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A Letter Concerning Toleration John Locke Analysis

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John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration discuss the separation of church and state, the rights of the government and citizens, and resistance of unjust governments. Based on these works, Locke would conclude that Davis is in the wrong, because he would find that her actions are unjust, that the court rightfully jailed her, and that her resistance of the government was unlawful. In deciding to support the court’s actions against Davis, Locke would first assert that Davis’s decision to deny same-sex couples marriage licenses was unjust, as she violated rights guaranteed to those couples. In A Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke goes so far as to say “The sum of all we drive at is, that every man may enjoy the same rights that are …show more content…

In A Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke claims that “It is the duty of the civil magistrate... to secure unto all the people in general, and to every one of his subjects in particular, the just possession of [civil interests],” and defines these interest as life, liberty, health, indolency of body, and property (26). Locke identifies the role of the government, and makes it clear that it is tasked with securing the rights of all its citizens. Locke further asserts that the government has the right to punish those who attempt to violate these rights. “No opinions contrary to human society, or to those moral rules which are necessary to the preservation of civil society are to be tolerated by the magistrate” (A Letter Concerning Toleration, 49). Locke believes that the government has the power to punish those whose actions are detrimental to the civil society the government is tasked to preserve. Given that Davis violates citizens’ rights, Locke would assert that her actions harm society, and that it is within the court’s power to punish

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He also imprisoned anyone he wanted without doing trials and controlled people’s right to speak. None of these restrictions were close to Locke’s meaning of a government. Locke defended that a government should protect the rights of the people because every man have rights to life, liberty, and property. He then stated that if a government fail to do so, it can be revolted

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According to famous Enlightenment thinker John Locke, the role of the government is to protect the natural and basic rights of its people in order to maintain peace throughout the country. America’s Founding Fathers constructed the Constitution in order to do so. Nevertheless, their descendents have not been completely successful at following these guidelines. In The Louisiana’s Separate Car Act passed in 1892 required whites and blacks to sit on separate railroads. This act enforced ‘separate but equal’ accommodations.

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“Unjust laws exist: Shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them” (Thoreau 945, par.16). Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had written about resisting an unjust government in his piece, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. In his essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,” Henry David Thoreau also discusses the right and responsibility to resist an unjust government. Since King and Thoreau both use current events in their time as examples of injustice, use historical and biblical references, how they can’t wait any longer to make a change, both provide strong arguments on how important it is to stand up against the injustice put upon American people by the government; however, King and Thoreau were inspired to write by different causes

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Locke had stated that when an executive act for his own benefit, and not to serve the ends of the people. He “degrades himself” and becomes “but a single private person without power,” at which point he no longer has any right to rule over the people. Locke expresses the idea of rebellion against an unjust government. By giving the idea of rebellion, he also reveals that a human’s rights have changed over the years and that a man now has inherent rights. It was because of his declaration that the statement, “give me liberty or give me death,” become popular among the American people.

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Locke's father, additionally named John, was a country Lawyer and right hand to the Justice of the Peace in the Chew Magna,who had served as an issue of cavalry for the Parliamentarian Forces amid the early bit of the English Civil War. His mother was Agnes Keene, passed on while offering conception to him. Both of his guardians were Puritans. Locke was conceived on 29 August 1632, in a modest thatched lodge by the congregation in Wrington, Somerset, around twelve miles from Bristol.and was sanctified through water that same day. Soon after Locke's introduction to the world, the family moved to the business sector town of Pensford, around seven miles south of Bristol, where Locke experienced youth in a rustic Tudor house in Belluton.

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By explicitly listing the different elements of civil interest, Locke sets relatively clear boundaries for government control. Additionally, Locke places far greater emphasis on the government leader’s responsibility to the people than Mussolini. Locke also states that “God certainly appointed government to restrain the partiality and violence of men” (pg. 86). The leader’s responsibility to the people further indicates Locke’s belief that government should exist to serve the people and to minimize negative human actions. The conflict between the Fascist regime in Fatherland and Locke’s political theory is the involvement government should have with its

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The Founding Fathers rebelled against the British government for good reasons, which led to the American Revolution in 1783. The Founding Fathers were justified in rebelling against the Britain because the government was not protecting the rights of the citizens, taxing the colonists, and forced them to house British soldiers. In 1756 Britain put the first tax on the colonists. This was the Stamp Act, it required colonists to pay taxes on certain items such as newspapers, legal documents, licenses, and even playing cards.

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