James Harrington

James Harrington (1611–1677) was an English political theorist. The son of a Rutland family connected with the nobility, he traveled widely in Europe, admiring the republic of Venice, and served as a gentleman attendant to Charles I during the king's captivity, while remaining a republican. In The Commonwealth of Oceana, published in 1656, he argued that political power follows the distribution of property and proposed a republic with an agrarian law, rotation of office and the secret ballot. After the Restoration he was imprisoned, and his health never recovered. His ideas influenced later republican thought in Britain and America.