Cato's Letters

Cato's Letters were essays by British writers John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, first published from 1720 to 1723 under the pseudonym of Cato (95–46 BC), the implacable foe of Julius Caesar and a famously stubborn champion of republican principles (mos maiorum).

Purpose

The Letters are considered a seminal work in the tradition of the Commonwealth men. The 144 essays were published originally in the London Journal, later in the British Journal., condemning corruption and lack of morality within the British political system and warning against tyranny.

Publication

The Letters were collected and printed as Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious. A measure of their influence is attested by six editions printed by 1755. A generation later their arguments immensely influenced the ideals of the American Revolution; it is estimated that half the private libraries in the American colonies held bound volumes of Cato's Letters on their shelves.

Later unrelated antithetic usage

Cato was used as a pseudonym by the Reverend Dr. William Smith, the most influential preacher in Philadelphia, in a series of essays arguing against American independence in the Pennsylvania Gazette published April of 1776.