John Locke published his Treatise on Civil Government in 1689, a work influential to the development of our Declaration of Independence. The focus of this reading is, “An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government.”
Locke announces that consent to live by the constitutional laws of government is rooted in the fact that all men are created equal. No one is born one over or better than another, but we actually owe one another, our greatest debt being love for others before ourselves. In the so-called “state of nature”, anyone choosing to break the smallest of laws declares himself to be above all law and others; therefore, the lawbreaker deserves judgment, even punishment, by those who keep the law. “The state of war” is “the right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction.” Slavery, says Locke, is a state of war; however, if one party consents to be obedient to another with limited power, then there is government.
Of all governmental powers, supreme power lies with fathers, who serve as the life-giver, provider, educator, protector, priest and very model of the free man. The power of making laws belong to the legislative by popular consent and are non-transferable to another entity. Prerogative is, “the power to act according to discretion for the public good without the prescription of the law, and sometimes even against.”
