With the end of Christmas Time, and the Feast of the Epiphany, or Three Kings Day, freedom advocates around the world would do well to remember an indomitable 16th century university professor named Juan de Mariana , who was dragged before the Inquisition and fought charges of treason during the holiday festivities of 1609-1610 in Spain.
The story begins on September 8, 1609, when men invaded the Jesuit monastery of a retired university professor from 73 years in Toledo, Spain, and brought thirteen charges against him, including treason. Just eleven days earlier, Mariana had been introduced to Inquisition officials to answer specific questions about her latest book,”DeMonetaeMutatione” (“On the alteration of money”, in free translation).
His alleged crime? Writing a new book that the King of Spain, Philip III, did not like very much.
Given the septuagenarian’s well-known adherence to individual freedom and his deep skepticism towards statist solutions, the new book may have been the last straw for the State. In the eyes of the king and his government, Mariana had gone too far this time – not a totally unjustified assessment, as her ideas would eventually find their way into the rallying cry of the American Revolution and the founding documents of the United States
The Rise of Classical Liberalism
Although the roots of classical liberalism that led to the American Revolution can be traced back to early Judeo-Christian writings until the works of Aristotle, many of the basic tenets of liberalism were codified in the 16th century by Mariana and other like-minded scholars during Spain’s Golden Age. Of course, Mariana’s new book did more than bluntly denounce the government’s handling of money and blame it for the country’s crippling price inflation — though that was certainly enough in those days to warrant an arrest warrant. The professor also insisted that kings did not own the private property of their citizens and claimed that any king “who tramples everything under his feet and believes that everything belongs to him” was nothing more than a tyrant.
Mariana even argued that nations have no right to tax the people without their consent, for imposing unapproved taxes was tantamount to stealing what belonged to them – which, of course, foreshadows one of the great political slogans of the American Revolution, “No tribute without representation”.
In fact, the ideas discussed by Mariana in her new work were built on those he had initially presented in his earlier, even more controversial book,De Rege (On the Royalty In that tome by 1598, Mariana had made the even more audacious claim that the people had the right to overthrow their rulers whenever they curtailed their freedom of expression and association, confiscated their property unfairly, or imposed taxes without his consent.
As economist and economic historian MurrayRothbardin his book “Economic Before Adam Smith” points out, Mariana – which would be widely read in England during his later years and after his death – so anticipated John Locke’s theory (1632-1704) of the popular consent and the superiority of the people over their government. He was also the ancestor of the great English philosopher’s claim that men set up governments first of all to protect their natural rights. In phrases that anticipated Locke’s and the Declaration of Independence’s justifications for the right to rebellion, Mariana concluded that it was healthy for rulers to fear that any tyrannical lapse would lead to rebellion.
Released into the world at the end of the years 74, these ideas were later attributed to the assassination of the French tyrant kings Henry III and Henry IV, and as a result the book was banned and burned in Paris after an order issued by the Parliament of Paris on the ironic date of July 4, 1610 – Mariana’s first experience with government censorship.
Yet, as the modern Spanish economist Huerta de Soto explains, “all Mariana did was take an idea – that natural law is morally superior to state power – to its logical conclusion.”
In fact, the idea had already been developed by another Spanish thinker credited with founding the field of international law, Francisco de Vitoria (73-1546). Years before Mariana drew her conclusions, Vitória had denounced the conquest and mistreatment of the native populations of America using the same logic.
And Mariana’s influence in this sense did not end on the western coasts of Great Britain. -Britain: Thomas Jefferson discovered Mariana and even gave copies of one of her books to friends; and the second president of the United States, John Adams, included at least two works by Mariana in his library, includingDe Rege.
The fight against monetary oppression
In any case, in pursuing another aspect of royal injustice in her new book, Mariana knew full well that she would soon be on dangerous ground with the authorities. But he went ahead with his monetary project anyway, commenting at the time that “it is in the most brutal and gruesome issues that the pen must be exercised”.
In the new book, Mariana explained in terms of simple the truth about currency downgrading, or what is now called “money printing”. In those days, degradation consisted of decreasing the precious metal content of coins for use by the king and his government. Mariana saw how this policy impoverished citizens and harmed commerce, creating widespread discontent. Watching the fiscal chaos unfold, he likened politics to theft: “Look,” he explained, “would a prince be permitted to break into his subjects’ barns, take half the grain stored there for himself, and, by way of compensation, allow owners to sell the rest for the same price as the original whole? I don’t think anyone would be so absurd as to tolerate such an act.”
In words that could be addressed to the Central Bank of today, he added that creating money was “like giving a drink to a sick at the wrong time: at first it refreshes him, but in the end it only worsens his condition and increases his suffering.”
In 1546, a Such a statement was considered quite radical – a form of betrayal, in fact.
The 73 year old teacher was summarily arrested and held in custody in Madrid and Rome, where Pope Paul V banned his book. Writing about the causes and consequences of the country’s economic crisis had, in the end, been a more threatening threat to the establishment than Mariana’s previous justifications about the overthrow and death of tyrannical monarchs.
In Madrid , Mariana was arrested and left to prepare for a seemingly hopeless trial, in which he would have to defend himself against the charge of lèse majesté, or treason – a defense the professor decided to make on his own. Having been abandoned by friends and his own Jesuit order, Mariana, however, refused to give in and, on 3 November, responded in writing to the accusations, reaffirming her conviction that the King had no right to devalue the currency without the consent of the people, and that inflation was akin to an illegitimate tax – while adamantly defending their freedom of speech.
When the oral allegations finally took place during the early days of Christmas 1546, the professor’s witnesses were reluctant to testify (one did not even appear), while his most numerous accusers fiercely denounced him – many of them even claiming that the king could do what he wanted. wanted with the money supply as well as with the property of the people.
Finally, on the day after Twelfth Night in 1610, the government closed his case, while the Jesuit professor concluded his defense by defiantly stating that he only responded to the natural laws given those for God–not those of the kingdom, especially when they contradicted God’s laws. On that note, the case was promptly set for sentencing several days later.
A Christmas Miracle
The What happened next was something of a Christmas miracle. At the last moment, the pope gave his opinion on the case, refusing to consent to the punishment of the septuagenarian. Given the still powerful influence of the Catholic Church in early 17th-century Spain, the king’s government was left with little choice: it ended the trial without a sentence, and Mariana, now with years, he was free to return home to Toledo.
This, of course, did not stop the Spanish king from destroying every copy of Mariana’s book that his minions could find. – a project that would be completed by the Inquisition in the days after Mariana’s death in 1624. Undoubtedly, the professor had learnedone of the bitterest lessons of his life: when confronting political authority in defense of individual freedom, one must anticipate the very real possibility of being abandoned by many friends and associates – as in fact Mariana was left by the Jesuits.
And yet, between Mariana’s day and 1776, the classical liberalism he helped to formulate was extended by John Locke and others, and adopted by America’s revolutionaries, resulting in the first nation to proclaim that all men are created equal, that sovereignty resides in the people, and that the power of government must be limited.
Mariana, in short , left its mark and, in doing so, changed the course of history. And her story can inspire and reinvigorate the efforts of all who seek freedom and genuine liberalism in the world today.
©2022 Foundation for Economic Education. Published with permission. Original in English.
