Compare And Contrast Crevecoeur And John Locke On Property

Property

For many years’ people have debated over their views in regard to property. Hector st. John de Crevecoeur and John Locke share views on property that are both similar but at the same time different. Several areas include rights on property, limitations on property and the relationship between the citizens, property and the government. In one of his works known as “Letters from an American Farmer”, Hector de Crevecoeur looks at property from the point of view of a farmer. He says “Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, No bishops. No ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible powers giving to a few a very visible one; no great manufacturers of luxury” (Levy 45). What he means by this is that the property is free to claim

He states that “POLITICAL POWER, then, I take to be a RIGHT of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the defense of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good” (Locke 3). He means the government tends to abuse the political power to make laws that they claim is only for the public good but in reality benefit themselves. He goes further to state that “The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property” (Locke 12). Locke is saying that the land is claimed based on who put the work into maintaining and laboring over it. He goes back to the idea of politics and states “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; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another” (Locke 77). He states this to make sure the people realize the boundaries that the government has in regard to land. He pushes it further reminding people in both the government and the citizens of the line that divides a government from being lawful and working for the public good and being tyrannical and exceeding the power that the government’s normal guidelines. He also points out that anyone who uses force does not have the best interest of the public at