Book: Two Treatises of Government

Context
Published in 1689 amid the aftermath of England's Glorious Revolution, John Locke's Two Treatises of Government challenges the doctrine of the divine right of kings and offers a foundation for political authority based on individual rights and consent. The work responds most directly to Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, which defended absolute monarchy through a biblical, patriarchal lineage from Adam. Locke turns to reason, natural law, and a reinterpretation of scripture to ground political legitimacy in the people rather than in hereditary claims.

Structure and Aim
The book comprises two treatises. The First Treatise dismantles Filmer's arguments for absolute monarchy and paternal authority. The Second Treatise presents Locke's positive theory of legitimate government: a community formed by free and equal individuals to secure their natural rights through consent, limited law, and accountable institutions.

The First Treatise
Locke dissects Filmer's claim that all political power flows from Adam's paternal dominion. He argues that the scriptural basis is unsound, genealogical transmission of such absolute power is impossible to establish, and even if paternal authority existed, it would not resemble despotic rule. Locke separates paternal, marital, political, and despotical power, insisting they have distinct origins and limits. Parental authority concerns care and education of children, diminishing as children reach reason; it does not justify absolute rule. By depriving monarchy of a divine pedigree and collapsing the supposed chain of patriarchal succession, Locke clears ground for a politics rooted in natural equality.

The Second Treatise
Locke begins with the state of nature, a condition of freedom and equality governed by natural law. Individuals possess natural rights to life, liberty, and estate, and they are obligated not to harm others in their rights. Property arises when a person mixes labor with unowned resources, provided there is "enough and as good" left for others and no spoilage. The advent of money, accepted by common consent, allows durable accumulation and inequality without violating natural law, so long as acquisition rests on labor and voluntary exchange.

Despite its moral law, the state of nature suffers from inconveniences: no settled, known law, no impartial judge, and no reliable enforcement. To remedy these, individuals consent to form a political community and institute government. The community authorizes a legislative power to make general laws for the public good, an executive to enforce them, and a federative power to manage external relations. Legislative authority is supreme within its sphere yet strictly limited: it must govern by established laws, aim at the preservation of the community and its members' property, avoid arbitrary rule, and levy taxes only with consent. Executive prerogative permits discretion where law is silent or emergencies arise, but its legitimacy hinges on serving the public good.

Locke delineates lawful slavery as the result of just war against aggressors who forfeited their rights; he rejects absolute, hereditary slavery. He also defines conjugal society as a partnership oriented to mutual support and the upbringing of children, again limiting domestic power.

Right of Resistance and Dissolution
Government is a fiduciary trust for protecting rights. When rulers attempt to destroy property broadly understood, life, liberty, and estate, or place themselves above the law, they breach this trust. The people retain a right to resist, appeal to heaven when legal remedies fail, and reconstitute government. Dissolution of government does not dissolve society; rather, it returns political power to the community to appoint new trustees.

Legacy
Locke's treatises articulate a liberal grammar of government, rights, consent, limited law, and accountability, that shaped constitutionalism in Britain, the American founding, and beyond. By rooting political authority in the preservation of natural rights and the consent of the governed, the work supplants patriarchal absolutism with a durable vision of legitimate, constrained, and revocable power.