John Locke's Views On Government

Many Enlightenment thinkers, including John Locke and Baron De Montesquieu, were some of the first individuals who professed their faith in human nature when it came to establishing a successful government. This political system, in which the power was essentially placed into the hands of citizens who directly participated in political affairs, was known as a republican government (Course Pack 58). Other thinkers including Jefferson, Hamilton, and Paine were influenced by this notion of a government ruled by the people, in which the federal government had to include a majority of the population in its decision making process. A republican government strongly discouraged the idea of placing all of the political power in a single entity or branch

However, before delving into the specifics of how American politics should work, Locke makes it clear that he believes mankind are pure beings who all naturally have an “obligation for mutual love.” (Course Pack 6). Due to the purity that all men possess since birth, Locke surmises that this is what makes “the people” capable of governing themselves. He essentially believes that the innate characteristics that all men have (such as their mutual love for others and an urge to protect their fellow citizens) is what allows them to participate in politics at such an intricate level. Locke’s argument that our humanity is what strengthens our political system is very agreeable because it directly relates our innate characteristics to our ability to govern society. Without our sense of morality and our purity, it would be impossible to have a government that was based upon the common interests of all people. Since our morality is what makes us care enough about each other to try and make one form of government work, “the people” are directly responsible for the laws and decisions we make as one

For example, one of the “un-republican elements” of Jefferson’s political ideology was how our presidents would be elected (through an electoral college and not directly by the people themselves) (Notes Module 1). This non-republican aspect of the federal government suggested a certain amount of distrust between these thinkers and the people, since they did not want them directly participating in every single political affair. Implementing an electoral college may have been a way to prevent every single bit of political power from being placed into the hands of the people, in case they were incapable of making the right decisions in the interests of society as a whole. However, the fact that Jefferson and his fellow thinkers opted to include the people in the actual framework of the government (and on such a massive scale) proves that had they not believed in the “goodness” of human nature, they would never have called for a policy with so much inclusion in the first place. Using Locke and Jefferson as primary examples, one can clearly see that their beliefs about human nature led them to place their faith in the “everyday man.” In turn, this essentially served as the underlying basis for their support in establishing a republican