John Locke's Second Treatise Of Civil Government

Compared to other major governments around the world, America’s government is relatively new, being only approximately 300 years old. In the 1700s, as colonists began to permanently settle in the New World, the monarchy of the British Empire, specifically King George III and Parliament, controlled America’s foreign policy and trade relations. After defending the colonies against the French and Native Americans, Parliament needed to enforce duties on the colonists to help pay reparations lost during the war. To do this and raise revenue, the British legislature passed a series of taxes on paper goods, sugar, glass, and tea; Parliament also began placing stricter regulations the colonist’s trade. In response to the new taxes placed by Parliament, …show more content…
Jefferson was a well-educated Virginian lawmaker who carefully studied the works of Enlightenment authors, in particular, John Locke. The foundation of Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government (1689) is that of natural rights—the belief that certain rights, including life, liberty, and property, were inherent in human beings and not dependent on governments. Throughout his writing, Locke argued that government must have certain restrictions placed upon it to ensure that people’s natural rights were not being infringed. He also contended that government must be built on the consent of the governed, and if the people no longer believed the government was serving its purpose, the government could be overthrown. When drafting the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson paralleled many of these ideas placed by Locke. Although the Declaration doesn’t mention the right to property, Jefferson declared it was “self-evident that all men are created equal…. with certain unalienable Rights…. Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”. Locke’s philosophical ideas—natural rights and consent of the governed— provided the foundation of Jefferson’s Declaration, and these beliefs would prove to be crucial in establishing a government for the new …show more content…
The majority of people wanted to break free of the type of autocratic government that Britain had, so when coming up with a constitution for the nation, the committee placed importance on creating a weak central government. The committee created the Articles of Confederation, enacted in 1781, to create a national legislature; however, most of the authority rested with state legislatures. Under the Articles, each state had only one vote and to pass legislation, all the states had to vote unanimously. Because states held more power, the elite noticed a power shift as farmers and craftworkers became the majority. The idea of equality was quickly shifting in the United States, and members of the elite felt threatened to this shift. Because of the Articles, policies tended to favor debtors over creditors. In 1786, a group of farmers, led by Daniel Shays, led a series of attacks on courthouses in Massachusetts to prevent farm foreclosures. Scaring the elite, it was quickly realized that the Articles of Confederation needed to be