Writing in 1689, the English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) described his ideal form of government as one that respected the natural rights of its people. The government, he wrote, should not take away the “life, liberty, and estate” of its citizens.
Almost a century later, when Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) wrote the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, he borrowed Locke’s words almost exactly, writing that citizens of the thirteen colonies had an inalienable right to “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Jefferson’s homage to Locke reflected the English philosopher’s central place in European and American political thought of the eighteenth century. Perhaps more than any other philosopher, Locke was a direct inspiration to the leaders of both the American and French revolutions. More than any other single document, his anti-monarchical Two Treatises of Government helped establish the conceptual framework of Western democracy.
Locke was born near Bristol, England. His childhood coincided with the English civil war, in which his father fought for the victorious Puritan faction. After the war, Locke attended Oxford, where he studied philosophy and medicine.
Locke’s original goal was to become a doctor. But one of his patients, the Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713), steered him into politics in the 1670s. Locke and Shaftesbury were both forced to flee to Holland after they were implicated in a plot to assassinate King Charles II (1630–1685).
It was while in exile that Locke wrote his two treatises, both of which attack the idea of absolute monarchy. Advancing the theory of the “social contract” formulated by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), Locke argued that the contract between the people and the state could be voided if the state failed to respect the rights of the people.
Locke returned to England in 1688, following the revolution, which overthrew King James II (1633–1701) and established Parliament, rather than the monarchy, as the decisive power in English politics. A hero to the revolutionaries, Locke died in 1704.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- Locke never married, but he was romantically involved with the philosopher Damaris Cudworth (1659–1708). She married another man, Sir Francis Masham (1645–1722), while Locke was in exile.
- In 1669, Locke helped write the first constitution for the British colonies of Carolina. The constitution established the right to a representative legislature, an innovative feature at the time, but also endorsed slavery. It was abandoned within a few decades.
- Another of Locke’s best-known and most influential works is A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), in which he argued that allowing religious freedom was in society’s best interests because it removed a cause of civil unrest. His idea of religious toleration, however, extended only to different Protestant denominations; Locke believed Catholics and atheists should be excluded from civil society.
