Second Treatise of Government

Contents

1. Preface 5 min 6

   Locke’s preface to the Two Treatises (1689) presents the surviving “beginning and end” of a longer answer to Sir Robert Filmer, whose middle papers have been lost. The work, he says, will establish King William’s throne on the consent of the people and justify the nation that rescued itself from “slavery and ruin” in 1688. He attacks Filmer’s Patriarcha as “glib nonsense”, and the clergy who preached it as the divinity of the times, and promises to answer any honest critic. Cavilling and railing will get no reply.

2. I An Essay concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government 3 min 3

   Locke sums up the First Treatise: Adam had no God-given dominion over his children or the world. Even had he had it, his heirs would have no right to it, and no one could now identify the rightful heir. Rulers therefore cannot derive authority from Adam. To avoid concluding that all government rests on force, another origin of political power must be found. Locke defines political power, as distinct from the power of a father, master, husband or lord, as the right to make laws with penalties of death for regulating and preserving property, and to use the community’s force to execute them, for the public good.

3. II Of the State of Nature 18 min 6

   Locke describes the state of nature as one of perfect freedom and equality, governed by a law of nature that reason teaches. All people are God’s workmanship, so no one may harm another’s life, health, liberty or possessions. In that state everyone may punish offenders and seek reparation, a “strange doctrine” he defends by the punishment of aliens. Partiality makes civil government the remedy. But an absolute monarch judging his own case is worse than the state of nature. Independent rulers, and strangers like a Swiss and an Indian in America, remain in the state of nature, as do all men until they consent to join a political society.

4. III Of the State of War 9 min 3

   Locke distinguishes the state of war from the state of nature, which “some men have confounded”. War is declared by a settled design on another’s life, and anyone who tries to bring another under absolute power, even a thief, may be treated as such an enemy and killed. The state of nature lacks a common judge. The state of war is force without right, and it can arise even inside society when the law is perverted. Where there is no judge on earth, the only appeal is to heaven, as Jephthah’s was. Avoiding that condition is a chief reason men form societies.

5. IV Of Slavery 4 min 3

   Natural liberty means having no superior but the law of nature; liberty in society means living under standing laws made by a legislative established by consent, not Filmer’s licence to do as one likes. Because no one has power over his own life, no one can enslave himself by contract. Slavery proper is the state of war continued between a lawful conqueror and a captive who has forfeited his life. The servitude among the Jews, limited in term and protected from maiming, was drudgery, not slavery.

6. V Of Property 37 min 17

   Locke explains how private property arises from a world God gave to mankind in common, without anyone’s consent. Each person owns his own person and labour, and whatever he mixes his labour with becomes his. Two limits apply: enough and as good must be left for others, and nothing may spoil. Land is acquired the same way, and cultivation multiplies what it yields. Labour makes nine-tenths or more of all value, as America, rich in land and poor in comforts, shows. Money, durable and valued by consent, lets men accumulate without waste, and so men have tacitly agreed to unequal possession of the earth.

7. VI Of Paternal Power 37 min 5

   Locke argues that power over children is parental, shared by mother and father, not paternal. It is a temporary duty to nourish and educate children until they reach the age of reason, about twenty-one in England, when they become as free as their parents. Children owe their parents lifelong honour, not obedience. Fathers bind adult children only through inheritance, which carries submission to the government of the land. Fathers may have become the first monarchs by their grown children’s tacit consent, but not by any natural right of fatherhood.

8. VII Of Political or Civil Society 26 min 11

   Locke separates the family’s relations (husband and wife, parents and children, master and servant or slave) from political society. Marriage is a voluntary compact; the husband decides common matters, but has no power over his wife’s life. A servant sells his service for wages under contract; a slave, captured in a just war, has no property and no place in civil society, whose chief end is preserving property. Political society exists where everyone resigns the power to judge and punish to the community. Absolute monarchy is therefore no civil government: it leaves the subjects in a state of nature with their ruler, safe from pole-cats but devoured by lions.

9. VIII Of the Beginning of Political Societies 42 min 9

   Political society begins only with the consent of free individuals. Once formed, it acts by the will of the majority, since requiring unanimity would dissolve it at once. Locke answers two objections. To the claim that history shows no such beginnings, he points to Rome, Venice, Sparta's colonists and the peoples of America, where early kings were mainly war leaders. To the claim that everyone is born a subject, he replies that no one can bind his children. He then distinguishes express consent, which makes a permanent member, from tacit consent, which is given by owning or merely using land within a government's territory.

10. IX Of the Ends of Political Society and Government 8 min 3

    Why would free people give up the state of nature? Because their enjoyment of “property”, which Locke defines as their lives, liberties and estates, is insecure there. The state of nature lacks a known law, an impartial judge and a power to enforce sentences. Entering society, people give up their power to do whatever preserves themselves, insofar as the laws require, and give up entirely their power to punish. But the power of society may never extend beyond the common good. It must rule by standing laws and impartial judges and use force only to execute them or to defend the community.

11. X Of the Forms of a Common-wealth 3 min 1

    The form of a commonwealth depends on where the majority places the legislative power: in the whole community (democracy), in a few (oligarchy) or in one (hereditary or elective monarchy), or in mixed forms. By “commonwealth” Locke means any independent community, the Latin civitas, not a republic.

12. XI Of the Extent of the Legislative Power 17 min 10

    The legislative is the supreme power, set up by the first positive law of every commonwealth, yet it has four limits. It cannot be arbitrary over people's lives and fortunes, since no one could give it such power. It must rule by promulgated standing laws and known judges. It cannot take any part of anyone's property without his consent, so taxes need the consent of the majority or their representatives. And it cannot transfer its power to make laws. The soldier whom a serjeant may send to his death but not deprive of a penny shows that power is limited by its end.

13. XII Of the Legislative, Executive, and Federative Power of the Common-wealth 6 min 2

    Because laws can be made quickly but need constant execution, and because lawmakers who also execute laws are tempted to exempt themselves, well-ordered states separate the legislative from a permanent executive. A third, “federative” power handles war, peace and foreign relations, where the commonwealth stays in a state of nature with other states. It cannot be bound by standing laws, so it is usually left in the same hands as the executive.

14. XIII Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Common-wealth 18 min 4

    The legislative is supreme while the government lasts, but it holds power in trust, and the people keep a supreme power to remove it when it betrays that trust. An executive who also shares in legislation may in a sense be called supreme, but only as the public person of the law. If the executive uses force to stop the legislative from meeting, he enters a state of war with the people. Locke also argues that the executive may by prerogative correct unequal representation, such as decayed boroughs, for “Salus populi suprema lex.”

15. XIV Of Prerogative 14 min 3

    Prerogative is the executive's power to act for the public good where the law is silent, and sometimes against it, as in pardons or in emergencies. Early governments were almost all prerogative. When weak princes used it for private ends, the people fixed limits by law, which takes nothing from any rightful power. Good princes' wide discretion becomes a dangerous precedent under their successors. If prince and people dispute a prerogative, no earthly judge exists, and the people keep the right to “appeal to heaven” when the majority feel the oppression.

16. XV Of Paternal, Political, and Despotical Power, Considered Together 8 min 2

    Locke sets three powers side by side. Paternal power is given by nature for the good of children during their minority. Political power is given by the consent of the governed for the protection of their property. Despotical power, absolute power over another's life, arises only from forfeiture by an aggressor in an unjust war. Confusing the three, as the absolutists do, produces the errors of the age. Absolute dominion is as inconsistent with civil society as slavery is with property.

17. XVI Of Conquest 30 min 5

    Conquest cannot found a government, any more than demolishing a house builds one. An unjust aggressor gains no rights. Even a just conqueror gains nothing over his own soldiers, gains power only over the lives of those who actually fought him, and gains no title to their estates beyond reparation, which must leave their wives and children enough to live on. Promises extorted by force do not bind. The descendants of the conquered may cast off an imposed government, as Locke says the Greeks may throw off the Turkish yoke and as Hezekiah threw off Assyria's.

18. XVII Of Usurpation 2 min 1

    Usurpation is domestic conquest: seizing power that belongs by law to another person, while keeping the form of government. Since the rules for designating rulers belong to the constitution the people agreed to, a usurper has no right to obedience until the people freely consent to him.

19. XVIII Of Tyranny 17 min 5

    Tyranny is the use of power beyond right for the ruler's own advantage, with will in place of law, and it can occur in any form of government. Locke quotes James I's speeches to Parliament in support. Any magistrate who exceeds his legal authority may be resisted, though the person of a king may be legally sacred and private grievances will not move the people. But when illegal acts threaten the majority, or a long train of actions shows a design like a captain steering for Algiers, resistance becomes inevitable.

20. XIX Of the Dissolution of Government 56 min 10

    Society, normally dissolved only by conquest, differs from government. Government is dissolved when the legislative is altered (by the prince's arbitrary will, by hindering assemblies, by changing elections, by subjection to a foreign power), when the executive abandons its charge, or when either branch betrays its trust by invading property. The people may then set up a new legislative, and may act before tyranny is complete. Locke answers the objection that this invites rebellion: rulers who use force without right are the real rebels. He turns Barclay's concessions against him and concludes that the people shall be judge.