Second Treatise of Government - 4 - Tyranny and the Right to Revolt
Chapters 15 - 19
Quote
Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall transgress this fundamental Rule of Society; and either by Ambition, Fear, Folly or Corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the Hands of any other absolute Power over the Lives, Liberties, and Estates of the People; By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power the People had put into their Hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the People.
Notes
🔥 Despotical power is absolute and arbitrary power over another person's life, which does not exist in the state of nature. It only happens when men forfeit their rights in a state of war.
🔥 Gaining power by conquest is not the same as gaining it by consent. Conquering someone does not give you the right to rule, though this is the more common way throughout history that people have taken power.
🔥 By point of contrast, the conquered do have a right to rebel against their conquerors. Locke cites the story of Hezekiah in the Bible, whom, so the story goes, God granted the power to overthrow the people who had taken over the Israelites.
🔥 Usurpation is the same as conquest, only it happens domestically, within the state. The usurper has no right to rule and he has not obtained actual consent.
🔥 "When the Governor ... makes not the law, but his Will, the Rule; and his commands and actions are not directed to the Preservation of the Properties of his people, but the satisfaction of his own Ambition, Revenge, Covetousness, and any other irregular Passion" — that is tyranny.
🔥 Tyranny is not only limited to monarchy. Other types of government can be tyrannies, too. Locke cites the Thirty Tyrants of Athens as an example.
🔥 If a ruler does have the interest of his people in mind, it should be easy for the them to see it and feel it. Having people suspect you of tyranny is one of the most dangerous for a government to be in. And the people have a right to overthrow a tyrannical government.
🔥 Governments can be dissolved from without, if they're invaded by a foreign country, for example. Or they can be dissolved from within.
🔥 The Legislative body is core to the foundation of a commonwealth. If that gets altered or destroyed, then there goes the government.
🔥 If the laws of the legislative are ignored, or if the legislative is prevented from meeting, or if the way they are elected changes, these are all ways a legislative can be altered. A government can also just stop enforcing the laws.
🔥 If a government acts against their mandate and loses the trust of the people, then the people have the right "to resume their original Liberty" and resist, and establish a new legislative. If they have to wait for the legislative to completely dissolve before they have a legitimate right to act, that would be way too late.
🔥 Some might say that the people are ignorant and always unhappy with their government. And so "to lay the foundation of government on the unsteady and uncertain Humour of the people is to expose it to certain ruin." But, says, Locke, the people usually don't want radical change. Even big mistakes in governing "will be born by the people without Mutiny." It's only when things get really bad that they will rebel.
🔥 The fault of the rebellion lies with the rulers who breached the trust of the people in the first place.
🔥 Whoever overturns a constitution is guilty of one of the greatest crimes and is answerable for the violence and destruction that ensues.
Thoughts
You can see how and why this book had the immediate and lasting impact that it's had. Having described the laws of government from first principles, Locke is able to definitively lay out the relationship between a government and the people and when the people have a right by nature to overthrow their government. You can see how this would have been fuel for any resistance movements that encountered it.
Interesting the way there's no clearly defined line, however, to say when a government is in breach of trust with the people. Locke says "the People shall be Judge." And the onus is really on the government not to get out of line with the people.
That being said, there are arguably more examples in history of tyrannical governments using force and violence to suppress this right and keep it down. A government seems to still have the ability to subvert the laws of nature by entering into a state of war against its people, and using all the force of violence at their disposal to do that.