Ah, Democracy! What a crazy premise, the idea that the people can rule and govern themselves; John Locke was all about it, and wrote tons of influential shit, shaped America back then and today. In fact in his Second Treatise of government, Locke made amazing points and arguments (like the importance of property and personal liberty, as well as the importance of separate powers with clearly defined roles) that influenced Founding Fathers while writing The Federalist Papers. Jay, Madison, and Hamilton created the Federalist Papers to convince the individual states to ratify the new U.S. Constitution and defend a central government. Often times the Founding Fathers echoed John Locke 's ideas and concepts, especially in Federalist #10, #39, and …show more content…
In Chapter 5, Locke establishes how important personal liberty is, in that each individual has the right to live and think as they choose as and that each person has equal opportunity to appropriate property and essentially reap equal benefits from the land based on their ability to develop the land. In Federalist #10, James Madison attempts to deal with problematic factions and the struggle to destroy them. Madison asserts, that men by nature form factions with similarly minded people (just like Locke’s claim the men are naturally self-serving), but the most important cause is the unequal distribution of property. Just like Locke, Madison argues that men with greater skill and talent usually have more property than people with less ability, but the government is supposed to encourage ability and equality. The only way to control a faction, Madison claims, would be to remove the causes of a faction- to do this, one has to destroy liberty, which is a “cure worse than the disease itself”. Thus, just as in Locke highlights the importance of personal liberty and the main point of government, Madison follows suit and claims that the ultimate aim of the government is to protect and serve individuals without infringing upon their rights to their opinions and their