By Malcolm Lee Kitchen III | MK3 Law Group
(c) 2026 – All rights reserved.
Summary
John Locke (1632–1704) stands among the most influential political philosophers in the history of Western thought. As the author of A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Two Treatises on Government (1690), and numerous other seminal works, Locke’s intellectual contributions fundamentally shaped the course of modern political theory and constitutional governance. During the transformative period stretching from 1760 to 1800, his writings on government and religious toleration elevated him to the position of the third most cited secular author in America, surpassed only by Montesquieu and Blackstone. His influence transcended partisan divisions: in the critical years leading up to the American Revolution, even Tory thinkers turned to Locke for intellectual guidance on matters of natural rights and the conditions under which revolution could be considered legitimate and just. Following the Declaration of Independence in 1776, his philosophical arguments were frequently and extensively cited by the leading proponents of religious freedom, further cementing his legacy as one of the foundational architects of liberal democratic thought.
Locke’s enduring relevance lies in his systematic articulation of principles that continue to underpin modern democratic societies: the separation of civil authority from religious institutions, the natural equality and freedom of all human beings, the labor theory of property, the consent of the governed as the legitimate basis of political authority, and the right of the people to dissolve or reform a government that has breached its fundamental obligations. The following document excerpts, drawn from his Letter Concerning Toleration and his Second Treatise on Government, offer a comprehensive illustration of these foundational arguments in Locke’s own words, allowing the reader to engage directly with the primary sources that shaped Enlightenment thought and, ultimately, the constitutional foundations of modern liberal democracies.
A Letter Concerning Toleration
Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration, first published in 1689, remains one of the most powerful and persuasive arguments for the separation of religious authority from civil governance ever committed to writing. Composed against the backdrop of intense religious conflict in Europe, it addressed the destructive consequences of state-enforced religious conformity and made a principled case for the coexistence of diverse Christian communities under a framework of mutual respect and legal protection.
Locke opens his argument by directly addressing the question of religious toleration among Christians of differing denominations and professions of faith:
“Since you are pleased to inquire what are my thoughts about the mutual toleration of Christians in their different professions of religion, I must needs answer you freely, that I esteem that toleration to be the chief characteristical mark of the true church. For whatsoever some people boast of the antiquity of places and names, or of the pomp of their outward worship; others, of the reformation of their discipline; all, of the orthodoxy of their faith, for everyone is orthodox to himself: these things, and all others of this nature, are much rather marks of men’s striving for power and empire over one another, than of the church of Christ.”
In this opening passage, Locke establishes a distinction of critical importance: that the external markers by which religious institutions claim superiority over one another — antiquity, ceremonial grandeur, doctrinal purity — are, in reality, not markers of genuine Christian virtue but rather manifestations of the human appetite for power and dominion. The true church, Locke argues, is not defined by its institutional prestige or doctrinal orthodoxy in the eyes of its adherents, but rather by its commitment to the spirit of toleration. Since every religious community considers itself orthodox by its own standards, no community possesses an objectively privileged claim to enforce its doctrines upon others through civil means.
Locke further develops this line of argument by drawing attention to a profound and troubling inconsistency he observes in the behavior of those who advocate for religious persecution. He questions the moral coherence of a religious zeal that turns its punitive energies toward the enforcement of ceremonies and doctrinal fine points while remaining largely indifferent to the moral failings and ethical vices that Christian teaching universally condemns:
“Why then does this burning zeal for God, for the church, and for the salvation of souls; burning, I say, literally, with fire and faggot; pass by those moral vices and wickednesses, without any chastisement, which are acknowledged by all men to be diametrically opposite to the profession of Christianity; and bend all its nerves either to the introducing of ceremonies, or to the establishment of opinions, which for the most part are about nice and intricate matters, that exceed the capacity of ordinary understandings?”
The rhetorical force of this passage is considerable. Locke draws a pointed contrast between the ferocity with which religious authorities have historically prosecuted theological nonconformity — sometimes through torture and execution — and their comparative leniency toward behaviors universally recognized as morally incompatible with Christian ethics. In doing so, he exposes the ecclesiastical pursuit of doctrinal uniformity as a fundamentally political rather than spiritual enterprise, motivated by the desire to exercise control rather than to advance the genuine moral and spiritual welfare of believers.
Having established the political nature of religious persecution, Locke proceeds to the heart of his argument: the principled and rigorous distinction between the proper jurisdiction of civil government and the proper domain of religious practice:
“I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion, and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other. If this be not done, there can be no end put to the controversies that will be always arising between those that have, or at least pretend to have, on the one side, a concernment for the interest of men’s souls, and on the other side, a care of the commonwealth.”
This formulation represents one of the earliest and most rigorous philosophical statements of the principle of the separation of church and state. Locke recognizes that the persistent conflation of spiritual and civil authority creates an inherently unstable and conflict-prone situation, in which those who claim to act in the interests of human salvation and those who claim to act in the interests of civil order are brought into perpetual and irresolvable conflict. The only viable solution, he argues, is the precise and principled delineation of the respective boundaries within which each authority legitimately operates.
Locke defines civil government in terms that are deliberately and significantly limited in scope:
“The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing of their own civil interests. Civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like.”
This definition of the commonwealth as an institution constituted exclusively for the protection and advancement of civil interests represents a foundational statement of the liberal conception of the state. Government, on Locke’s account, exists to protect the temporal welfare of its citizens — their lives, their physical well-being, their liberty, and their material possessions. The salvation of souls lies entirely outside this jurisdiction, and any attempt by civil authorities to extend their power into this domain constitutes a fundamental violation of the proper boundaries of governmental authority:
“[T]he whole jurisdiction of the magistrates reaches only to these civil concernments; and . . . all civil power, right, and dominion is bounded and confined to the only care of promoting these things; and . . . it neither can nor ought in any manner to be extended to the salvation of souls.”
Locke concludes this section of his argument with a shrewd and perceptive observation regarding the behavior of religious communities in relation to the question of toleration. He notes that religious groups tend to advocate for toleration precisely when they lack the civil power to enforce their doctrines, and to abandon this advocacy when they acquire sufficient power to pursue persecution:
“Where they have not the power to carry on persecution and to become masters, there they desire to live upon fair terms and preach up toleration. When they are not strengthened with the civil power, then they can bear most patiently, and unmovedly, the contagion of idolatry, superstition, and heresy in their neighbourhood; of which, on other occasions, the interest of religion makes them to be extremely apprehensive.”
This observation exposes the fundamentally self-serving and politically contingent nature of much religious advocacy for toleration, and reinforces Locke’s central argument that a principled commitment to religious freedom must rest not on the strategic calculations of particular religious groups but on a robust philosophical framework that limits the legitimate authority of civil government over matters of conscience and belief.
Second Treatise on Government
Chapter 2: Of the State of Nature
The Second Treatise on Government represents Locke’s most systematic and comprehensive contribution to political philosophy. Beginning with a careful examination of what he terms the “state of nature” — the hypothetical condition of human beings prior to the establishment of civil society and political institutions — Locke builds a rigorous philosophical foundation for his theory of legitimate government, natural rights, and the conditions under which political authority may be rightfully established or dissolved.
“TO understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man. A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty.”
In this foundational passage, Locke articulates two principles that are of the utmost significance for the entire edifice of his political philosophy: the natural freedom of human beings and the natural equality of all persons. The state of nature, on Locke’s account, is characterized not by chaos or the dominance of the strong over the weak, but by perfect freedom and reciprocal equality. No individual possesses any natural authority over any other, and no one is born into a condition of natural subjection or subordination to another human being. This principle of natural equality is not merely an empirical observation but a normative claim: it is the condition that reason, properly consulted, reveals as the appropriate natural condition of human beings as creatures of God.
Crucially, however, Locke is careful to distinguish freedom from license. The state of nature is not a state in which individuals are unconstrained in their actions:
“But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
The law of nature, which Locke identifies with reason itself, imposes substantive obligations on all human beings in the state of nature. These obligations derive from the recognition that all human beings are the workmanship of God — created by an omnipotent and infinitely wise maker, sent into the world to carry out His purposes, and therefore not legitimately subject to the destructive will of any other human being. The natural law thus establishes the inviolability of each person’s life, health, liberty, and possessions as a matter of divine and rational principle, not merely as a matter of social convention or positive legal enactment.
Chapter 5: Of Property
Locke’s theory of property, developed in Chapter 5 of the Second Treatise, is among the most influential and extensively discussed contributions in the history of political philosophy. It provides a natural-law foundation for the institution of private property that does not depend on positive law or social convention, deriving instead from the fundamental principle of self-ownership and the relationship between labor and appropriation:
“God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. And tho’ all the fruits it naturally produces, and beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of nature; and no body has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of them, as they are thus in their natural state: yet being given for the use of men, there must of necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other, before they can be of any use, or at all beneficial to any particular man.”
Locke acknowledges that the world is, in its original condition, given to humanity as a whole in common. No individual possesses any original and exclusive right to any part of the natural world. Nevertheless, the natural world is given to human beings for their use and benefit, and this purpose cannot be realized unless some mechanism of individual appropriation exists. The question, then, is how the transition from common ownership to legitimate individual property can be rationally grounded.
Locke’s answer rests on the principle of self-ownership:
“Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.”
The argument is elegant in its structure and profound in its implications. Each person has an inviolable property in their own person — in their body, their faculties, and their labor. When a person applies their labor to a resource that is held in common by nature, they in effect mix something that is unquestionably their own with something that belongs to all. By this act of labor, they extend their proprietary claim over the natural resource, transforming it from common property into legitimate individual property. This labor theory of property not only grounds the institution of private ownership in natural law but also establishes a direct and morally significant connection between productive effort and legitimate entitlement.
Chapter 8: Of the Beginning of Political Societies
Having established the natural freedom, equality, and rights of human beings in the state of nature, Locke proceeds in Chapter 8 to address the question of how legitimate political authority can arise. His answer is grounded in the principle of consent:
“MEN being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it.”
The principle that legitimate political authority can be established only on the basis of the consent of those who are to be governed is among the most important and consequential contributions of Locke’s political philosophy. It constitutes a direct challenge to theories of divine right monarchy and patriarchal authority, insisting that no person can be legitimately subjected to the political power of another without having freely consented to that subjection. Political authority, on Locke’s account, is not a natural hierarchy imposed by God or nature, but a voluntary compact entered into by free and equal individuals for mutual benefit and security.
Locke further specifies the principle of majority rule as the operative mechanism through which a political community acts as a single body:
“For when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only by the will and determination of the majority: for that which acts any community, being only the consent of the individuals of it, and it being necessary to that which is one body to move one way; it is necessary the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority.”
The logic of majority rule, on Locke’s account, is not an arbitrary convention but a rational necessity. For a community to function as a unified body capable of collective action, it must be governed by some decision-making procedure. The consent of every individual being practically unachievable in matters of ongoing governance, the consent of the majority provides the most rational and equitable substitute. Every member of the community, having consented to its formation, implicitly accepts the obligation to be bound by the determinations of the majority.
Chapter 19: Of the Dissolution of Government
The final and perhaps most politically significant section of Locke’s Second Treatise addresses the conditions under which a government may legitimately be dissolved and political authority may revert to the people. This argument was of particular relevance to the American colonists in the years leading up to the Revolution, providing a principled philosophical framework for the assertion of the right to resist and overthrow an abusive government:
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they chuse and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society: for since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society, that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs to secure, by entering into society, and for which the people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making; whenever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence.”
This passage articulates with exceptional clarity the foundational principle of Lockean constitutionalism: that governmental authority is fiduciary in nature, entrusted to legislators and executives by the people for the specific and limited purpose of protecting their lives, liberties, and properties. When those entrusted with this authority betray the trust placed in them by seeking to destroy or arbitrarily diminish the very rights they were appointed to protect, they forfeit their claim to obedience and the people are released from any obligation of compliance. The dissolution of government does not represent lawlessness or anarchy but rather the restoration of the people’s original and inalienable authority to constitute a new government better fitted to serve their legitimate interests.
Locke anticipates the objection that this doctrine will prove destabilizing, providing a permanent rationale for political rebellion, and responds with characteristic pragmatism and insight:
“People are not so easily got out of their old forms, as some are apt to suggest. They are hardly to be prevailed with to amend the acknowledged faults in the frame they have been accustomed to. And if there be any original defects, or adventitious ones introduced by time, or corruption; it is not an easy thing to get them changed, even when all the world sees there is an opportunity for it.”
Locke’s empirical observation here is as astute as it is important. The historical record demonstrates that ordinary people are, in general, deeply resistant to revolutionary change and strongly attached to established institutions, even flawed ones. Revolution is not an undertaking lightly embarked upon; it requires a sustained pattern of abuse and a profound failure of governance before the people can be moved to take such drastic action. The doctrine of the right to revolution, properly understood, does not license instability but rather provides a last resort against the most severe forms of governmental tyranny.
Locke’s philosophical legacy, as evidenced in these remarkable texts, is one of extraordinary scope and enduring vitality. His arguments for religious toleration, natural rights, the labor theory of property, government by consent, and the right to revolution remain central reference points in contemporary debates about the proper limits of governmental authority, the foundations of individual rights, and the conditions of legitimate political order. The influence of these ideas on the American founding documents — the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights — is both profound and well-documented, making Locke not merely a historical figure of antiquarian interest but an intellectual presence whose contributions continue to shape the foundations of liberal democratic governance throughout the world.
Sources:
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/locke-the-works-vol-5-four-letters-concerning-toleration
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/hollis-the-two-treatises-of-civil-government-hollis-ed
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