LOCKEOCRACY IN AMERICA

On the morning of Saturday, October 28th, 1704, in a room in the household of Sir Francis Masham, John Locke died. He had no immediate kin. His ideas, however, would play a profound role in the political organization of the Western world for many centuries to come. It was to be 71 years, 8 months, and 6 days from his death, however, that the greatest of Locke’s inheritors and ideological heirs were to make their lasting mark. Crowded in at 520 Chestnut Street between 5th and 6th streets in Philadelphia, also known at the time as the Pennsylvania State House, a group of disgruntled delegates from all across the Thirteen colonies agreed, on July 4th, 1776, to adopt one of the most profound statements of Locke’s Enlightenment political thought theretofore produced since his death: the United States Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration opens with the famous words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” This hearkens back to the second chapter of the Treatise, entitled Of the State of Nature: “We must consider,” Locke says, “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.” He continues, saying that it must be a “state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another,” and states that there is “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.” (¶4)

The Declaration then progresses, stating (about the men concerned above, namely, all men) that “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Here again the Founders echo Locke. In the fourth chapter of his Treatise, called Of Slavery, Locke argues that “This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to […] a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together.” Thus, Locke says, every man must have these unalienable rights, immune to arbitrary power, and he may only give them up as he loses his own life. Locke concludes, “No body [sic] can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it.” (¶23) Hence even man cannot alienate himself from his own rights without also losing his life.

Next in the Declaration comes the great statement concerning the purpose of government and the source of its authority: “That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” A more Lockean sentence is not to be found in the entire document. As Locke argues in the tenth chapter of his Treatise, “The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.” (¶124) In his eighth chapter, Of the Beginning of Political Societies, Locke discusses at length the question of consent of the governed. Given “that men are naturally free, and the examples of history shewing [sic], that the governments of the world, that were begun in peace, had their beginning laid on that foundation, and were made by the consent of the people;” given all that, Locke says, “there can be little room for doubt, either where the right is, or what has been the opinion, or practice of mankind, about the first erecting of governments.” (¶104) He continues, saying that “I affirm, viz. that the beginning of politic society depends upon the consent of the individuals, to join into, and make one society; who, when they are thus incorporated, might set up what form of government they thought fit.” (¶106)

Then, in the body of the second paragraph of the Declaration, the Founders get to the real meat of their purpose – they justify their revolution.

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. […] [W]hen 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.

Here the gloves come off. They appeal heavily to Locke’s Enlightenment political philosophy, to his justification and purpose of government, and therefore also to his defense of just revolution. Locke’s defense, coming again from his Second Treatise in the twenty-ninth chapter (somewhat ominously titled Of the Dissolution of Government) is a dead ringer for the language and spirit of the Declaration. Thus Sayeth Locke:

[W]henever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People […]. Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall transgress this fundamental Rule of Society; […] By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power, the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty. (¶222)

Locke was also heavily present, ideologically speaking, the formation of the United States Constitution. Locke believed that

[T]he first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of the legislative power; […] This legislative is not only the supreme power of the common-wealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it; nor can any edict of any body else […] have the force and obligation of a law, which has not its sanction from that legislative which the public has chosen and appointed: for without this the law could not have […] the consent of the society, over whom no body can have a power to make laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from them. (¶134)

Here Locke is emphasizing the importance of the legislative power in a government over all other forms of governmental power and authority. His reasoning for this authority, as is evident, hearkens back to the same reasoning he justifies government in the first place: the approval and consent of those governed. This is reflected in the very structure of the United States Constitution – the first power enumerated in the government is the legislative, and it receives at least twice as much space as any other power; indeed, in a document of about 4500 words, about 2270 words are devoted to the legislative branch alone, which is more than half of the document (roughly 50.44% ).

Now, it has been aptly shown through the documents of the American founding that John Locke did indeed a great impact on the American Founders; however, it remains to be shown that John Locke’s thought, and by extension the thought of the American Founders, is consistent with the ideals of the Enlightenment. This we will endeavor to show in the remainder of this paper.

Among the core ideas of the Enlightenment are devotion to reason, appreciation of method, love of liberty, belief in the primacy of utility, belief in the knowability of nature, worship of progress, critique of tradition, belief in deism, and acceptance of universalistic individualism. Locke and the American Founders adopted nearly all these ideas, as evidenced by the documents, and they were, therefore, participants in the Enlightenment.

For example: reason, rationality, and method all permeate both the Second Treatise and the American Founding documents – everything is treated with scrupulous examination and logical argument. Liberty is everywhere praised as a natural and unalienable right, and as a necessary means, or a thing that must be utilized to bring about the ultimate Good: true human happiness. Tradition is only justified through consent – in both sources, it may be thrown off like shackles through revolution if it is tyrannical or unwanted by those whom it governs. There are references to God in Locke and to a Creator in the Declaration, but not to any particular religious practices – God is seen as the source of rights, but not as a personal or acting agent in the world.

The American Experiment, then, is not a wholly American thing. This great country which has bred and raised so many of us operates not on principles of uniquely American origin, but on the axioms of the Enlightenment as espoused by a resident of the very kingdom from which we severed ourselves and found our freedom. American Exceptionalism must, it seems, make an exception, if only for a slim, gaunt old Englishman from a bygone century whose scribblings gave our revolution its start.

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Wm. 

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