Andy Wilson

Honors 201

April 14, 2005

“One of the greatest men that had ever lived, without exception”(John) quoted

Thomas Jefferson concerning John Locke. Why did Thomas Jefferson believe that of all

the men who had lived prior to his own lifetime, John Locke was greatest? John Locke

had not won any great battle or conquered large sums of territory as Alexander the Great

had. He had not created or dreamed of great new machines like those of Leonardo Da

Vinci or changed theological understanding as Martin Luther had done. John Locke was

a simple physician for an English lord. The reason that John Locke was seen as a

colossus of history by Thomas Jefferson was because he had started a revolution of how

men saw each other and interacted with one another politically and socially. Jefferson

and many of the other founding fathers had read Locke and were greatly influenced by

his thoughts concerning man and his relationship to the government. Yet the founding

fathers were not the only group that was influenced by Locke. Through the study of

Locke’s writings and the precedent set by the Locke influenced founding fathers, many

influential American politicians and judges since the founding have been touched by his

ideas. This influence can be seen in the Constitution and its Bill of Rights as well as the

Declaration of Independence where Locke’s ideas concerning the rights of men, the

relationship of men, their government, and how the government should run are clearly

present.
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But just as there are many ideas of Locke's that we have used and embraced in our

American system there are others that we have shunned. Having lived in the 17th century,

Locke’s ideas were very progressive but to the framers of the Constitution and those who

later amended it, many were seen as harmful or even antithetical to democracy. His ideas

that were elitist or even exclusive to certain groups were all but ignored, even damned by

many Americans. Therefore, in order to better understand our form of democracy we

need to first look at how Locke has influenced such vital American documents as the

Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and then we need to examine his ideas

that were not embraced because they show what our government should not be. In order

to better understand what we are, we also need to understand what we are not.

To begin with, one needs to look at possibly the most influential of Locke’s

works in regards to American political thought, especially in the time of the founding

fathers. In the Second Treatise of Government Locke discusses how people come to be in

a civil society and once in that society how the government should not act in regards to

those being governed. He begins by talking about the state of nature where all people are

completely free and independent to do as they please. Everyone is subject to natural law,

which protects our natural rights. Those natural rights are, life, liberty and the possession

of property. Those people living in the state of nature then have the right to execute

natural law by killing or enslaving the offender, if their natural rights are threatened.

People also amass property in the state of nature by adding their labor to the land and the

products of the land, then by bartering, and eventually by developing money and

gathering large amounts of property. Once people begin obtaining large amounts of

property they find that natural law is no longer an adequate protection for themselves.
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They then enter into civil society, where they relinquish their freedom under natural law

and their right to execute law. Instead they establish a judicial power to arbitrate disputes

between members of the society, a legislative power to set laws that all the members of

the society must follow, and a executive power to maintain and enforce the law. Locke

then goes on to describe how the commonwealth should operate by describing a

separation of powers between the executive and legislative, the perogative of the

executive and the international powers of the commonwealth. According to Locke, this

government is valid as long as these three powers do not infringe on the rights of those

they are governing and if the government does not work towards the best interests of the

people, they have the right to dissolve the government and establish one that does work

towards the peoples’ best interests.(Macpherson)

The founding fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson, were greatly enamored with

John Locke and his Second Treatise of Government. They saw it as one of the pinnacle

writings on civil society and how it should function. By borrowing Locke’s ideas

concerning natural rights, the founding fathers expressed the fundamental values of the

new American government. Those ideas are found in the beginning of the Declaration of

Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life
liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that
whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the rights of
the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on
such principals as to and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most
likely to effect their safety and happiness.”(Declaration)
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This section of the Decleration is important because it contributes to our understanding as

Americans of our rights as citizens. Equality is a fundamental part of our thinking and

we Americans today believe that we have unalienable rights.

Locke not only believed in natural rights but he was also strongly opposed to the

divine right of Kings. He believed that people had the right to consent to a government

and that the people were the ultimate source of all lawmaking but if that government,

which the people submitted some of their rights, became abusive, the people had the

ability to take back their rights and try to change or outright overthrow the abusive

government. This can be seen in chapter fourteen of the Second Treatise of Government

where Locke writes “the people have the right to act as supreme, and continue the

legislative in themselves; or erect a new form, or under the old form place it in the new

hands, as they think good.”(Macpherson) At the time of the writing of the Declaration of

Independence, the founding fathers used Locke’s Second Treatise as a justification for

independence from Great Britain. Many Americans thought that the British parliament

and King George III had grievously impeded on their rights. Americans therefore used

Locke to justify their revolution. Thomas Jefferson used this theory when he wrote “It is

their right, their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their

future society.”(Declaration) Locke’s writing helped to justify the American Revolution

and future revolutionaries would quote both Locke and the Declaration of Independence

to justify the overthrow of a corrupt and dictatorial power. This can be seen in the

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen which was adopted by the National

Assembly of France in 1789. It can also be found in Ho Chi Mihn’s Declaration of

Independence for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. (Call)

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The Declaration of Independence is heavily influenced by Locke’s beliefs but

there are some parts that the founding fathers chose to change. The founding fathers

realized that the Second Treatise of Government should not be seen as a utopian plan for

government. They thought that not every idea proposed in it should be used exactly as

Locke intended. This is evident in the Declaration of Independence where Jefferson

states that natural rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson obviously

borrowed Locke’s rights which are life, liberty and property and changed property to

happiness. The substitution of one word for another drastically changes the meaning and

shows the difference in the two sets of rights. To understand this deviation is to better

understand what American democracy is.

Locke supports any form of government as long as it comes into power by the

will of the people and operates within the boundaries that the members of the society set

forth for it. Locke intended for his ideas to be used as a guideline towards the operation

of a just and well run government. Therefore, the early founders did not intend to form a

government based solely on all of Locke’s ideas. Thomas Jefferson, the writer of the

Declaration, built upon and altered many of Locke’s ideas. Instead of going with

property as a main right he chooses to go with happiness. This is because Locke’s basic

rights are only based on justice. Locke’s writings support government for the people but

not government by and of the people. He argued for just government, but only as a

“constraint on kings and parliament.”(Coates) Locke does not support democracy; he

really does not say that any form of government is better than any other except for

monarchies which he strongly cautions against. Locke does not care who rules as long as

they rule by the consent of the people and justly. The founding fathers had different
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ideas. They thought that in order for the government to operate correctly the people had

to not only have their property protected but they also needed to have other rights

protected which they might value. The founders believed if those rights are protected it

would lead to a more effective form of self-government. People needed to express their

ideas, to be able to worship as they wish and to not have their privacy invaded. This

means they felt that it wasn’t just justice that a person needed, they also need fulfillment.

It wasn’t good enough that people’s rights were protected they saw that there was a part

of human nature that Locke missed: contentment. Jefferson agreed that property was an

essential human right but property was not the only thing necessary for optimum human

happiness. He thought that freedom of religion, press, privacy, etc also should be

included. Without the broader term put forth by the usage of “pursuit of happiness” there

would be no way for any kind of future interpretation. When Jefferson switched from

property to happiness he opened the door for a more inclusive kind of right, one which

does not simply protect property but protects any other right which someone might value.

(Coates)

Another place where Locke’s influence can be found is in the Constitution. There

are many places in the Constitution where Locke’s influence can be felt. In chapter nine

of the Second Treatise, Locke describes an executive, legislative and judicial branch. He

writes:

“There wants an established, settled, known law, received and

followed by common consent to be the standard of right and wrong, and
the common measure to decide all controversies between them…In the
state of nature there wants a known and indifferent judge, with authority to
determine all differences according to the established law…In the state of
nature there often wants the power to back and support the sentence when
right, and to give it due execution.”(Macpherson)
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In the Constitution the executive, legislative and judicial branches can be found in Article

I, Article II and Article III. Locke established these separate branches because he did not

trust governments where these different groups are combined. That is also why the

founding fathers established these three separate branches of government but they were

also inspired by Montesquieu, a later Enlightenment philosopher, who developed the idea

of a system of checks and balances to keep one branch from exceeding its powers.

In chapter thirteen of the Second Treatise Locke proposes sessions for congress as

well as a continuous position for the executive. Locke proposed that if those who made

the laws stayed around and did nothing but make laws then that body would become

corrupt. This can be found in the Constitution in Article I, Section 4 where it says that

Congress needs to meet at least once a year but they do not have to make laws year

round(Constitution). The idea of sessions were especially needed in the early republic

when many representatives and senators were only part time politicians because they also

owned crops and needed to go home and tend to them for one half of the year. Today

politicians are full time and sessions are usually short.

Some would say Locke’s biggest influence of the American political thought

would be his Letter Concerning Toleration. In his letter Locke states that no religion is

capable of demonstrating its exclusive claim to be the one and true religion. It is wrong

therefore to impose any one religion upon the free consciences of people. People ought to

live in complete tolerance of one another's faiths.(Popple) Locke developed this theory

after the years of religious blood shed that ravaged England because of the hatred

between Protestants and Catholics as well as the horrors in Europe during the Thirty

Years War. Locke and many other philosophers of his time were simply tired of the
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religious slaughter that was prevalent in Europe. This toleration of other religions finds

its biggest champions in Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. These two would make

their biggest mark on American religious toleration with their two writings to the

Generally Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Those writings are Jefferson’s

Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and Memorial and Remonstrance Against

Religious Assessments.(Coates) Jefferson’s statute severed all relations between church

and state in Virginia and allowed for a greater amount of religious freedom while

Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance was written in opposition to a bill to give a

general assessment for the support of teachers of religion. In 1779 Jefferson’s statute was

not passed by the General Assembly. It was not until 1786, while Jefferson was away for

reasons of diplomacy, that it was passed. Jefferson was in Paris lobbying with Ben

Franklin for French assistance against Britain, instead it was Madison who supported the

statute and helped get it passed through the Virginia Commonwealth. Madison also

wrote the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Locke’s religious toleration can clearly

be seen where it states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of

religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”(Constitution)

Locke’s influence on American political thought can clearly be seen in such

documents as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The founding fathers borrowed the ideas of natural rights, conditions in civil society and

revolution from an oppressive government from John Locke when they wrote the

Declaration of Independence. But Thomas Jefferson altered Locke’s natural rights by

substituting “property” with “pursuit of happiness” in order to make a more

comprehensive view of rights. Locke’s influence can also be seen in the Constitution
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with his ideas concerning the establishment of the three branches of government and

sessions, and separation of church and state and religious toleration in the Bill of Rights.

John Locke is one of the biggest influences on American political thought and his ideas

will continue to shape how we as Americans see ourselves and our relationship to our

government. But Locke’s greatest contribution is beyond any of these documents. He

changed the way that people thought of politics and the terms that they used. By saying

that we as individuals have certain rights and that those rights are beyond any

government or earthly power, Locke laid the philosophical basis for American social and

political thought.
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Bibliography

Popple, William, John Locke’s A Letter Concerning Religious Toleration, Constitution

Society, <http://www.constitution.org/jl/tolerati.htm>

Coates, Elyer Sr., The Thomas Jefferson FAQ,

<http://www.geocities.com/athens/7842/archives/index.html>

John Locke: Major Works, The Age of the Sage,

<http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philosophy/john_locke_works.html>

Macpherson, C.B., John Locke: Second Treatise of Government, Indianapolis,

Cambridge: Hakcett Publishing Company Inc. 1980

The Declaration of Independence, Indiana University School of Law – Bloomington,

http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html

The Call for Independence: How the Declaration of Independence Came to Be, The

History Channel, http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/declaration/call.html

The Constitution, The United States House of Representatives,

<http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html>