Chapter 2 discusses Swift’s statement of political principles, A Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions (1701), and shows how international relations proved essential both to his fully developed, neoclassical balance-of-power theory as well as his practical political objectives in contemporary debates about the constitution and emerging War of Spanish Succession. Swift wrote against the Tory majority in the House of Commons and thus attacked the tyranny of the majority – but he also took a more realistic and permissive view of popular political participation than has been acknowledged. That view reflected his belief in the voice of the people and consensual government, including when discovering the national interest within the international context. The masses helped to rescue England from French imperialism, just as threats of French hegemony put the domestic political need for power-sharing into perspective. Swift defends executive action for the sake of national security but does not abandon constitutional constraints.