An Agreement of the People

An Agreement of the People was a series of manifestos, published between 1647 and 1649, for constitutional changes to the English state. Several versions of the Agreement were published, each adapted to address not only broad concerns but also specific issues during the fast changing revolutionary political environment of those years. The Agreements of the People have been most associated as the manifestos of the Levellers but were also published by the Agitators and the General Council of the New Model Army.

An Agreement of the People, 1647

Versions

Major published versions of the Agreement include:

• "An Agreement of the People for a firme and present Peace, upon grounds of common right and freedome ...", presented to the Army Council in October 1647.^[1]
• "An Agreement of the People of England, and the places therewith incorporated, for a secure and present peace, upon grounds of common right, freedom and safety", presented to the Rump Parliament in January 1649.^[2]
• "AN AGREEMENT OF THE Free People of England. Tendered as a Peace-Offering to this distressed Nation", extended version from the Leveller leaders, "Lieutenant Colonel John Lilburne, Master William Walwyn, Master Thomas Prince, and Master Richard Overton, Prisoners in the Tower of London, May the 1. 1649."^[3]

Development

Soon after the First English Civil War, the Agreement was the subject of the Putney Debates in 1647. The major tenets of this first version of the Agreement were: freedom of religion, the frequent convening of new parliaments and equality before the law. These tenets also appeared in the later versions of the manifesto. As these basic proposals were queried, other provisions were added; for example Roman Catholics were exempt from the right to religious freedom, and the electorate was to be made up of "all men of the age of one and twenty years and upwards (not being servants, or receiving alms, or having served in the late King in Arms or voluntary Contributions)."

The Levellers hoped to base England's new constitution on the Agreement of the People. But in the end, the New Model Army based their demands on an alternative less revolutionary document, the Heads of Proposals, that was proposed and supported by the Grandees (senior officers) of the Army.

The Agreement is believed to have "greatly influence[ed] the development of the U.S. Constitution."^[4]

Legacy

American libertarian David Boaz called the Agreement "the first well-developed statement of libertarianism", noting its support for "self-ownership, private property, legal equality, religious toleration, and limited, representative government."^[5]

See also

• English Commonwealth
• Instrument of Government

References

1. An Agreement of the People for a firm and present peace upon grounds of common right October 1647
2. An Agreement of the People of England, and the places therewith incorporated, for a secure and present peace, upon grounds of common right, freedom and safety January 1649
3. AN AGREEMENT OF THE Free People of England. Tendered as a Peace-Offering to this distressed Nation an extended version from the imprisonment of the Leveller leaders, May 1649
4. Prelude to Liberty. Archived June 4, 2012, at the Wayback Machine "Civics Library of the Missouri Bar".
5. Boaz, David (30 January 2009). "Libertarianism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 4 May 2015. Retrieved 21 February 2017. The first well-developed statement of libertarianism, An Agreement of the People (1647), was produced by the radical republican Leveler movement during the English Civil Wars (1642–51). Presented to Parliament in 1649, it included the ideas of self-ownership, private property, legal equality, religious toleration, and limited, representative government.

External links

• An Anthology of Leveller Tracts: Agreements of the People, Petitions, Remonstrances, and Declarations (1646-1659)
• A facsimile of An Agreement of the People on the British Library website.

Further reading

• Borgeaud, Charles (1894). "History of the Agreement of the People". The rise of modern democracy in old and New England. Translated by Hill, Birkbeck. London: S. Sonnenschein & Co. pp. 45–76. – includes a timeline
• Cobbett, William, ed. (1808). "A partition from the Army presented to the Commons inclosing 'An Agreement of the People', for the settlement of the Nation upon a new plan...". Cobbett's parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest, in 1066 to the year, 1803 : from which last-mentioned epoch it is continued downwards in the work entitled, "Cobbett's parliamentary debates: Comprising the period from the Battle of Edge-Hill, in October 1642, to the restoration of Charles the Second, in April 1660. Vol. 3. London: R. Bagshaw. cols. 1261–1277
• An Agreement of the People. British Civil Wars, Commonwealth & Protectorate website
• An image of The Agreement of the People 1649 The British Library website