Two Treatises of Government: In the Former, The False Principles, and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, And His Followers, Are Detected and Overthrown

“In Two Treatises on Government… John Locke developed what he considered the ‘true original, extent and end of civil government.’ The First Treatise was devoted to a refutation of the theory of divine right monarchy expounded by Sir Robert Filmer in his Patriarcha, published in 1680. In his Second Treatise, Locke presented his positive views on the origins of the social order. Civil society and government, Locke argued, were founded on an original social compact entered into by autonomous individuals in a state of nature. The powers of government, Locke contended, were limited by the authority granted by the free consent of the individuals subscribing to the social compact. Locke’s Second Treatise has been credited with great influence on American constitutionalism… Locke had a profound impact…. on the theoretical basis for forming new governments… Locke had a formative influence on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and on the early state constitutions” (A Covenanted People 37). “The Second Treatise contains a plain statement of the principles of democracy. In an age and country in which the practice of democracy had just been triumphantly vindicated, Locke’s theories… had all the freshness of novelty… civil rulers hold their power not absolutely but conditionally; government being essentially a moral trust, which lapses if the trustees fail to maintain their side of the contract… [The Treatises of Government] provide a classic example of the empirical approach to social and political economy which has remained ever since the basis of the principles of democracy” (PMM 163).