Roger Williams: Exemplar of America’s Soul

Tags: Libertarianism, U.S. History

11/17/2025 George Ford Smith

Roger Williams, the Baptist minister whose libertarian views ran afoul of the Massachusetts Bay Colony authorities, should be honored as one of this country’s early libertarians.

Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/roger-williams-exemplar-americas-soul

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.