Second Treatise of Government — Outline

Thesis

Development

1. 1.

   Introductory: definition of political power

   “must of necessity find out another rise of government, another original of political power, and another way of designing and knowing the persons that have it, than what Sir Robert Filmer hath taught us.”

   CHAPTER. I.
2. 2.

   State of nature: freedom, equality, and natural law

   “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”

   CHAPTER. II.
3. 3.

   State of war: distinction from state of nature

   “Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature. But force, or a declared design of force, upon the person of another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war”

   CHAPTER. III.
4. 4.

   Slavery: natural liberty and its limits

   “This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power, is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation, that he cannot part with it, but by what forfeits his preservation and life together”

   CHAPTER. IV.
5. 5.

   Property: labour as the origin of title

   “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.”

   CHAPTER. V.
6. 6.

   Paternal power: scope, limits, and distinction from political power

   “these two powers, political and paternal, are so perfectly distinct and separate; are built upon so different foundations, and given to so different ends, that every subject that is a father, has as much a paternal power over his children, as the prince has over his”

   CHAPTER. VI.
7. 7.

   Political society: its constitution and distinction from other associations

   “Where-ever therefore any number of men are so united into one society, as to quit every one his executive power of the law of nature, and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a political, or civil society.”

   CHAPTER. VII.
8. 8.

   Beginning of political societies: consent as the only lawful origin

   “that, which begins and actually constitutes any political society, is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a society.”

   CHAPTER. VIII.
9. 9.

   Ends of government: preservation of property as the chief end

   “The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.”

   CHAPTER. IX.
10. 10.

    Forms of commonwealth: classification by placement of legislative power

    “the form of government depending upon the placing the supreme power, which is the legislative, it being impossible to conceive that an inferior power should prescribe to a superior, or any but the supreme make laws, according as the power of making laws is placed, such is the form of the commonwealth.”

    CHAPTER. X.
11. 11.

    Legislative power: its supremacy and four bounds

    “This legislative is not only the supreme power of the commonwealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it”

    CHAPTER. XI.
12. 12.

    Legislative, executive, and federative powers: separation and union

    “There is another power in every commonwealth, which one may call natural, because it is that which answers to the power every man naturally had before he entered into society”

    CHAPTER. XII.
13. 13.

    Subordination of powers: the people as ultimate supreme power

    “the legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them”

    CHAPTER. XIII.
14. 14.

    Prerogative: discretionary executive power and its proper limits

    “prerogative can be nothing but the people’s permitting their rulers to do several things, of their own free choice, where the law was silent, and sometimes too against the direct letter of the law, for the public good”

    CHAPTER. XIV.
15. 15.

    Three powers compared: paternal, political, and despotical

    “absolute dominion, however placed, is so far from being one kind of civil society, that it is as inconsistent with it, as slavery is with property.”

    CHAPTER. XV.
16. 16.

    Conquest: no title to government without consent

    “conquest is as far from setting up any government, as demolishing an house is from building a new one in the place.”

    CHAPTER. XVI.
17. 17.

    Usurpation: illegitimate change of persons in government

    “Whoever gets into the exercise of any part of the power, by other ways than what the laws of the community have prescribed, hath no right to be obeyed, though the form of the commonwealth be still preserved”

    CHAPTER. XVII.
18. 18.

    Tyranny: exercise of power beyond right

    “Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate”

    CHAPTER. XVIII.
19. 19.

    Dissolution of government: causes and the people's right to a new legislative

    “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”

    CHAPTER. XIX.

Conclusion