An Analysis Of John Locke's Second Treatise Of Government

John Locke's Second Treatise of Government is a work which could be considered modern in nature. Throughout the book Locke espouses ideals such as a the fundamentally equal nature of all humans, and the purpose of government not as a religious institution, but as a tool of the people.
Ideas such as those articulated in Locke's Second Treatise were a driving force behind the events which eventually lead to the Glorious revolution. The events which lead to the gradual decline of the British crown and the rise of Parliamentary power were essentially textbook Lockean situations, in which an executive power attempts to reach out of its established bounds and is ousted by the people. In these cases the role of the Whig Party is that of the nation

By nature, neither of these principles support the idea royal absolutism, in fact both of these statements support the opposite, a government which allows human feedback and for the ability to temper with one's government when they viewed it as acting unreasonably. Second Treatise posits the protection of the people's rights at the forefront of the government's duties, rather than the guidance of its people towards the light of god, or the promotion of the beliefs of the king4. The ability to elaborate on a precise purpose of government gives Second Treatise an ability to diagnose what makes a government good and functional and what kind of government is one which is not behaving according to its function, and by extension, the purpose of any government. The book introduces the concept of a tyranny, which would have been considered impossible prior to the 16th century and the subsequent rise in legitimacy which Parliament experienced due to Henry VIII. Under the prior understanding of the crown and the people's relationship to it there was no room for disagreement of the side of the people. Locke proposes that the authority of the government is conditional and granted to them by the people. What's

rather than merely being subjected to its whims, the people are an part of politics and have the power to change it in response to any injustice. This relflects the motications of the Whig party which forms the backbone of the Whig Party throughout the late 17th century, when the monarchy begins to inhabit a more antagonistic role in relation to Parliament and what the British volksgeist. The actions of the Whig party were centered around the protection of Britain as a nation rather than as an extension of its monarch, they focused on the rights of the people even when it went against the monarchy and so their beliefs are essentially Lockean in