Government has no other end...

What are sufficient grounds for revolution?         An introduction to the concepts in and background of John Locke's Two Treatises on Government are contained in this audiotape set (of 2) from Knowledge Products. TWO TREATISES OF GOVERNMENT by John Locke - Lock's ideas on individual liberty, government by consent and the right of revolution helped set the stage for the English Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution of 1776, and the French Revolution of 1789.       Back to NCPA Debate Home Page

"Government has no other end but the preservation of Property..." -- John Locke by Catherine Valke The above statement has stirred ideas and emotions in many minds and hearts since its first publication in 1690. This is understandably so, because up to that date, property had been understood as a creation, rather than the source, of civil government. The Judeo-Christian tradition conceived of property as it did of any other social and political institution &endash; as only conditionally legitimate. Influenced by Aristotle and his picture of the Greek polis, this tradition emphasized the owner's duties to the rest of the world rather than his own rights. Defending the absolute power of the monarchy, Sir Robert Filmer had argued in his celebrated Patriarcha that God made Adam and the sons of Noah kings and owners of the earth and that their authority had then devolved upon the kings of the seventeenth century. In his view, the relation between king and subject was the same as that between father and child, with the father having power of life and death over his child. Individual property could therefore only be initiated as a gift from the Crown. As a corollary, the law of property was considered a royal institution whereby kings regulated the distribution of this gift. From different intellectual quarters, Thomas Hobbes had maintained that complete subjugation of individuals to the absolute will of a governor was necessary for the self-preservation of mankind. He believed that humans would be in a perpetual state of war among themselves without government. In the state of nature, human life could only be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Civil government was a necessary evil created by a social contract whereby all persons delegated their natural rights to governmental authority. Property, as well as other aspects of social life, existed only as a result of this compact. By focusing on individual rights rather than duties of citizenship, Hobbes broke with the classical natural law tradition embraced by Filmer. Yet, by claiming that individuals lost their natural rights with the advent of government, Hobbes agreed with Filmer that private property is justified solely as a creation of government. In contrast with Filmer and Hobbes, Locke asserted that private property was prior to government. He advanced this proposition in order to justify the right of revolution in general and the Revolution of 1688 in particular. While agreeing with Filmer that God's law rules the state of nature, Locke rejected Filmer's theory that God bestowed the right of property only upon the monarchy. In Locke's view, God's Law of Nature "obliges everyone: And Reason, which is that Law, teaches all Mankind, who Will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty or Possessions." Unlike that of Hobbes', Locke's state of nature is not a state of war. Nonetheless, it presents obvious disadvantages. Because God is a rational being, men have access to the Law of Nature through their reason. But such access is difficult, and even when accessed, the Law of Nature is not always obeyed. Mistaken interpretation of, and occasional disobedience to, the Law of Nature have serious consequences, for "every Man hath a Right to punish the Offender, and be Executioner" of this law. As a result, men will want to facilitate social life by tacitly consenting to the creation of government. This government "is a trustee for its citizens with certain powers which they have relinquished to it to ensure their more efficient use." Locke's explanation for the birth of government justifies the right of revolution. By asserting that private property was naturally antecedent to government and that the latter was created for the sole purpose of protecting the former, he drastically circumcised governmental power. For Locke, such power: "can be no more that [what] those persons had in a State of Nature before they enter'd into Society, and gave up to the Community. For no Body can transfer to another more power than he has in himself; and no Body has an absolute Arbitrary Power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own Life, or take away the Life or Property of another." If government is bound by the Law of Nature, then deviation by the rulers from the tenets of this law was sufficient grounds for their overthrow. Reprinted with permission from the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, p. 941, Summer 1989. Catherine Valke is an instructor at the University of Toronto. She received her LL. B. (Civil Law) at the University of Sherbrooke, Quebec; LL.B. (Common Law) from the University of Toronto, Ontario; and LL. M. from the University of Chicago.