An Analysis Of John Locke's Two Treatise Of Government

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The founding father of liberal political thought was John Locke, a 18th century English political philosopher. Locke was part of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 that saw the overthrow of the Stuart monarch Charles II and the formation of a parliamentary government. Unlike Hobbes, Locke believed in the concept of government having limits to the power over its own citizens. With his theory of Natural Rights and his work titled, Two Treatise of Government, Locke established a political though that came to revolutionize political governance. During the inclination of governmental and civilian conflict, Locke presented that a social contract with a civil government could be overthrown by its populus when the government arbitrarily violated its …show more content…
He argued that government is a collective way to protect individuals natural rights. The Lockean parliamentarian ideology states that a when a government is formed by a social contract of its people it allows for the transfer of limited power to a civil government, that interns recognizes and protects the natural rights of its citizens. Any government that follows this form is considered legitimate. Thus, in an event where a legitimate government breaches the social contract, the government becomes illegitimate and the citizens are legally free from obeying the state. Thus, as illegitimate Locke proposes that condition of rebelling against the state to be permitted and promotes all citizens to disassemble the government and establish a new one that will recognize and protect their natural rights. The greatest example of a social contract being breached occurred in North America in 1776, where the Thirteen colonies of America firmly believed that the English government and King George VIII violated and breached their rights. The American Revolution is a prime example because when the American people became victorious and formed their new nation, it established a civil government that constituted a Bill of Rights and governmental checks and balances to make the violation of their
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