniesp. 654
Surveys colonial religion: Anglican, Puritan and Presbyterian establishments amid limited toleration and uniform persecution of Catholics, then shows zeal fading as Newton, Locke and the Enlightenment spread rationalism, though Harvard and New England orthodoxy still resisted Arminianism.
Listen: 28. Religious Trends in the Colonies Murray N. Rothbard, 8:26
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The Great Awakeningp. 657
Rejects the view of the Great Awakening as a progressive people’s movement, calling it a reactionary, emotion-driven revival of Calvinism led by Edwards, Whitefield and Tennent, yet showing that its splits among churches and persecution of New Lights pushed dissenters toward opposing establishments.
Listen: 29. The Great Awakening Murray N. Rothbard, 39:28
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The Growth of Deismp. 668
Shows liberal religion advancing in reaction to revival excess, as Arminians like Briant and Gay and the deist Jonathan Mayhew, with Chauncy, drew on Locke, Clarke and English deists to teach natural law, reason and free will, with a hidden deist Franklin.
Listen: 30. The Growth of Deism Murray N. Rothbard, 12:39
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The Quakers and the Abolition of Slaveryp. 672
Follows Quaker abolitionism from suppressed early protests by Pastorius, Southeby and Farmer through Sandiford, Lay and above all Woolman, whose leadership won the 1758 Philadelphia meeting to demand emancipation, resting on natural-rights ideas that displaced Quaker pessimism about man.
Listen: 31. The Quakers and the Abolition of Slavery Murray N. Rothbard, 23:22
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The Beginning of the Struggle over American Bishopsp. 679
Recounts the failed drives for an American Anglican bishop, from the SPG and Queen Anne to Johnson, Cutler and Bishop Sherlock, which alarmed dissenters like Mayhew, and the New York clash where Livingston’s Independent Reflector fought an Anglican establishment.
Listen: 32. The Beginning of the Struggle over American Bishops Murray N. Rothbard, 14:34
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The Growth of Libertarian Thoughtp. 684
Follows libertarian ideas taking root in the colonies, fed by Sidney, Locke and Trenchard and Gordon’s Cato’s Letters, and voiced in America by Mayhew, Elisha Williams and New Light Separates, with a look at the French liberal influence through Voltaire.
Listen: 33. The Growth of Libertarian Thought Murray N. Rothbard, 53:14
- Volume II: “Salutary Neglect”: The American Colonies in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century · Part III: Relations with Britain
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Assembly Versus Governorp. 699
Explains why colonial assemblies beat royal governors despite the governor’s veto, following Bailyn: money power, a wide franchise, no rotten boroughs and instructions from voters left governors without the patronage that let the Crown control Parliament at home.
Listen: 34. Assembly Versus Governor Murray N. Rothbard, 12:31
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Mercantilist Restrictionsp. 703
Lays out the Navigation Acts, enumerated goods and bans on colonial hats, iron and other manufactures as gifts to English merchants and West Indies planters (the Molasses Act), and shows how Walpole and Newcastle’s salutary neglect left most of them unenforced.
Listen: 35. Mercantilist Restrictions Murray N. Rothbard, 36:07
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King George’s Warp. 713
Merchants chasing slave-trade and Spanish-market profits, joined by Pitt’s war party, break Walpole’s peace policy in the War of Jenkins’ Ear, and Shirley’s Louisbourg expedition then brings impressment, war contracts and Boston riots in King George’s War.
Listen: 36. King George's War Murray N. Rothbard, 38:23
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Early Phases of the French and Indian Warp. 724
Traces the French and Indian War to a British war party of Pitt, Bedford and Halifax, and to Virginia’s Ohio Company land grab, then follows Dinwiddie, Washington and Braddock’s defeat, colonial resistance to conscription and supplies, and the failed Albany Plan.
Listen: 37. Early Phases of the French and Indian War Murray N. Rothbard, 43:46
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The Persecution of the Acadiansp. 736
Chronicles the British betrayal of the Acadians, from blocked emigration and bad-faith oath demands after Utrecht to Governor Lawrence’s forced deportation in 1755, which scattered families through the colonies and Europe amid seizure of their lands, hardship and cruelty.
Listen: 38. The Persecution of the Acadians Murray N. Rothbard, 23:39
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Total Warp. 743
Follows the war after 1756 as Montcalm’s victories give way to Pitt’s total mobilization for the conquest of New France: Louisbourg, Frontenac and Duquesne fall, then Wolfe takes Quebec and Amherst Montreal, while colonists resist drafts and quartering.
Listen: 39. Total War Murray N. Rothbard, 16:15
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The American Colonies and the Warp. 748
Americans fight the war with smuggling, trading with the enemy and profitable war contracts, while Massachusetts and other colonies resist quartering, conscription and army discipline through riots, desertion and mutiny, as Britain violates neutral shipping rights.
Listen: 40. The American Colonies and the War Murray N. Rothbard, 17:47
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Concluding Peacep. 754
Peace-minded Whigs like Newcastle, Burke and Mauduit battle Pitt, Bute and Franklin’s imperial pamphleteers over keeping Canada, as Pitt sabotages talks, Spain is provoked, Whigs are purged, and the 1763 treaty takes Canada and Florida.
Listen: 41. Concluding Peace Murray N. Rothbard, 33:44
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Administering the Conquestsp. 763
Describes the post-1763 fate of the conquered lands: Acadians returning to nothing, forced-labor settlements like New Smyrna in East Florida, Catholic subjection and no assembly in Quebec, a Spanish crackdown in Louisiana, and Tories ending salutary neglect.
Listen: 42. Administering the Conquests Murray N. Rothbard, 9:55
- Volume II: “Salutary Neglect”: The American Colonies in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century
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Bibliographical Essayp. 767
Guides readers through the sources for this period, naming Osgood and Andrews as the standard general histories, Bailyn as the discoverer of the libertarian ideological current, and specialist studies on Locke, Quakers, the Great Awakening, Zenger, immigration, Pitt and salutary neglect.
- Volume III: Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775 · Part 1: The British Army and the Western Lands
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The Stage Is Setp. 781
With France expelled and the Pelhamite Whigs out of power, Britain is free to end salutary neglect and impose full mercantilist control. Rothbard notes that the colonial assemblies had grown nearly independent and steeped in libertarian ideas, so resistance to imperial ambitions is certain.
Listen: 1. The Stage Is Set Murray N. Rothbard, 15:26
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The Ohio Lands: Pontiac’s Rebellionp. 783
Traces the Ohio country dispute after 1759: the land-hungry Ohio Company, General Amherst’s contemptuous cutoff of ammunition, rum and presents to the Indians, and the resulting Pontiac uprising. Rothbard treats Amherst as a hard-liner whose repression provoked the war, and shows a negotiated peace ending it.
Listen: 2. The Ohio Lands: Pontiac's Rebellion Murray N. Rothbard, 17:23
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The Ohio Lands: The Proclamation Line of 1763p. 788
Explains the Proclamation of 1763, which closed the West to settlement and even to private land purchase under army rule. Rothbard rejects the claim that it protected Indians and points instead to English fur interests and the wish to keep colonials on the coast as manufactured-goods customers.
Listen: 3. The Ohio Lands: The Proclamation Line of 1763 Murray N. Rothbard, 8:01
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The British Army and the Grand Designp. 791
Describes the imperial Grand Design: a peacetime army of twelve thousand, stricter mercantilist enforcement, and taxes on Americans to pay for it all, a circular arrangement copied from the Irish model. It also follows the cider tax fight, Grenville’s rise, and the first stamp tax schemes.
Listen: 4. The British Army and the Grand Design Murray N. Rothbard, 24:03
- Volume III: Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775 · Part II: Enforcement of Mercantilism
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Writs of Assistance in Massachusettsp. 801
Covers the fight over general writs of assistance in Massachusetts, where merchants hired James Otis to argue that a statute against natural equity is void. Hutchinson’s court upheld the writs anyway, but the case made Otis and Samuel Adams leaders of a popular party against the Court faction.
Listen: 5. Writs of Assistance in Massachusetts Murray N. Rothbard, 8:50
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The White Pine Actp. 804
Shows how the long-ignored White Pine Act was suddenly enforced in 1763, when Governor Benning Wentworth seized thousands of logs in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Rothbard points to the pointless waste of timber and to Wentworth’s rivalry with a Connecticut competitor, and notes the angry local resistance.
Listen: 6. The White Pine Act Murray N. Rothbard, 2:02
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Molasses and the American Revenue Actp. 805
Details the Molasses Act and its replacement, the 1764 Revenue Act, which cut the duty but promised real collection, backed by navy patrols, vice admiralty courts and reversed burdens of proof. Rothbard stresses colonial merchant protests and how Franklin and agent Richard Jackson weakly conceded the taxing principle.
Listen: 7. Molasses and the American Revenue Act Murray N. Rothbard, 24:12
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Reaction in Massachusettsp. 812
Follows Massachusetts’s answer to the Sugar Act: Sam Adams’s instructions, and Otis’s and Thacher’s pamphlets grounding a denial of parliamentary taxation in natural rights. Under Hutchinson’s pressure and Jackson’s advice, the province retreated to a false internal versus external tax distinction.
Listen: 8. Reaction in Massachusetts Murray N. Rothbard, 8:03
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Reaction in Rhode Island and Connecticutp. 815
Compares protests in Connecticut and Rhode Island, where Governor Hopkins’s pamphlet went furthest but both addresses conceded external taxes. It also covers the Newport Junto’s Tory attack, Otis’s retreat, and how Rhode Island’s Ward-Hopkins factional feuding fed a habit of dodging taxation.
Listen: 9. Reaction in Rhode Island and Connecticut Murray N. Rothbard, 12:43
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Reaction in New Yorkp. 819
Shows New York’s Assembly taking the firmest stand of the colonies, resting its case against taxation without consent on property rights and rejecting the internal versus external split. Rothbard credits this boldness partly to Governor Colden’s scheme to annul the Kayaderosseras land grant for fees.
Listen: 10. Reaction in New York Murray N. Rothbard, 5:31
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Reaction in Pennsylvaniap. 821
Explains why Pennsylvania’s protest was so feeble: the Quaker oligarchy around Franklin and Galloway sought royal government to keep its grip on the Assembly and would not challenge Grenville. John Dickinson emerges alone to warn against both proprietor and Crown and to defend Pennsylvania’s liberties.
Listen: 11. Reaction in Pennsylvania Murray N. Rothbard, 6:30
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Reaction in New Jerseyp. 823
Records New Jersey’s muted response to the Sugar Act: no official protest to England, apparently because Governor William Franklin blocked a special session, though West Jersey committee members objected. Attorney General Skinner argues that troops in Indian country cause wars rather than prevent them.
Listen: 12. Reaction in New Jersey Murray N. Rothbard, 2:14
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Reaction in the Southp. 824
Surveys the southern colonies’ reactions to the Revenue Act: Virginia’s committee rejects colonial seats in Parliament, Richard Henry Lee privately warns of oppression breeding resentment, and North and South Carolina protest taxation without consent. Several other colonies send nothing official.
Listen: 13. Reaction in the South Murray N. Rothbard, 3:41
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Enforcement Troublesp. 826
Shows colonial anger at the tightened enforcement machinery, especially the remote Halifax admiralty court and lost jury trials. Merchants protest and dodge the rules, a Maryland collector is thrown out of an auction, and Rhode Island collector Robinson meets stiff obstruction.
Listen: 14. Enforcement Troubles Murray N. Rothbard, 4:12
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The Newport Casep. 828
Chronicles Rhode Island’s defiance of the customs regime: courts acquit seized ships, mobs strip the Polly, and Newporters fire on a warship and burn a Maidstone boat over impressment. Merchants also form manufacturing and boycott associations, while trade restrictions and the Currency Act deepen a depression.
Listen: 15. The Newport Case Murray N. Rothbard, 12:39
- Volume III: Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775 · Part III: Ideology and Religion
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The Threat of the Anglican Bishopsp. 835
Recounts the revived scheme for Anglican bishops in America, pushed by Archbishop Secker as part of the Grand Design. Jonathan Mayhew’s pamphlets rallied Congregationalists and others, as colonists feared Parliament could impose bishops, tithes and an established church just as it could impose taxes.
Listen: 16. The Threat of the Anglican Bishops Murray N. Rothbard, 7:41
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The Parsons’ Causep. 838
Explains the Parsons’ Cause: Virginia fixed tobacco payments at twopence to ease taxation, and high-church clergy sought royal nullification and back pay. The Crown’s veto of the Twopenny Acts and its suspension-clause order alienated Virginians, bringing forth Patrick Henry and constitutional arguments used later against Britain.
Listen: 17. The Parson's Cause Murray N. Rothbard, 20:32
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Wilkes and Liberty, 1763-1764p. 844
Follows John Wilkes and his North Briton through the general-warrant arrest of 1763, his court victories, and London’s Wilkes and Liberty mobs. Rothbard argues that these English struggles against the same Tory rulers gave Americans ideas, allies and models of mass action, making revolution imminent.
Listen: 18. Wilkes and Liberty, 1763-1764 Murray N. Rothbard, 20:05
- Volume III: Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775 · Part IV: Edge of Revolution: The Stamp Act Crisis
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Passage of the Stamp Actp. 853
Shows how Grenville engineered the Stamp Act: he hinted at alternatives, then denied colonial agents any figure or role while gaining Parliament’s advance resolution. Rothbard stresses the high taxes on lawyers, printers and taverns and the vice admiralty enforcement that made it an assault on nearly every colonist.
Listen: 19. Passage of the Stamp Act Murray N. Rothbard, 24:41
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Initial Reaction to the Stamp Actp. 860
Frames the choice facing colonists as submission, ceasing all paper business, or outright defiance, which Rothbard calls mass civil disobedience amounting to revolution. Leadership was the missing spark; the first defiant voice is the Plain Yeoman essay in Providence, denying that Parliament governs colonies equal to Britain under one king.
Listen: 20. Initial Reaction to the Stamp Act Murray N. Rothbard, 8:39
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Patrick Henry Intervenesp. 863
Tells how Patrick Henry, a new burgess, pushed the Virginia Resolves through a timid House, denying anyone but the Assembly the right to tax. The old guard expunged the strongest one, yet all seven reached the colonies as if passed, and Rothbard says the tax could only be defeated in the streets.
Listen: 21. Patrick Henry Intervenes Murray N. Rothbard, 10:30
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Sam Adams Rallies Bostonp. 866
Shows Sam Adams filling the leadership gap as Franklin submitted and Otis wavered. Adams organizes the Loyal Nine and shoemaker Ebenezer Mackintosh’s South End gang, whose August 1765 riots against Oliver and Hutchinson forced stamp officials out and left Governor Bernard reporting Massachusetts in rebellion.
Listen: 22. Sam Adams Rallies Boston Murray N. Rothbard, 30:15
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Rhode Island Respondsp. 874
Describes Newport following Boston’s example: mobs hang and sack the houses of the Tory Newport Junto and the stamp distributor, who resigns, while collector Robinson takes refuge on a ship. The chapter also covers the hotheaded John Webber, merchant leaders’ loss of control, and the Sons of Liberty tightening discipline.
Listen: 23. Rhode Island Responds Murray N. Rothbard, 12:34
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Response in New Yorkp. 878
Follows the wave of resistance to the Stamp Act beyond New England. Distributors in New York and New Jersey resign, Maryland’s is chased out, and New York’s Sons of Liberty, led by Sears, Lamb and Allicocke, force Governor Colden to surrender the stamped paper to city officials.
Listen: 24. Response in New York Murray N. Rothbard, 5:45
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Response in Virginiap. 880
Shows New Hampshire’s stamp master Meserve and Virginia’s George Mercer forced to disavow their posts. Mercer meets an assembled crowd of Williamsburg’s merchants and gentlemen of property and gives way, even though Washington doubts the resistance and the governor urges him to hold firm.
Listen: 25. Response in Virginia Murray N. Rothbard, 3:24
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Response in Connecticutp. 882
Covers Connecticut’s stamp master Jared Ingersoll, a well-connected Tory, who is hanged in effigy and forced to resign by armed eastern Sons of Liberty at Wethersfield. Rothbard also notes that the resisters were mostly New Lights, while Old Light Governor Fitch chose to enforce the tax.
Listen: 26. Response in Connecticut Murray N. Rothbard, 3:10
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Response in Pennsylvaniap. 884
Recounts Philadelphia’s clash over Franklin’s ally John Hughes. Galloway’s trades clubs protect Hughes’s house from a mob in September, but on October 5 a crowd of Presbyterians and merchants extracts a compromise, deferral of the Act, while Hughes remains defiant and Franklin urges him to hold his post.
Listen: 27. Response in Pennsylvania Murray N. Rothbard, 4:52
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Response in the Carolinas and Georgiap. 886
Follows the final stamp masters south, from Georgia’s absent George Angus to Charleston, where Gadsden’s Sons of Liberty destroy the stamped paper and force suspension of Lloyd and Saxby. By November 1 no distributor is left willing to serve, so the Act is dead in practice.
Listen: 28. Response in the Carolinas and Georgia Murray N. Rothbard, 6:51
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Official Protestsp. 889
Argues that assemblies mattered little once mobs disabled the stamp masters, since they could only send protests. The exception is Virginia’s Resolves; Rhode Island alone went further, ordering officials to ignore the Act and promising indemnity, while most others at least denied Parliament’s taxing power.
Listen: 29. Official Protests Murray N. Rothbard, 3:57
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The Stamp Act Congressp. 891
Covers the October 1765 Stamp Act Congress in New York, where Bernard’s man Ruggles chaired but could not enforce passive submission. Gadsden’s radicals won a vague due subordination formula, while Sam Adams’s Massachusetts Resolves gave the clearest statement of natural rights and property against taxation.
Listen: 30. The Stamp Act Congress Murray N. Rothbard, 9:06
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Ignoring the Stamp Taxp. 894
Details how colonists nullified the Act by simply carrying on: printers defied it, Boston’s Sons of Liberty forced customs clearances without stamps, and most courts stayed shut. Rothbard notes the wide range across colonies, from Rhode Island’s unbroken court sessions to timid judges elsewhere awaiting repeal.
Listen: 31. Ignoring the Stamp Act Murray N. Rothbard, 28:26
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Government Replaced by the Sons of Libertyp. 902
Argues that with stamps blocked and business carrying on, effective rule in the colonies passed from governments to voluntary bodies, the Sons of Liberty, a near anarchy that Rothbard illustrates with Spooner. Intercolonial Sons organizations grew until repeal averted a likely revolution in 1766.
Listen: 32. Government Replaced by the Sons of Liberty Murray N. Rothbard, 16:50
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Repeal of the Stamp Actp. 907
Explains why Britain repealed: the king dismissed Grenville for the Rockingham Whigs, and English merchants and manufacturers, hurt by the American nonimportation boycott, lobbied hard. Parliament passed repeal with a Declaratory Act asserting sovereignty, after a fight in which Pitt and Conway were prominent.
Listen: 33. Repeal of the Stamp Act Murray N. Rothbard, 41:34
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Aftermath of Repealp. 918
Traces the mood after repeal: colonists celebrate, but Mason and Gadsden warn that the Declaratory Act still threatens future taxes, and the Sons largely disband. Massachusetts Whigs purge Tories, New York troops cut a Liberty Pole, and Pitt returns as head of a Tory cabinet.
Listen: 34. Aftermath of Repeal Murray N. Rothbard, 8:55
- Volume III: Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775 · Part V: The Townshend Crisis, 1766–1770
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The Mutiny Actp. 923
Shows the Mutiny Act’s requirement that colonies quarter and supply troops as a tax in kind, resisted most firmly by New York. Pitt and Townshend answer with the Restraining Act suspending its Assembly, and New York then gives in by a single vote, leaving little resistance elsewhere.
Listen: 35. The Mutiny Act Murray N. Rothbard, 8:14
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The New York Land Revoltp. 926
Recounts the 1766 Hudson Valley tenant revolt against the great manorial landlords, whose packed courts favored their land claims. British troops crushed it and Prendergast was condemned. Rothbard argues that landlord-led Sons of Liberty never joined the tenants, splitting New York’s resistance.
Listen: 36. The New York Land Revolt Murray N. Rothbard, 13:14
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Passage of the Townshend Actsp. 930
Explains how Townshend exploited Franklin’s internal versus external tax distinction in 1767, taxing imported tea, paper, paint, glass and lead. The revenue funds colonial officials, and a Boston customs board, writs of assistance and more vice admiralty courts end salutary neglect.
Listen: 37. Passage of the Townshend Acts Murray N. Rothbard, 4:09
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The Nonimportation Movement Beginsp. 932
Shows the colonial answer to the Townshend duties taking the form of boycott rather than riot, from the Boston town meeting under Otis to merchant pledges in Providence, New York and Philadelphia. Rothbard argues this shift reflected tactics, not timidity, since import duties called for different resistance than the Stamp Act.
Listen: 38. The Nonimportation Movement Begins Murray N. Rothbard, 12:59
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Conflict in Bostonp. 936
Depicts British repression backfiring: Hillsborough orders assemblies dissolved for endorsing the Massachusetts circular letter, the ninety-two defy him, and the new customs board crushes Boston smuggling until mobs respond. The seizure of Hancock’s sloop Liberty and his prosecution push Britain toward military occupation.
Listen: 39. Conflict in Boston Murray N. Rothbard, 15:37
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Wilkes and Liberty: The Massacre of St. George’s Fieldsp. 941
Links the London libertarian movement of John Wilkes to American resistance. Wilkes wins Middlesex, is jailed, and soldiers kill protesters at St. George’s Fields; Boston’s Sons of Liberty then open a correspondence with him, and Rothbard sees Tory rulers moving to crush both rebellions alike.
Listen: 40. Wilkes and Liberty: The Massacre of St. George's Fields Murray N. Rothbard, 12:25
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British Troops Occupy Bostonp. 945
Follows the occupation of Boston in 1768: Sam Adams and Otis threaten armed resistance, the town meeting orders citizens to bear arms and calls an extralegal convention, yet troops land anyway. The radicals still win the spring 1769 elections, and John Adams helps defeat the Hancock prosecution.
Listen: 41. British Troops Occupy Boston Murray N. Rothbard, 8:26
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Nonimportation in the Southp. 948
Follows the boycott into the South, where English and Scottish factors held the trade, so large planters like Washington and Mason led nonconsumption associations in Virginia and Maryland. In Charleston, Gadsden’s alliance of planters and artisans, then North Carolina and Georgia, pressed reluctant merchants to join.
Listen: 42. Nonimportation in the South Murray N. Rothbard, 11:11
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Rhode Island Joins Nonimportationp. 952
Traces the boycott through Delaware, New Jersey and Connecticut and into the two holdouts. Newport merchants profited from others’ sacrifice until Philadelphia, Boston and New York shut them out, while Silas Downer voiced natural-rights arguments, and New Hampshire, ruled by the Wentworth family, never formed an association.
Listen: 43. Rhode Island Joins Nonimportation Murray N. Rothbard, 6:45
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Boycotting the Importersp. 954
Examines how the boycott agreements were policed, with figures showing New York and Philadelphia imports collapsing but the South largely evading them. Rothbard defends Gadsden against Drayton on the right of free men to shun others peacefully, and follows Boston’s fight with Tory printer John Mein.
Listen: 44. Boycotting Importers Murray N. Rothbard, 19:51
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The Boston Massacrep. 960
Narrates the Boston crisis of 1770: the killing of a boy by informer Richardson, the soldiers’ volley on King Street, and Sam Adams forcing troops out of the town. Rothbard separates the people’s defensive violence from the state’s aggressive kind and argues that customs officials, not the redcoats, deserved blame.
Listen: 45. The Boston Massacre Murray N. Rothbard, 24:10
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Conflict in New Yorkp. 967
Describes the New York clash with the redcoats: the Golden Hill fight over the Liberty Pole, and Alexander McDougall’s jailing for seditious libel, casting him as America’s Wilkes. Unlike Boston, an oligarchic Assembly ruled, so it punished the Sons of Liberty and imprisoned McDougall for contempt without habeas corpus.
Listen: 46. Conflict in New York Murray N. Rothbard, 7:01
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Wilkes and Americap. 970
Traces the alliance of Wilkes with American liberals, from Boston’s letters and Arthur Lee’s London ties to the Bill of Rights Society and mass petitions. Rothbard shows the Wilkite movement fading after 1770 amid Tory rule, teaching Americans that liberty would have to be won by themselves.
Listen: 47. Wilkes and America Murray N. Rothbard, 19:44
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Partial Repeal of the Townshend Dutiesp. 976
Explains why the Grafton ministry repealed the Townshend duties except on tea in 1770: Wilkite unrest, the Falklands crisis with Spain, and merchants hurt by the boycott. Lord North’s one-vote cabinet victory kept the tea tax to assert sovereignty and split the resistance, while the Tories tightened their hold.
Listen: 48. Partial Repeal of the Townshend Duties Murray N. Rothbard, 9:30
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New York Breaks Nonimportationp. 979
Recounts the collapse of the boycott after partial repeal in 1770. South Carolina, Boston and Sam Adams held out for total repeal, but Newport, Portsmouth and finally the New York merchants, through a rigged canvass, broke ranks. Rothbard draws lessons about combining boycott with violence and about merchant fragility.
Listen: 49. New York Breaks Nonimportation Murray N. Rothbard, 30:25
- Volume III: Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775 · Part VI: The Regulator Uprisings
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The South Carolina Regulationp. 991
Shows South Carolina’s back country, denied courts and sheriffs by Charleston, organizing the Regulators against outlaw gangs in 1767. Rothbard praises this self-defense but says the Regulators then turned aggressor against the poor, provoking the Moderators, and the Circuit Court Act finally supplied the missing law enforcement.
Listen: 50. The South Carolina Regulation Murray N. Rothbard, 19:53
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The North Carolina Regulationp. 997
Recounts the North Carolina Regulation as a revolt against too much government: fee-extorting officials, poll taxes and sheriffs’ seizures. Fanning’s courthouse ring and Governor Tryon crush the Sandy Creek reformers at Alamance in 1771, and Rothbard contrasts this sectional tax rebellion with its South Carolina namesake.
Listen: 51. The North Carolina Regulation Murray N. Rothbard, 46:20
- Volume III: Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775 · Part VII: Prelude to Revolution, 1770–1775
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The Uneasy Lull, 1770-1772p. 1013
Portrays the lull after 1770 as a time of radical retreat in Massachusetts: Britain pays Governor Hutchinson’s salary, Hancock drifts, and Tories attack Adams and Dr. Young. Adams keeps at it, and in South Carolina the House refuses royal limits on its control of appropriations in the Wilkes fund dispute.
Listen: 52. The Uneasy Lull, 1770-1772 Murray N. Rothbard, 9:29
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The Gaspee Incidentp. 1016
Follows the customs war in Rhode Island, where mobs burned the naval sloop Liberty and beat officials. Lieutenant Dudingston’s Gaspee harassed shipping until Providence men led by John Brown burned it in 1772, and Britain answered with a star-chamber commission and Crown-paid Massachusetts judges.
Listen: 53. The Gaspée Incident Murray N. Rothbard, 8:59
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The Committees of Correspondencep. 1019
Shows Sam Adams answering the judges’ salary decision by founding a permanent Boston Committee of Correspondence, whose Resolves rest colonial rights on natural rights. The network spreads to other towns and colonies, while the Gaspee commission fails because no informer can be found and Dartmouth opposes trials in England.
Listen: 54. The Committees of Correspondence Murray N. Rothbard, 15:37
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Tea Launches the Final Crisisp. 1024
Presents the Tea Act of 1773 as a bailout of the bankrupt East India Company, letting it sell tea direct to America through favored consignees. Rothbard argues that opposing this state-privileged monopoly, and its record in Bengal, was a principle as much as a merchant interest, not a contradiction.
Listen: 55. Tea Launches the Final Crisis Murray N. Rothbard, 17:31
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The Boston Tea Partyp. 1029
Narrates the Boston Tea Party as the answer to the Tea Act: consignees, kin of Hutchinson, refused to resign, so the Sons of Liberty dumped the East India cargoes in December 1773. Body meetings replaced the town meeting, no one aided the governor in finding culprits, and John Adams hailed it as an epoch.
Listen: 56. The Boston Tea Party Murray N. Rothbard, 10:34
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The Other Colonies Resist Teap. 1033
Shows the tea resisted elsewhere: Philadelphia and New York forced consignees to quit and turned ships back, then New Yorkers dumped a smuggled cargo. Charleston’s merchants blunted the radicals, so its tea was stored, but tea parties and boycotts of all tea spread through 1774.
Listen: 57. The Other Colonies Resist Tea Murray N. Rothbard, 7:57
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The Coercive Actsp. 1036
Shows Britain choosing coercion after the Tea Party: Franklin is scapegoated, and Parliament passes the Boston Port Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, the trial-removal act for officials and a colonywide Quartering Act. Rothbard says the Tory ruling clique picked the mailed fist over a return to salutary neglect.
Listen: 58. The Coercive Acts Murray N. Rothbard, 12:41
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The Quebec Actp. 1040
Argues that the Quebec Act reads as a model of despotism to Whigs and colonists: no elected assembly or civil jury, a Crown-appointed council, Parliament taxing, and an established, Crown-controlled Catholic church. Rothbard says Whig objection was to privilege and feudalism, not mere anti-Catholic prejudice, and it stretched Quebec over the West.
Listen: 59. The Quebec Act Murray N. Rothbard, 7:30
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Boston Calls for the Solemn League and Covenantp. 1043
Describes Boston’s appeal for a total boycott after the Port Act, and how conservative committees in New York and Philadelphia deflected it into a delayed congress meant to petition only. Boston’s radicals answer with the Solemn League and Covenant, aiming to bypass merchants, before joining the congress plan.
Listen: 60. Boston Calls for the Solemn League and Covenant Murray N. Rothbard, 20:05
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Selecting Delegates to the First Continental Congressp. 1049
Describes the struggle over choosing delegates to the 1774 Congress: conservatives captured New York’s slate, Galloway fought extralegal methods in Pennsylvania, and Georgia sent no one. Radicals fared better in Maryland and Virginia, whose Association adopted an immediate boycott without waiting for Philadelphia.
Listen: 61. Selecting Delegates to the First Continental Congress Murray N. Rothbard, 26:54
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Resistance in Massachusettsp. 1057
Shows Massachusetts resisting the Coercive Acts by mass noncooperation: Boston denied barracks and supplies to Gage’s troops, mobs drove Mandamus councillors to resign or flee, and courts were shut down. Rothbard sees the general turning to state violence, seizing powder while the militia trained and towns organized a provincial congress.
Listen: 62. Resistance in Massachusetts Murray N. Rothbard, 7:31
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The First Continental Congressp. 1060
Follows the First Continental Congress, where radicals from Massachusetts and Virginia beat back Galloway’s plan of imperial union by one vote. Adams’s Suffolk Resolves brought endorsement of civil disobedience, though the Declaration of Rights was timid, and the Congress adopted the Continental Association boycott.
Listen: 63. The First Continental Congress Murray N. Rothbard, 16:08
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The Continental Associationp. 1065
Examines how provincial congresses and local inspection committees enforced the boycott, from Massachusetts to South Carolina’s rice exemption fight. New York and Georgia never ratified, blacklisting and ostracism dealt with Tories and violators, and Rothbard faults committees that fixed prices, ignoring how prices ration scarcity.
Listen: 64. The Continental Association Murray N. Rothbard, 35:17
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The Impact on Britainp. 1075
Reports the boycott cutting British imports by nearly all in 1775, yet Lord North answering with the New England Restraining Act and a Conciliatory Plan meant to split the colonies. Burke urges concession, and Rothbard highlights his observation that American self-government worked well without royal governors and judges.
Listen: 65. The Impact on Britain Murray N. Rothbard, 12:28
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The Tory Press in Americap. 1079
Presents the Tory press and pulpit in America as blurring the line between violent invasion and peaceful boycott. Rivington’s Gazetteer, Daniel Leonard, and Anglican clergy like Seabury argue against the rebels; John Adams answers as Novanglus from natural law, and Americans boycott Rivington until he yields.
Listen: 66. The Tory Press in America Murray N. Rothbard, 6:59
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Massachusetts: Nearing the Final Conflictp. 1082
Describes Massachusetts arming in the winter of 1774-75: the Concord provincial congress made Hancock president and created the Committee of Safety, minutemen and volunteer militia drilled on Pickering’s plan. Rothbard stresses the voluntary, taxless nature of these bodies, the pro-resistance Congregational clergy, and clashes at Portsmouth and Salem.
Listen: 67. Massachusetts: Nearing the Final Conflict Murray N. Rothbard, 15:26
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Support from Virginiap. 1087
Turns to the South and the eve of war: Patrick Henry’s militia resolution narrowly passes Virginia’s convention, Dunmore’s seizure of powder nearly provokes armed rising, and South Carolina rebels raid the armory. North Carolina lags amid Tory strength, though most former Regulators, Rothbard notes, chose the revolution.
Listen: 68. Support from Virginia Murray N. Rothbard, 6:53
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“The Shot Heard Round the World”: The Final Conflict Beginsp. 1090
Recounts April 1775: contemptuous Britons expect a show of force to scatter Massachusetts, and Gage, tipped by the informer Church, marches on Concord to seize supplies and arrest Adams and Hancock. Rothbard describes the Lexington shooting, the Concord retreat and the militia’s ambush along the road home, which began the war.
Listen: 69. 'The Shot Heard Round the World': The Final Conflict Begins Murray N. Rothbard, 13:26
- Volume III: Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775 · Part VIII: Other Forces for Revolution
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The Expansion of Libertarian Thoughtp. 1097
Surveys the ideas feeding the revolution: Thomas Hollis’s campaign distributing libertarian books, Mayhew’s resistance preaching, Locke’s rising influence, and the Whig radicals. Rothbard argues Blackstone and Montesquieu were tactical or late influences, while Voltaire and Rousseau’s attacks on ruling classes mattered more.
Listen: 70. The Expansion of Libertarian Thought Murray N. Rothbard, 22:48
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The Vermont Revolution: The Green Mountain Boysp. 1104
Tells how settlers in the Green Mountains, threatened by New York land speculators like Duane and Kempe holding grants, resisted ejectment through committees of safety. Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys turned to guerrilla tactics, and the struggle merged into the Revolution against Britain in 1775.
Listen: 71. The Vermont Revolution: The Green Mountain Boys Murray N. Rothbard, 33:27
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The Revolutionary Movement: Ideology and Motivationp. 1114
Concludes that the Revolution was supported by most Americans as a people’s war in which liberty and property were one cause. Rothbard argues state expansion is driven by economic interest and popular rebellion by ideology, faulting the Beard-Becker school and crediting Bailyn’s stress on radical libertarian ideas.
Listen: 72. The Revolutionary Movement: Ideology and Motivation Murray N. Rothbard, 26:42
- Volume III: Advance to Revolution, 1760-1775
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Bibliographical Essayp. 1121
Serves as a reading guide to the period, praising Knollenberg’s two volumes as the best overall account and Bailyn on libertarian ideology. It then sorts sources by theme (Wilkes, religion, mercantilist enforcement, western land, the press) and by colony, from New England to Georgia.
- Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784 · Part I: The War Begins
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Spreading the News of Lexington and Concordp. 1131
Explains how Joseph Warren and the Massachusetts radicals raised a besieging militia army and shaped the story of Lexington and Concord for the other colonies, spreading an atrocity-laden narrative by courier, handbill and radical press while the Tory papers fell silent.
Listen: 1. Spreading the News in Lexington and Concord Murray N. Rothbard, 20:37
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The Response in Britainp. 1135
Shows the radical account of the fighting reaching London two weeks ahead of Gage’s own dispatches, and Whig officers such as Effingham and Granville Sharp resigning rather than serve, while the North ministry doubled down on coercion and blamed Whig agitators and Gage.
Listen: 2. The Response in Britain Murray N. Rothbard, 4:50
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Guerrilla or Conventional Warp. 1137
Rothbard contrasts a conventional European-style war, with conscription, taxes and bureaucracy, against a guerrilla people’s war of part-time soldiers fighting near home. He argues the guerrilla path was both the libertarian choice and the more effective one, yet the colonists drifted toward the other.
Listen: 3. Guerrilla or Conventional War Murray N. Rothbard, 6:12
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The Seizure of Fort Ticonderogap. 1140
Follows Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys, with Benedict Arnold contesting command, in taking Ticonderoga and Crown Point without a shot, a guerrilla success that a timid Continental Congress wanted abandoned and that decayed into an idle garrison once Allen and Arnold were sidelined.
Listen: 4. The Seizure of Fort Ticonderoga Murray N. Rothbard, 10:52
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The Response of the Continental Congressp. 1144
Describes the Second Continental Congress stalling under Dickinson’s conservatives, approving the Olive Branch Petition, then taking over the Cambridge army. Rothbard shows John Adams backing Washington for continental unity at the expense of libertarian principle, splitting Massachusetts leaders and alienating Hancock.
Listen: 5. The Response of the Continental Congress Murray N. Rothbard, 13:11
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Charles Lee: Champion of Liberty and Guerrilla Warp. 1148
Portrays Charles Lee as a learned, radical English soldier of genuine military talent, whose Strictures answered Tory claims of British invincibility by praising militia zeal and terrain over parade-ground regulars, yet who was passed over for command in favor of the conservative Washington.
Listen: 6. Charles Lee: Champion of Liberty and Guerrilla War Murray N. Rothbard, 17:42
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The Battle of Bunker Hillp. 1154
Recounts the fight on Breed’s Hill, not Bunker Hill, where rash American fortification met British frontal assaults. Howe’s costly, ill-judged tactics and Gage’s rejection of Clinton’s flanking advice left Britain a bloody technical win, and Joseph Warren dead.
Listen: 7. The Battle of Bunker Hill Murray N. Rothbard, 7:29
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Washington Transforms the Armyp. 1157
Argues that Washington spent 1775 remaking the democratic, elected-officer militia around Boston into a hierarchical European-style army through rank distinctions, pay gaps and floggings, provoking resentment among New Englanders and backcountry riflemen and leaving him rebuilding a thin force as enlistments expired.
Listen: 8. Washington Transforms the Army Murray N. Rothbard, 8:36
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The Invasion of Canadap. 1160
Traces the failed invasion of Canada: Schuyler’s delays, Montgomery’s capture of St. John’s and Montreal, Arnold’s march and the fatal assault on Quebec, then Sullivan’s rout at Three Rivers. Rothbard counts about five thousand men lost and the loss of bold, guerrilla-minded leaders.
Listen: 9. The Invasion of Canada Murray N. Rothbard, 23:16
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Paper Money Financingp. 1167
Argues that Congress, unable to tax and unable to fund a regular army by voluntary gifts, turned to paper bills of credit in June 1775. Successive issues swelled the money supply, and legal tender laws in Rhode Island and Massachusetts coerced their acceptance.
Listen: 10. Paper Money Financing Murray N. Rothbard, 9:06
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The New Postal Systemp. 1170
Tells how William Goddard’s private, cost-financed Constitutional Post displaced the royal mail, then how Congress nationalized it in July 1775 and made Franklin postmaster general. Rothbard treats this as a step from grassroots voluntarism back toward centralized statism.
Listen: 11. The New Postal System Murray N. Rothbard, 4:25
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New York Fumbles in the Crisisp. 1172
Shows New York radicals Sears and Lamb seizing arms and closing the port after Lexington, then losing the city election to Livingston conservatives who channeled resistance into passive, legal measures. Sears left in November and McDougall drifted right, leaving a Tory Right and a timid center.
Listen: 12. New York Fumbles in the Crisis Murray N. Rothbard, 13:07
- Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784 · Part II: Suppressing the Tories
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The Suppression of Tories Beginsp. 1179
Shows extralegal committees moving from enforcing the boycott to policing opinion, with oaths, fines, confiscation, banishment and mob pressure against Tories, an irony Rothbard reads as Liberty clashing with Power. He sizes Tories at about a third of engaged Americans and maps them by region, faith and class.
Listen: 13. The Suppression of the Tories Begins Murray N. Rothbard, 18:00
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Suppressing Tories in Rhode Island and Connecticutp. 1185
Surveys suppression of loyalists in New England: few Tories in Massachusetts, Governor Wanton’s removal and Captain Wallace’s plundering in Rhode Island, Lee’s oaths and arrests at Newport, and Connecticut’s first systematic anti-Tory law, with the Simsbury mine prison and a night raid at Waterbury.
Listen: 14. Suppressing Tories in Rhode Island Murray N. Rothbard, 5:39
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Suppressing Tories in New Yorkp. 1188
Explains that radical action in Tory-heavy New York came from outside: Sears’s Connecticut raiders smashing Tory presses, Congress outlawing Queens County and sending Hurd to disarm it, then Schuyler’s surprise disarming of Johnson’s Highlanders in Tryon County, leaving Tories jailed, flogged or fled to Canada.
Listen: 15. Suppressing Tories in New York Murray N. Rothbard, 11:46
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Suppressing Tories in the Middle Coloniesp. 1192
Surveys Loyalist strength in the middle colonies: Governor William Franklin’s separate-peace maneuvers in New Jersey until his June 1776 arrest, passive Quaker Toryism in Pennsylvania, and armed Tory associations on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and in Delaware, some equipped by Dunmore’s ships.
Listen: 16. Suppressing Tories in the Middle Colonies Murray N. Rothbard, 3:47
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Virginia Battles Lord Dunmorep. 1194
Follows Lord Dunmore from Norfolk to his Connolly Plot to split the colonies through Pittsburgh, and the burning of Norfolk. Rothbard separates counter-revolutionary raiding from true guerrilla war, and notes nearly two thousand slaves who joined Dunmore, many later shipped into slavery elsewhere.
Listen: 17. Virginia Battles Lord Dunmore Murray N. Rothbard, 16:11
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Battling Tories in the Southp. 1199
Tells how Loyalist hopes collapsed in the South: Highland Scots rising under Governor Martin were crushed at Moore’s Creek Bridge, Clinton’s delayed expedition was abandoned, and South Carolina and Georgia Tories were outmaneuvered, with the Savannah mob stripping Governor Wright of power.
Listen: 18. Battling Tories in the South Murray N. Rothbard, 10:55
- Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784 · Part III: The War in the First Half of 1776
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The British Assault on Charlestonp. 1205
Recounts how Charles Lee, given the new southern command, pressed for the arrest of Maryland’s Governor Eden and shored up Charleston’s defenses, so that Moultrie’s gunners at Fort Sullivan beat off Clinton and Parker’s fleet in June 1776, saving the South.
Listen: 19. The British Assault on Charleston Murray N. Rothbard, 7:15
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Forcing the British Out of Bostonp. 1208
Covers Henry Knox’s sledge haul of the Ticonderoga guns, Washington’s rejected wish for a frontal assault, Ward’s plan to fortify Dorchester Heights in a single night, and Howe’s forced evacuation to Halifax with a thousand Tories, sparing Boston after a promise not to burn it.
Listen: 20. Forcing the British Out of Boston Murray N. Rothbard, 6:08
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Privateering and the War at Seap. 1211
Describes Britain’s command of the sea and the American reply: colonial schooners, Washington’s improvised fleet, whaleboat night raids, and Mowat’s burning of Falmouth. Congress then built a small Continental Navy under Hopkins, but Rothbard credits privateers, who vanish in peacetime without a standing navy’s burdens.
Listen: 21. Privateering and the War at Sea Murray N. Rothbard, 9:47
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Commodities, Manufacturing, and Foreign Tradep. 1215
Traces how war cut off British goods and how Congress slowly dropped its own nonimportation and price controls, opening ports to non-British trade in April 1776. Rothbard shows fixed prices worsening shortages of salt, powder and lead, while free prices and homespun cloth eased them.
Listen: 22. Commodities, Manufacturing, and Foreign Murray N. Rothbard, 25:34
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Getting Aid from Francep. 1223
Follows early diplomacy: appeals to London, Ireland and Canada, then secret committees dominated by Robert Morris and Thomas Willing, whose cost-plus contracts enriched insiders. Rothbard also covers French secret aid through Beaumarchais and Vergennes, and France’s protection of neutral trade and American privateers.
Listen: 23. Getting Aid from France Murray N. Rothbard, 17:54
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Polarization in England and the German Response to Renting “Hessians”p. 1229
Contrasts a Congress ruled by conservatives against the few radicals who wanted independence, then shows Britain hardening under the North ministry after Bunker Hill while English Whigs weakened. Rebuffed by Russia, the crown hired German troops, and some German writers sided with America.
Listen: 24. Polarization in England and the German Murray N. Rothbard, 26:25
- Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784 · Part IV: America Declares Independence
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America Polarizesp. 1239
Shows the hiring of Hessians and army radicals such as Lee, Sullivan, Greene and Gates pushing Congress toward independence, while Congress waited on provincial opinion. The provinces had already replaced royal governors and assemblies with elected conventions, and colonial suffrage reached roughly half to three quarters of adult men.
Listen: 25. America Polarizes Murray N. Rothbard, 16:50
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Forming New Governments: New Hampshirep. 1244
Tells how New Hampshire wrote the first colonial constitution at Exeter after Congress changed its advice, dropping property tests for voting and redrawing representation. Far-western towns around Dartmouth attacked the weighted upper house as monarchy revived, and some refused to send delegates or pay taxes.
Listen: 26. Forming New Governments: New Murray N. Rothbard, 9:10
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New England Ready for Independencep. 1247
Explains that Connecticut and Rhode Island needed little upheaval, with the Ward faction displacing Hopkins after Wanton’s ouster. Massachusetts, however, was blocked in Congress by a split delegation (Cushing, Paine, Hancock) until Elbridge Gerry replaced Cushing in December 1775, giving the radicals a majority.
Listen: 27. New England Ready for Independence Murray N. Rothbard, 17:41
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The Sudden Emergence of Tom Painep. 1249
Profiles Thomas Paine, a self-taught English corset maker’s son turned antislavery writer, whose Common Sense broke the taboo against attacking the king and cast America as a refuge for mankind. Tory pamphleteers and conservative planters such as Carter and Laurens denounced it, to no avail.
Listen: 28. The Sudden Emergence of Tom Paine Murray N. Rothbard, 17:41
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Massachusetts Turns Conservativep. 1255
Argues that after Lexington a new fault line opened over who would rule at home, and Massachusetts radicals swung right. John Adams’s Thoughts on Government, answering Paine, urged strong executives and upper houses, while Berkshire radicals under Thomas Allen and Joseph Hawley closed courts and demanded democracy.
Listen: 29. Massachusetts Turns Conservative Murray N. Rothbard, 32:06
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The Drive Toward Independencep. 1264
Follows independence through the provinces in spring 1776: Georgia’s authorization, North Carolina’s April instruction, South Carolina’s Drayton, and Virginia’s convention with Mason’s declaration of rights and oligarchic constitution. It closes with Congress’s May 15 preamble, drafted by John Adams, a de facto declaration.
Listen: 30. The Drive Toward Independence Murray N. Rothbard, 37:21
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The Struggle in Pennsylvania and Delawarep. 1275
Explains that independence hinged on Pennsylvania, where Dickinson’s malapportioned proprietary assembly resisted. Rothbard shows outsider radicals (Paine, Cannon, Rittenhouse, Matlack) and militia associations demanding voting rights, conservatives such as Inglis writing rebuttals, and Delaware then following Pennsylvania’s lead.
Listen: 31. The Struggle in Pennsylvania and Delaware Murray N. Rothbard, 29:11
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New Jersey and Maryland Followp. 1284
Shows New Jersey swinging to independence in June 1776 under Witherspoon, jailing Governor Franklin and broadening the franchise, then Maryland, where the proprietary Court Party and a narrow suffrage gave way after Chase and Carroll stumped the west and Lee agitated, and the convention reversed its instructions on June 28.
Listen: 32. New Jersey and Maryland Follow Murray N. Rothbard, 13:46
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Independence Declaredp. 1289
Recounts Lee’s June 7 resolution, the postponed vote, the drafting committee of Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Sherman and Livingston, and New York’s abstention. Rothbard stresses that the Declaration rested the cause on universal natural rights, and that Jefferson’s indictment of the slave trade was struck out.
Listen: 33. Independence Declared Murray N. Rothbard, 20:12
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New York Succumbs to Independencep. 1295
Shows New York’s landed oligarchs yielding to independence only as Howe’s huge invasion fleet approached, with the Committee of Seven, the arrest of Mayor Mathews, and the White Plains vote on July 9. It adds the Mechanics’ demand for a constitutional referendum, Vermont’s land quarrel, and European reactions to the Declaration.
Listen: 34. New York Succumbs to Independence Murray N. Rothbard, 32:06
- Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784 · Part V: The Military History of the Revolution, 1776–1778
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The Invasion of New Yorkp. 1301
Describes Britain’s giant force at New York and Washington’s decision to defend fixed positions against Lee’s warning, leading to Long Island, Kip’s Bay and Manhattan retreats. Rothbard blames the Howe brothers, Whigs seeking reconciliation, for sparing him, and credits Gates, not Arnold, for stopping Carleton on Lake Champlain.
Listen: 35. The Invasion of New York Murray N. Rothbard, 36:08
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The Campaigns in New Jerseyp. 1309
Follows the loss of Forts Washington and Lee, Washington’s retreat across New Jersey, and Lee’s rival guerrilla-style strategy before his capture. Paine’s Crisis and Howe’s halt preceded the strikes at Trenton and Princeton, which Rothbard, following Alden, calls the real turning point, with British plunder alienating New Jersey.
Listen: 36. The Campaigns in New Jersey Murray N. Rothbard, 17:30
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Planning in the Winter of 1777p. 1315
Shows how Howe’s three successive plans for 1777 undermined Burgoyne’s scheme to cut the colonies in two from Canada, sending the main army to Philadelphia by sea instead. It also covers Danbury, Arnold’s raid response, Germain’s failure to restrain Howe, and Lord Howe’s lax blockade.
Listen: 37. Planning in the Winter of 1777 Murray N. Rothbard, 7:58
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Rebellion at Livingston Manorp. 1318
Tells how tenants on Livingston Manor and other Whig-owned estates, seeing no gain from their landlords’ victory, rose in May 1777 to claim the land, mistakenly expecting British help. Militia led by oligarchs crushed them, yet the tenants kept up an anti-Whig resistance that ended their being taken for granted.
Listen: 38. Rebellion at Livingston Manor Murray N. Rothbard, 6:53
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The Burgoyne Disasterp. 1321
Traces Burgoyne’s advance from Canada: Ticonderoga lost when Mount Defiance went unfortified, the disaster at Bennington, St. Leger’s failure at Fort Stanwix, and Gates’s defensive stand with Morgan’s riflemen at Saratoga. Rothbard gives Gates, not Arnold, the credit, and notes Burgoyne’s surrender broke the British plan.
Listen: 39. The Burgoyne Disaster Murray N. Rothbard, 36:34
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Howe’s Expedition in Pennsylvaniap. 1332
Follows Howe’s slow sea voyage to the Chesapeake and Washington’s choice to fight conventional battles for Philadelphia, ending in defeats at Brandywine, Paoli and Germantown and the British capture of the city. Rothbard notes Greene’s rescue at Brandywine and Howe’s failure to destroy the beaten army.
Listen: 40. Howe's Expedition in Pennsylvania Murray N. Rothbard, 12:16
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Winter at Valley Forgep. 1336
Describes the miserable winter camp at Valley Forge, chosen under Pennsylvania pressure, and the so-called Conway Cabal, which Washington used to crush criticism and sideline Gates. Lee returns from captivity urging a defensive, harassing strategy but is ignored, while Howe idles in Philadelphia until Clinton replaces him.
Listen: 41. Winter at Valley Forge Murray N. Rothbard, 14:46
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The Battle of Monmouth and the Ouster of Leep. 1341
Rothbard defends Charles Lee’s caution as Clinton retreats across New Jersey, blaming Washington’s pointless, badly planned attack at Monmouth and his public abuse of Lee for the court-martial that broke him. The stalemate ends major fighting in the North.
Listen: 42. The Battle of Monmouth and the Ouster of Lee Murray N. Rothbard, 13:23
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Response in Britain and Francep. 1346
Follows the American courtship of France, from the Plan of 1776 with its free-trade, neutral-rights and isolationist ideals to the 1778 treaties after Saratoga. In Britain, Whigs and radicals turn against the war while Pitt and Burke divide the liberal opposition.
Listen: 43. Response in Britain and France Murray N. Rothbard, 27:31
- Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784 · Part VI: The Political History of the United States, 1776–1778
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The Drive for Confederationp. 1357
Argues that conservatives, led by Robert Morris, James Wilson and the western land speculators, pushed for a strong national state while radicals such as Thomas Burke resisted. The fights over Dickinson’s draft, congressional power and western lands set the terms of confederation.
Listen: 44. The Drive for Confederation Murray N. Rothbard, 32:28
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The Articles of Confederationp. 1367
Traces how the Articles took final shape: Burke’s amendment reserving sovereignty to the states, a weakened executive, requisitions on land values. Rothbard treats the compromise as still a centralizing halfway house to the Constitution, with Maryland’s holdout delaying ratification until 1781.
Listen: 45. The Articles of Confederation Murray N. Rothbard, 13:23
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Radicalism Triumphs in Pennsylvaniap. 1371
Describes the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, written by Cannon, Rittenhouse and Matlack: a one-house assembly, plural executive, rotation in office and a council of censors. Conservatives attacked it, and Rothbard shows the radicals answering with generosity toward their enemies.
Listen: 46. Radicalism Triumphs in Pennsylvania Murray N. Rothbard, 18:52
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Struggles Over Other State Governmentsp. 1377
Surveys state constitution-making outside Pennsylvania: the Massachusetts towns’ overwhelming rejection of the conservative 1778 draft, Vermont’s radical model, and compromises or oligarchic settlements in Georgia, the Carolinas, Maryland, Delaware and New Hampshire.
Listen: 47. Struggles Over Other State Governments Murray N. Rothbard, 31:17
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The Rise and Decline of Conservatism in New Yorkp. 1387
Shows New York’s constitution as the conservative counterpart to Pennsylvania’s: property tests, a strong governor with a veto council, and validated land grants. George Clinton’s victory over Schuyler then unseats the landed oligarchy and pushes it toward nationalism.
Listen: 48. The Rise and Decline of Conservatism in New York Murray N. Rothbard, 11:44
- Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784 · Part VII: The Military History of the Revolution, 1778–1781
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The End of the War in the Northp. 1393
After Monmouth the northern war dwindles to raids and small actions like Stony Point, while Washington sidelines his best officers. Rothbard stresses the ruin of the Continental Army by inflation of paper money, which produced the mutinies of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey lines.
Listen: 49. The End of the War in the North Murray N. Rothbard, 18:23
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The War at Seap. 1399
Examines the naval war after French entry: privateers prove cheaper and more damaging than a navy, and French fleets soon leave for the Caribbean. Britain’s plunder of the free port of St. Eustatius destroys a vital neutral trade route for American supplies.
Listen: 50. War at Sea Murray N. Rothbard, 5:58
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The War in the Westp. 1402
Covers the frontier war as a guerrilla conflict on both sides: George Rogers Clark’s daring capture of Illinois and Vincennes, Iroquois and Tory raids in New York and Pennsylvania, Sullivan’s punitive expedition, and Spain’s conquest of British posts on the Gulf and lower Mississippi.
Listen: 51. The War in the West Murray N. Rothbard, 49:57
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The Southern Strategyp. 1416
Explains Britain’s third strategy, a step-by-step pacification of the South, resting on inflated hopes of Tory strength and on the taxpaying gentry’s wish for a cheap war. Benjamin Lincoln, an undistinguished general, receives the Southern command.
Listen: 52. The Southern Strategy Murray N. Rothbard, 12:25
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The Invasion of Georgiap. 1421
Narrates the fall of Georgia to Campbell and Prevost after Robert Howe’s blunders, then the patriot militia’s reversals at Beaufort and Kettle Creek under Pickens. Rothbard closes with the disastrous French and American assault on Savannah under d’Estaing.
Listen: 53. The Invasion of Georgia Murray N. Rothbard, 18:42
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The Capture of Charlestonp. 1427
Recounts Clinton’s siege of Charleston in 1780 and Lincoln’s decision to stay and defend it rather than escape. The surrender of the whole southern army, Tarleton’s killing of surrendering men at Waxhaws and Clinton’s clumsy proclamation leave the Carolinas apparently pacified.
Listen: 54. The Capture of Charleston Murray N. Rothbard, 9:37
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The Emergence of Guerrilla Warfare in South Carolinap. 1430
Shows the back-country militia of Sumter, Marion and Pickens, fighting from cover in small mobile bands, wearing down British posts in the Carolinas. Rothbard argues that plunder and martial law by British and Tory forces drove neutral settlers into rebel ranks.
Listen: 55. The Emergence of Guerrilla Warfare in South Carolina Murray N. Rothbard, 11:57
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Gates Meets the Enemyp. 1434
Recounts Gates’s march on Camden with de Kalb’s Continentals and untrained militia, and the rout when British regulars charged the militia wing. Rothbard defends Gates against Washington-centered historians, blaming his open-field stand against professionals as the fatal departure from guerrilla-style war.
Listen: 56. Gates Meets the Enemy Murray N. Rothbard, 9:16
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The Battle of King’s Mountain and the End of the 1780 Campaignp. 1438
Argues that Camden mattered less than the people in arms: Ferguson’s Tories are wiped out by overmountain riflemen at King’s Mountain, and Sumter beats Tarleton at Blackstock’s. Cornwallis finds the Carolina interior hostile and calls for a diversion in Virginia.
Listen: 57. The Battle of King's Mountain and the End of the 1780 Campaign Murray N. Rothbard, 10:54
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Greene’s Unorthodox Strategyp. 1442
Nathanael Greene, the one able general Washington had not alienated, takes the Southern command and splits his weak army against classical rules. The gamble forces Cornwallis to divide too, and Morgan’s clever double envelopment of Tarleton at Cowpens crushes the British force.
Listen: 58. Greene's Unorthodox Strategy Murray N. Rothbard, 11:41
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The Race to the Danp. 1446
Describes Greene’s retreat before Cornwallis after Cowpens, joining Morgan and Huger, and drawing the British far from their supplies. Boats prepared in advance and a decoy detachment under Otho Williams carry the army over the Dan into Virginia.
Listen: 59. The Race to the Dan Murray N. Rothbard, 7:01
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The Battle of Guilford Courthousep. 1449
Depicts Cornwallis stranded without supplies or Tory support after the Dan chase, and Greene’s return with skirmishing that dries up North Carolina Tory recruiting. Guilford Courthouse is a technical American defeat that costs the British a quarter of their army, and Cornwallis then abandons the Carolinas for Virginia.
Listen: 60. The Battle of Guilford Courthouse Murray N. Rothbard, 9:03
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The Liberation of South Carolinap. 1452
Greene turns south instead of chasing Cornwallis, and with Lee, Marion, Sumter and Pickens picks off Camden and the Santee forts, Augusta and Ninety-Six. Hobkirk’s Hill and Eutaw Springs are tactical losses, yet the British end up confined to Charleston and Savannah.
Listen: 61. The Liberation of South Carolina Murray N. Rothbard, 11:55
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The Final Battlep. 1456
Traces Virginia’s abandonment by Congress and Washington, then the Yorktown campaign: Lafayette shadows Cornwallis while Washington and Rochambeau slip south and de Grasse controls the Chesapeake. Rothbard sees Yorktown as the close of a guerrilla war, with mop-up operations still needed afterward.
Listen: 62. The Final Battle Murray N. Rothbard, 23:27
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After Yorktown in the Westp. 1463
Recounts frontier fighting that continues in the West after Yorktown: the massacre of peaceful Moravian Indians at Gnadenhutten, Crawford’s failed Sandusky expedition, and the British and Indian attacks culminating at Blue Licks. Clark’s raids and Sevier’s expeditions punish Shawnee and Cherokee towns.
Listen: 63. After Yorktown in the West Murray N. Rothbard, 8:36
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The Response in Britainp. 1466
Follows the collapse of the war party in Britain after Yorktown: the country gentry desert over taxes, Germain is ousted, and Fox’s Parliamentary resolutions end the offensive. Rockingham insists on a program of economy and independence, and the army evacuates the southern ports.
Listen: 64. The Response in Britain Murray N. Rothbard, 10:26
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Making Peacep. 1470
Covers the peace diplomacy: Spanish and French designs on American territory, the Armed Neutrality, and the Congressional faction fights over Deane and French influence. Jay, Adams and Franklin defy instructions to secure a generous treaty, and Rothbard closes by crediting a people’s guerrilla war over Washington’s generalship.
Listen: 65. Making Peace Murray N. Rothbard, 37:19
- Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784 · Part VIII: The Political and Economic History of the United States, 1778–1784
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Land Claims and the Ratification of the Articles of Confederationp. 1483
Explains why the Articles waited until 1781: Maryland’s land-speculator oligarchy withheld ratification until Virginia yielded its western claims. Jefferson and Mason’s settler-friendly land office loses out to speculators like Robert Morris, and Congress gains sovereignty over the Northwest.
Listen: 66. Land Claims and the Ratification of the Articles of Confederation Murray N. Rothbard, 10:13
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Inflationary Finance and Price Controlsp. 1487
Analyzes wartime finance: Continental and state paper printed at a growing pace, depreciation from near par to worthless, and futile price controls policed by local committees. Rothbard sides with Rush and Pelatiah Webster against controls, and notes that Congress finally wrote off its currency at market value while turning loan certificates into a lasting debt.
Listen: 67. Inflationary Finance and Price Controls Murray N. Rothbard, 36:50
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Conservative Counter-Revolution: Massachusetts and Pennsylvania in 1780p. 1498
Shows the conservatives, with the paper crisis as pretext, planning a central bank and strong central power. Their gains in Massachusetts (the 1780 constitution, with property tests and church support) and Pennsylvania’s overturn of radicals in October 1780 pave the way for Robert Morris.
Listen: 68. Conservative Counter-Revolution: Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Murray N. Rothbard, 13:07
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Robert Morris and the Conservative Counter-Revolution in National Politics, 1780-1782p. 1502
Shows nationalists floating a military dictatorship under Washington in 1780, then settling for one-man executive departments in Congress. Robert Morris, named Financier, absorbs the marine and war offices and founds the Bank of North America, a monopoly bank whose notes and his own paper depreciate.
Listen: 69. Robert Morris and the Conservative Counter-Revolution in National Politics, 1780-1782 Murray N. Rothbard, 19:12
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Robert Morris and the Public Debtp. 1508
Argues that Morris sought to make the war debt permanent and national, binding moneyed men to the central government and reviving the value of depreciated securities. The states meanwhile absorb debt in taxes, and public creditors turn to state redemption instead, defying his plan.
Listen: 70. Robert Morris and the Public Debt Murray N. Rothbard, 17:17
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The Drive for a Federal Tariffp. 1514
Describes Morris’s drive for a permanent 5 percent federal impost as the wedge for national taxation, pressed through slogans about war and the sacred debt. Rhode Island’s David Howell blocks it, and Virginia’s repeal in late 1782 kills the plan.
Listen: 71. The Drive for a Federal Tariff Murray N. Rothbard, 11:27
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The Newburgh Conspiracyp. 1518
Reconstructs the Newburgh affair as a plot by Morris, Hamilton and allied officers to fuse army half-pay demands with public creditors’ claims, with Morris’s resignation threat as pressure. Washington’s restraint and a diluted 1783 impost let the coup fizzle, and peace ends the centralizing push.
Listen: 72. The Newburgh Conspiracy Murray N. Rothbard, 13:55
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The Fall of Morris and the Emergence of the Order of the Cincinnatip. 1523
Traces Morris’s fall after 1783: nationalists quit office, Congress flees Philadelphia, and the Bank of North America is separated from government. Rothbard treats the hereditary Order of the Cincinnati, formed by army officers, as a reactionary body that triggered public alarm from Burke, Mirabeau and Jefferson.
Listen: 73. The Fall of Morris and the Emergence of the Order of the Cincinnati Murray N. Rothbard, 13:00
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The Western Lands and the Ordinance of 1784p. 1527
Covers Virginia’s cession of the Northwest to Congress in 1784 over the objections of Wilson, Franklin and the land companies. Jefferson’s Ordinance of 1784 sets the pattern for future states, but his antislavery clause loses by one vote, a defeat Rothbard links to the coming sectional conflict.
Listen: 74. The Western Lands and the Ordinance of 1784 Murray N. Rothbard, 7:39
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The Republic of Vermontp. 1530
Follows Vermont’s improbable independence: Ethan and Ira Allen defy Congress, New Hampshire and New York while flirting with a separate peace with Britain. Vermont absorbs disaffected neighboring towns, crushes the pro-New York Yorker rebels in the southeast, and survives as a republic.
Listen: 75. The Republic of Vermont Murray N. Rothbard, 12:40
- Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784 · Part IX: The Impact of the Revolution
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Oppressing the Toriesp. 1537
Rejects the myth of a uniquely mild Revolution by cataloguing the treatment of Loyalists: test oaths, banishment, attainder (even Jefferson’s against Josiah Phillips) and confiscation. Using New Jersey’s council of safety, Rothbard shows how enforcement fed corruption but still widened land ownership.
Listen: 76. Oppressing the Tories Murray N. Rothbard, 17:56
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Tory Lands in New Yorkp. 1543
Argues that confiscating Tory estates in New York broke up quasi-feudal manors like Philipsburgh and DeLancey’s, driven by tenant pressure against Clinton and the ultraright. Preemption rights let many tenants become independent farmers, though some later lost their land to mortgages.
Listen: 77. Tory Lands in New York Murray N. Rothbard, 15:45
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Elimination of Feudalism and the Beginnings of the Abolition of Slaveryp. 1548
Credits the Revolution with dismantling feudal land tenure through the end of quitrents and the ending of entail and primogeniture, then follows the northern states’ partial steps against slavery and the slave trade. Black soldiers and sailors won freedom, while South Carolina and Georgia refused to arm slaves.
Listen: 78. Elimination of Feudalism and the Beginnings of the Abolition of Slavery Murray N. Rothbard, 16:03
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Disestablishment and Religious Freedomp. 1553
Shows the Revolution advancing religious liberty: Anglican establishments fell in the South, anti-Catholic feeling eased, and eight states let Catholics hold office. Jefferson’s Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, passed in 1786 after resistance, became a landmark of reason against coercion.
Listen: 79. Disestablishment and Religious Freedom Murray N. Rothbard, 5:06
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Was the American Revolution Radical?p. 1555
Rebuts the postwar view that the Revolution was conservative and consensual. Rothbard holds that mass revolt against a long train of abuses is inherently radical, and that its libertarian ideology, its people’s war and its constitution-making by reason link it to the English and French revolutions.
Listen: 80. Was the American Revolution Radical? Murray N. Rothbard, 21:08
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The Impact in Europep. 1561
Traces the Revolution’s effect on Europe: a new political press, and admiring reformers in France, Ireland, Belgium and above all the Netherlands, where the Patriot movement copied American committees and armed citizens. Prussian intervention crushed the Dutch, and the counter-revolutionary reaction hardened French opinion.
Listen: 81. The Impact in Europe Murray N. Rothbard, 24:37
- Volume IV: The Revolutionary War, 1775-1784
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Bibliographical Essayp. 1569
A guide to secondary literature on the war and its politics. Rothbard singles out recent studies that read the war as a guerrilla people’s war, along with works on Congress, state politics, finance, Loyalists, diplomacy and the debate over how radical the Revolution was.
Questions
About this book and this copy
- Is Conceived in Liberty free to download?
- Yes. The complete 1,616-page single-volume edition downloads here as a PDF, EPUB and MOBI with no signup, no account and no paywall. You can also read every chapter in the browser or listen to the audiobook.
- How many volumes does Conceived in Liberty have?
- Five. Arlington House published four between 1975 and 1979, covering the colonies from settlement through the Revolutionary War to 1784. Rothbard wrote a fifth volume, The New Republic, 1784-1791, which the Mises Institute published in 2019. The single-volume edition served here holds Volumes I to IV; Volume V is a separate book in this archive.
- Which edition of Conceived in Liberty is this?
- The Mises Institute's single-volume edition of 2011, ISBN 978-1-933550-98-5, 1,616 pages, combining the four volumes first published by Arlington House from 1975 to 1979. Page numbers in the chapter guide are this edition's.
- Is there an audiobook of Conceived in Liberty?
- Yes, free. Floy Lilley narrates all four volumes in 262 recordings, one per chapter, about 81 hours in total. Each chapter in the guide on this page links to its recording.
- What period does Conceived in Liberty cover?
- From the first English settlements to the end of the Revolutionary War: the seventeenth-century colonies (Volume I), the first half of the eighteenth century (Volume II), the road to revolution from 1760 to 1775 (Volume III) and the war and its aftermath to 1784 (Volume IV).
- What is the argument of Conceived in Liberty?
- That colonial American history is a struggle between liberty and power. Rothbard reads the Revolution as neither a conservative defense of tradition nor a proto-socialist uprising, but as the peak of a libertarian radicalism that grew against British mercantilism, and he asks in Volume IV whether it went far enough.
- How long is Conceived in Liberty?
- 1,616 pages, 301 chapters, and about 635,976 words in the edition this archive serves.
- Can I reuse or republish Conceived in Liberty?
- This edition is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0, so yes, on that licence's terms. Check the deed for what attribution it requires.
- Who wrote Conceived in Liberty?
- Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) was an American economist, economic historian, and libertarian political philosopher, and perhaps Ludwig von Mises’s most important American student, attending Mises’s NYU seminar in the 1950s. He earned a B.A. This archive holds 98 of Rothbard's works.
In the lecture archive
Lectures that discuss Conceived in Liberty
13 recorded talks in this archive name this book. The 6 that discuss it most, each linked to the moment it comes up:
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Rothbard's Systematic Defense of Liberty
But one of the things Rothbard in a way tries to do in Conceived in Liberty is to come as close to that as you can.
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The Revolt of the Comuneros: A Revisionist Perspective
And I went to both, to Conceived in Liberty and For New Liberty, both by Murray Rothbard.
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A Rothbardian Research Program in American History
So for example, like Rothbard's overall view, the way he approaches history as he explains to us in the introduction to his four volume series Conceived in Liberty is liberty versus power.
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Conceived in Liberty, Volume 1, A New Land, A New People, The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, by Murray N. Rothbard.
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Introduction: The Colonies in the Eighteenth Century
Conceived in Liberty, Volume Two, Salutary Neglect, The American Colonies in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century, by Murray N. Rothbard.
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Conceived in Liberty, Volume 3, Advanced to Revolution, 1760-1775, by Murray N. Rothbard Part 1, The British Army and the Western Lands Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer.
Further reading: Conceived in Liberty on The Austrian Economics Wiki.
Community
Discussed on the forum
Threads on Mises Community, this archive's companion forum, whose titles name this book. These are reader conversations, not part of the archive.
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Has anyone here read Rothbard's "Conceived in Liberty"?Dormant
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