Of the many influences on American political theory, none is more essential that John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government. The American founders were well read in all philosophy. And they certainly gave attention to many thinkers. But where the others contributed fragments, Locke’s ideas account for the major structure of America’s government.

The Second Treatise is 200 pages long and remarkable easy to read. What follows here are some of the major elements of the book. All of these ideas influenced the American founders. The citations below provide a number. Locke’s book is divided into 19 chapters, and further into 243 sections of a paragraph or more. The numbers provide a convenient reference if you want to look up further text following any of the citations.

The Purpose and Extent of Government

Salus populi suprema lex, is certainly so just and fundamental a rule, that he, who sincerely follows it, cannot dangerously err. (158)

The Latin phrase means, “The health of the people is the highest law.” Locke means that the main purpose of law and government ought to be the benefit of the population – not a king, or a king’s family, and not only the members of a tribe, or ethnicity or political party. Putting the people first was a departure from what came before from ancient, medieval and renaissance thinkers.

State of Nature

Locke explains the need for government by considering how life would be without it. He doesn’t simply mean if there were no garbage collectors or no police officers. He looks farther back to what he calls the state of nature and concludes life would be miserable without some society and some control. The “perfect freedom” in the state of nature is not a happy condition:

To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.
A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty. (4)

In Locke’s state of nature, every person is free to act in his or her self interest. They can take and keep whatever they please. But others are equally free to fight and steal and take whatever they can. The state of nature is both a condition of perfect equality (of rights); and a condition of perpetual struggle.

The natural law we discuss elsewhere insists that perpetual violence is wrong and that stealing from others (just because you happen to be strong enough to do it) is wrong. Locke agrees, and recognizes this great flaw of the state of nature. People quite reasonably want to avoid continual fighting. So it makes sense to accept government even at the loss of liberty.

If man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others: for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to quit a condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers: and it is not without reason, that he seeks out, and is willing to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property. (123)

How Does a Person Join a Society?

Locke has proven that increased safety and order encourage people to join society. But that raises the next question, which is, what does a person have to do to join? Can the society enlist a person? Does the person have to explicitly agree? This is serious question.

American today has an ironic situation where a small number of people (immigrants) take joining the society very seriously which the majority (natural born citizens) never give it a thought. Locke recognizes that any society is likely to have just this combination of explicit and implicit citizens. But he says a person implicitly joins the society as soon as they accept any of the benefits of the society.

No body doubts but an express consent, of any man entering into any society, makes him a perfect member of that society, a subject of that government. The difficulty is, what ought to be looked upon as a tacit consent, and how far it binds, i.e. how far any one shall be looked on to have consented, and thereby submitted to any government, where he has made no expressions of it at all. And to this I say, that every man, that hath any possessions, or enjoyment, of any part of the dominions of any government, doth thereby give his tacit consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment, as any one under it. (119)

In effect, Locke says that if you were born in a public hospital, and if your parents brought you home on public streets, then you’ve benefitted from the society and are therefore a member of the society.

There is a foolish movement across America today of people who call themselves Sovereign Citizens. These people claim that no laws affect them because they never agreed to be US citizens. According to Locke’s logic, the mere fact that they choose to drive on American highways makes them obligated to American laws.

About property

Locke insists that the right to property is as important as the right to life and liberty. what he means is often misunderstood. Right-wing, pro-business libertarians assume property means land, buildings and equipment and that Locke intends the people who own wealth to get special preferences. Left-wing anarchists assume that Locke means the same thing, and they disapprove. Neither group understands Locke’s real intent. When he says property, he means whatever results from the person’s efforts or labor.

The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. (27)

John Locke’s model for property rights is illustrated by a man plucking an apple from a tree, or drinking water from a clear stream. While the apple is on the tree, it is available to all. But when one man “mixes his labor” with it (by reaching up and plucking the apple), then the apple becomes his property.

It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others. (27)

Note, too, that Locke adds an additional requirement: “at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.” Locke’s principle for property rights demands that the interests of other people be considered. A man may exploit the apple tree or the stream of water, but not so heavily that it denies the same use to other people who come after.

[H]e that leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as take nothing at all. No body could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst: and the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same. (33)

Locke appreciates nature. But he doesn’t say nature must be left alone. He is a religious man, and Christianity has taught for 2,000 that God gave the earth to men to tend and make use of.

God gave the world to men in common; but since he gave it them for their benefit, and the greatest conveniencies of life they were capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed he meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious and rational, (and labour was to be his title to it;) not to the fancy or covetousness of the quarrelsome and contentious. (34)

Locke is no friend of the idle rich who would demand protection for their stockpiled wealth. But he was also no friend to the American Indian. Remember he was writing this in the 1680s, when the various native tribes commanded all of North America but a few trading posts and settlements in Virginia and New England. Locke thought it was wrong to leave a continent of fertile and useful land uncultivated. The Indian was a living example of the State of Nature that has ceased to exist for Europeans:

The fruit, or venison, which nourishes the wild Indian, who knows no enclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, so that another can no longer have any right to it, before it can do him any good for the support of his life. (27)

Locke’s respect for the Indian has a limit, though, and that is the Indian’s failure to engage in what Locke recognizes as labor. The vast lands of America were uncut by the plow, And for Locke, that meant the Indian forfeited claim to the land. It is unfortunate that he never got the chance to meet and discuss his ideas with the great Indian leaders such as Tecumseh or Chief Joseph. Locke was a good man with a good heart. He didn’t give the Indians a fair deal in his theories because he didn’t understand them.

Majority Rule

Another aspect of civil government where we find the American system fully developed in Locke is the deciding power of the majority. Remember that in ancient, medieval and renaissance thinking, important decisions were to be made by an autocrat. Locke says most decisions should be made by the majority. The only alternative to majority rule is rule by unanimity. And that, Locke shows, is impractical. A society that couldn’t take action until literally every member agreed would never get anything done.

Such a constitution as this would make the mighty Leviathan of a shorter duration, than the feeblest creatures, and not let it outlast the day it was born in: which cannot be supposed, till we can think, that rational creatures should desire and constitute societies only to be dissolved: for where the majority cannot conclude the rest, there they cannot act as one body, and consequently will be immediately dissolved again. (98)

Consent of the Governed

The majority must rule, as a matter of practicality. But the real basis of power is the consent of the citizenry to accept the decisions of their representatives through a process of majoritarian choice. Locke says there is no other right basis for government force.

It is true, governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit every one who enjoys his share of the protection, should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent, i.e. the consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves, or their representatives chosen by them: for if any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people, by his own authority, and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental law of property, and subverts the end of government: for what property have I in that, which another may by right take, when he pleases, to himself? (140)

How Much Executive Power?

How much power should an executive have? Lock recognizes that there isn’t a good general answer to this question. The obvious answer is that the executive should have as much power as necessary to get the work done. But it is never possible to know how well the leader is going to govern. Executive power ought to be much more or much less, depending on that unknowable variable.

[A] good prince, who is mindful of the trust put into his hands, and careful of the good of his people, cannot have too much prerogative, that is, power to do good; so a weak and ill prince, who would claim that power which his predecessors exercised without the direction of the law, as a prerogative belonging to him by right of his office, which he may exercise at his pleasure, to make or promote an interest distinct from that of the public, gives the people an occasion to claim their right, and limit that power, which, whilst it was exercised for their good, they were content should be tacitly allowed. (164)

America’s record over 200-plus years, has seen presidential power grow ever stronger, and often stronger through the boldness of the executive rather than his merits. American civics teachers recite the phrase “balance of powers,” but in reality there is no effective balance of power in American government. The problem Locke poses above remains unsolved.

“A long train of abuse”

A passage from the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson’s master work, appears to be . . . inspired by a line from Locke’s Second Treatise. First read this from Locke.

[R]evolutions happen not upon every little mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human frailty, will be born by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be wondered, that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected. (225)

Now look at an important section of the Declaration if Independence.

[A]ll experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Was this plagiarism? I asked my wife, a college instructor in English composition, and she agrees that the reference is strong enough that she would expect a college student to cite the source or at least put it in quotes. Jefferson doesn’t. I read in Russell Kirk that Jefferson denied that he patterned his passage of the Declaration on Locke. But it is obvious that he did.

The Limits of Government

The last idea from Locke that I’ll share is this: that government should never make any person worse off. Even if legislative and executive power is given to representatives, and even if decisions are to made by the majority rather than by the unanimous decision of all citizens, still the government has a duty to each individual, and must enhance every life.

But though men, when they enter into society, give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature, into the hands of the society, to be so far disposed of by the legislative, as the good of the society shall require; yet it being only with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself, his liberty and property; (for no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be worse) the power of the society, or legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend farther, than the common good; (131)

Locke’s book a easy to read and worth reading, so rather than reading summaries, read it yourself. It is a worthwhile use of time for an American citizen because, as Russell Kirk says, “Locke’s ideas have been virtually identical, for good and ill, with the American way of life.”

Think:

Do you feel you are better off because of government? Or worse off?
What would change if government limited itself to actions that left no one worse off?