Locke

Name: Scott W. Kissner Course: Development of the American Experience Date: 06/15/2010 John Locke (Locke) made the following claim “If a controversy arise betwixt a prince and some of the people, in a matter where the law is silent, or doubtful, and the thing be of great consequence, I should think the proper umpire, in such a case, should be the body of the people:”, in Chapter 19, which begins the second from the last paragraph at the end of his Two Treaties of Civil Government, as found in the Classics of Moral and Political Theory anthology on the left-hand column of page 749. It is difficult to look at only part of the first sentence within this paragraph and understand what Locke is trying to say. This is especially true since this is so close to the end of his work, being the last Chapter and the next to the last paragraph of the Two Treaties of Civil Government. Locke’s last chapter, “Of the Dissolution of Government” gives some insight to this claim (Locke 740). Locke posses the problem, what if a dispute arises between a person who is in power, in this case a prince, and part of the group of people that he has been entrusted to administer' Continuing with the rest of the paragraph, if the prince has been entrusted to administer the common ordinary rule of law and the prince abuses the law or his powers, then those who put him in power should be responsible for correcting his actions or removing him from power. This makes perfect senses that the “body of people” that put him in power would be “proper to judge as the body of the people” to remove him from power (Locke 749). Locke’s concluding chapter, needs more detail before it can be understood or interpreted. Locke has spent 18 chapters explaining why and how a person or a “body of people” have the power to “judge” (Locke 749). To understand this it is best to understand what came before this chapter since this chapter involves dissolving the government that has been designed and built up to this point, as well as why it may need to be dissolved. Locke, after an introduction to the Two Treaties of Civil Government, he begins with the concept that man is in “a state of perfect freedom” and bound by “the law of nature” (Locke 686). As men are in this state of nature and thru their consent to “seek communion and fellowship with others” they will create the first “politic society” (Locke 689). In this natural state and every man has “equality, wherein all power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another” (Locke 686). In this state of nature no man shall “harm another of his life, health, liberty, or possessions” (Locke 686). If this happens then and only then does the man that was harmed have a right to do harm or enforce “punishment” on the other (Locke 687). But this is limited only to the extent of the harm against him in order to prevent others for committing the same injustice. This is where Locke lays the ground work “that in the state of nature every one has the executive power of the law of nature” and in this state of nature is “were men may be judge in their own case” (Locke 688). That being in the state of nature, in itself, creates a problem. Since every one is their own judge, each person will be bias to their own best interest. This creates conflict and this conflict is known as being at war with another. Locke calls this a state of war since there is no superior judge, other than “men may be judge in their own case,” to settle disputes (Locke 688). Because men are their own judges and conflicts create wars, Locke needs to lay the foundation government to create the superior judge. To do this Locke makes a lengthy but bold statement: “But freedom of men under government, is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society and made by the legislative power erected by it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribe not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man” (Locke 691). Locke still has not man in the state of nature becomes a society, or how the government of this society has both legislative and executive powers. Locke begins to set forth how a governmental society acquires both legislative and executive powers. In the beginning “the first society was between man and wife, which gave beginning to that between parents and children” (Locke 705). Eventually servants were added and the master and mistress had rule over the family, in short a form of “political society” (Locke 705). This is the beginning of a hierarchy chain of rule. Even at this point the man is still has ultimate control within the family to rule and create rules as he sees fit. In the state of nature the community or political society has no power to protect property, let alone punish any offence. Yet, man in the state of nature has “by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty, and estate” against others each man is “but to judge of and punish the breaches of that law in other, as he is persuaded the offence deserves” (Locke 707). Locke gives another long statement of how a governmental society acquires both legislative and executive powers. “But because no political society can be, nor subsist, without having in itself the power to preserve the property, and, in order thereunto, punish the offences of all those of that society; there and there only is political society, where every one of the members hath quitted his natural power, resigned it up into the hands of the community in all cases that excludes him not from appealing for protection to the law established by it. And thus all private judgment of every particular member being excluded, the community comes to be the umpire, by settled standing rules, indifferent, and the same to all parties; and by men having authority from the community, for execution of those rules, decides all the differences that may happen between any members of that society concerning any matter of right; punishes those offences which any member hath committed against the society, with such penalties as the law has established” (Locke 707). Locke points out that each man in a political society must, thru his own consent, release all of his powers under the natural law to the community. In doing so the community now has the power to be the umpire in disputes, and to protect according to the laws it establishes. Locke points out that the community or civil society now has the authority to legislate and execute its power over the community. Each man when consenting to join the community as on body politic, then the majority of that body has the right to make a decision for the greater good of all the community. This is where Locke how a governmental society acquires both legislative and executive powers and how “the body of the people” become the “proper judge” or “umpire” (Locke 749). Locke has now built the ground work of a governmental society with both legislative and executive powers. When something is created there is usually a way to dissolve it. Only now can it be understood why Locke writes the last Chapter of the Two Treaties of Civil Government, “Of the Dissolution of Government” and the different events that can lead to the dissolution of a government. (Locke 740). This new body politic or legislature can be dissolved or altered by the force of a foreign conqueror. A government of political society can also be dissolved from within. The “first and fundamental act of society” is to create the “constitution of the legislative”(Locke 740). This constitution sets forth the “continuation of the union” which “under the direction of persons, and bonds of laws, made by persons authorized thereunto, be the consent and appointment of the people; without which no one man, or number of men, amongst them, can have authority of making laws that shall be binding to the rest” (Locke 740) Locke stated earlier in the Two Treaties of Civil Government, that the majority will shall control the legislative will of the group. Now if the group or number of men is less than the majority, then statement that the rest of the body or group is not bound by the rules or laws created by the first group of men. However, if three distinct persons are put into power by the legislative powers; 1. A single hereditary person, having the constant, supreme, executive power, and with it the power to convoking and dissolving the other two, within certain periods of time. 2. An assembly of hereditary nobility. 3. An assembly of representatives chosen pro tempore, by the people. Such a form of government supposed, it is evident.” (Locke 741) The singularly hereditary person, being a prince, whom sets his own arbitrary will and hinders the legislative for assembling and acting freely, against the common will of the people is said to be in a state of war with the people. Now that there is an understanding of how the problem first stated in the being of this paper could arise as well as who has the right to resolve it. According to Locke’s statement that the group is to be the judge contradicts the preceding paragraph in which he claims “God in heaven is judge. He alone, it is true, is judge of the right. But every man is judge for himself, as in all other cases” (Locke 749). Even though there is a contradiction between these two statements it must be remembered that when every one has release all of his powers under the natural law to the community. In doing so the community now has the power to be the umpire in disputes, and to protect according to the laws it establishes. Locke points out that the community or civil society now has the authority to legislate and execute its power over the community. However, in removing the prince from power only restores the group or society to its state prior to that of which the prince or administrator came into power. The government and society that has been created still remains. The powers that every one released, under the law of nature, to the community, still reside with the community. Hence, the community survives and still retains the power to be the umpire in disputes, and to protect the life, health, liberty, or possessions of every one in the community according to the laws it establishes. Nothing else changes except the prince is judged and punished according to the will of “body of the people” (Locke 749). Honor Pledge: “I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid in completing this work, nor have I presented someone else’s work as my own” Student initials: SWK