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What gives a government the right to rule? Locke begins with people in a state of nature, free and equal, possessing natural rights to life, liberty and…
What gives a government the right to rule? Locke begins with people in a state of nature, free and equal, possessing natural rights to life, liberty and property, and argues that they create governments only to protect those rights. Property, he says, begins when a person mixes his labour with the land; and a government that violates the trust of its people may lawfully be resisted.
Context and significance
Published anonymously in 1689, after the Revolution that brought William and Mary to the English throne, the Second Treatise became one of the foundations of modern liberal democracy, and its echo is clearly heard in the American Declaration of Independence. See John Locke's life, and read Common Sense to see how his ideas spread.
About the author
John Locke (1632–1704) trained as a physician at Oxford and became adviser to the Earl of Shaftesbury, a leading opponent of the king. Suspected of plotting, he fled to the Netherlands in 1683 and returned only after the Revolution of 1688, when he published the works that made him famous.
His Essay Concerning Human Understanding argued that the mind begins as a blank slate filled by experience, and his Two Treatises of Government defended natural rights to life, liberty and property and government by consent. His Letter Concerning Toleration argued for religious freedom. His ideas shaped the American Declaration of Independence and modern liberal thought.