John Locke's Second Treatise Of Civil Government

John Locke was a 17th-century philosopher and political thinker who created the basis of republican government and inspired the Founders of the United States, in particular, Thomas Jefferson. In agreeance with Thomas Hobbes’s theory of the origins of government coming into existence due to mankind in the form of social contracts, he argued that since people created government it should thus do what the people demand and protect their rights. This is detailed in his famous work Second Treatise of Civil Government in which he argues that rulers are given power through consent of those governed and thus must protect their human rights, which he believed included life, liberty, and property. If government were to fail in protecting those rights, the people had the right to overthrow the existing government for one which would uphold order and provide and protect those rights. He also argued that government had immense power that could be abused and lead to dangerous outcomes such as controlling those governed. To prevent these dangers, he believed that government should be limited by dividing them into different branches that each have their own power to fulfill a specific task. This view would later influence Thomas Jefferson while creating the

Nominated by John Adams, Marshall became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1801. As Chief Justice, he ruled on two important cases that shaped judicial power, McCulloch vs. the States of Maryland and Gibbons vs. Ogden. His decision in these cases gave power to the Supreme Court to deem invalid any state law if it conflicted with a federal law. Under Marshall, the Supreme Court was also able to reverse rulings by state courts. This established the Supreme Court as the final decision maker and established the use of judicial review to judge whether any law or action was considered