John Locke claimed that men would give up their natural state of equal freedom to be subjected to government. But placing government in the hands of a majority, and endowing it with absolute authority to use force, makes it impossible to remove government so long as it attracts majority support, no matter how much it tramples over its original mandate. The better route is derive principles from the state of equal freedom to define and curtail the power of government.

An extract from The Ten Principles of Freedom: A Presentation of the Ten Principles to the Founding Fathers by Joseph BH McMillan.
Ch. 1: Laying the Foundations
Ch. 2: The Equal Freedom Principles; Principles 1 to 4
Ch. 3: Principle 5 and the Purpose of Life
Ch. 4: Principle 5 & the Equal Freedom Principles
Ch. 5: Principles 6 and 7, and the Source of Obligations
Ch. 6: More on Principle 7, and Principles 8 to 10
Ch. 7: Conclusion, and Some Observations 

Joseph BH McMillan (JBH): Mr. Jefferson, you started off the Declaration of Independence with these words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Now I would just like to consider for a minute this idea of equality. As you are by now no doubt aware, Abraham Lincoln, when he later spoke to the issue of equality, tied it up with the second part of the Declaration I have just quoted, that is, Rights. Abe first said that you did not mean that all men "were created equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity." I presume that he was right in that respect?

TJ: Yes, I’d agree with that.

JBH: He then went on to say this: "They," that’s you mostly, Mr. Jefferson, "defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal – equal in 'certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' This they said, and this they meant." Now, Mr. Jefferson, I would venture to suggest that that is not what you meant. I would venture to suggest that you regarded the issues of equality and Rights to be distinct, although inter-related. Let me explain why.

When you referred to all men being created equal, I think you meant that all men are created equally free, and I think you specifically had in mind John Locke’s description of the state all men are naturally in. Locke, as you well know, describes this state of men at Paragraph 4 of his Second Treatise of Government. Let me remind you of what he said. Men are in

a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature; without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

He then went on to add this:

A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another . . .

Locke did not recite his Life, Liberty and Property idea until his Letter Concerning Toleration. And he called these, men’s civil interests, and you, of course, called them unalienable Rights, substituting the Pursuit of Happiness for Locke’s Property. Granted, I am sure both you and Locke would say that these Rights belong equally to all people, but I do not think that your reference to men being created equal was limited to, and defined, by the concept of Rights.

TJ: I’m with you so far, do go on.

JBH: Now, in the Declaration, you say that Governments are instituted amongst men to "secure these Rights," and that they derive their power "from the consent of the governed." In saying that, you leapfrog over Locke’s arguments in favor of men instituting government, which he outlines in his Second Treatise, and jump straight to his Letter Concerning Toleration. Locke is himself inconsistent on this, so I think we should go back to what Locke describes as man’s natural state; a state of equal freedom. From there, let’s review why Locke claims men would give up that natural state of equal freedom to be subjected to government, and then ask whether this state of equal freedom could give rise to any principles which could define and curtail the power of government. I should remind you, Mr. Jefferson, that you yourself stated in the Declaration that the People had the Right, or what I would call the freedom, to lay the foundation of government "on such principles" as seem to the People most likely to secure their "Safety and Happiness." I should add here that what I’ll be looking for are principles that can attract universal consent, consent of all the People, not just a majority of the People.

TJ: I’d be interested to see what you can come up with. Certainly, if government could be instituted on principles of equal freedom for all, based on universal consent, that would certainly achieve the objectives all of us here had in mind when we embarked on the exercise of establishing a government of the People. Please, go ahead!

Thomas Hobbes & Government

JBH: Let me kick off with a couple of quotes from Thomas Hobbes, because he really was the "father" of the social contract theory that Locke later refined. Hobbes said this about the state of man:

Hereby it is manifest that during time when men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.

And then there is this:

The desires, and other passions of man, are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from those passions till they know a law that forbids them; which till laws be made they cannot know, nor can any law be made till they have agreed upon the person that shall make it.

That is Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) in Leviathan, also known as the Matter, Form, and Authority of Government – which really says it all.

So, what Hobbes is saying is that human beings are too stupid and selfish to act in their own long-term interests, or to work out for themselves what is right and wrong. So, he says, we need to elect one or more of our number to tell us how to act in our own best interests, and to tell us what is right and wrong.

He doesn’t explain how a group of stupid, selfish people, electing a stupid, selfish person from their midst, suddenly endows that person with the wisdom to know what is right and wrong, and to act in a way that does not reflect his own stupid and selfish character.

John Locke & Government

Unlike Hobbes, Locke starts from man’s natural state as being one of equal freedom. So, at first sight, it seems as though Locke is heading in the right direction.

But Locke carried with him plenty of baggage. He was an academic at Oxford University, then later the personal physician and companion of a certain English nobleman called the Earl of Shaftesbury. Locke was also teacher to Shaftesbury’s children.

And this quickly reveals itself as Locke tries to find some reason why free people would agree to subject themselves to be governed by the likes of Lord Shaftesbury. Within three numbered paragraphs of describing man’s state of equal freedom, Locke says this:

for the law of nature would, as all other laws that concern men in this world, be in vain, if there were nobody that in the state of nature had a power to execute that law, and thereby preserve the innocent, and restrain offenders.

Locke is looking for someone to govern; to enforce the law of nature. He doesn’t even attempt to extrapolate any principles out of man’s natural state of equal freedom.

Accordingly, after justifying, in his chapter "Of Property," why the likes of Shaftesbury can legitimately own enormous amounts of property, to the exclusion of common possession, Locke latches onto the concept of the majority, and the perfect democracy, in order to subject man’s state of equal freedom to the whim of government.

Locke claims that "no one can be put out of [his freedom, equality, and independence], and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent." And "consent" is exactly what Locke claims men do, "for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another."

But here is where Locke becomes bankrupt in his thinking. Because he is unable to identify any principles to which all people would consent in order to conduct relations within their new community, he simply claims that man

divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society . . . by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community, for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not of it.

And where do the rules to govern come from? Alarmingly, Locke says this:

. . . the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest.

So there it is – a right of the majority to dictate to the rest of us. And that happens, says Locke, because

when any number of men have, by the consent of every individual, made a community, they have thereby made that community one body, with a power to act as one body, which is only the will and determination of the majority . . . it is necessary the body should move that way whither the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority . . . and so every one is bound by that consent to be concluded by the majority.

But this inverted logic is only the start of Locke's Treatise. He goes on to claim that men give up their state of equal freedom "to be regulated by laws made by society," because of three defects which, he claims, make "the state of nature so unsafe and uneasy."

Those three defects, he claims, are: no "established, settled, known" laws of right and wrong to settle controversies; no "known and indifferent" judges, with authority to determine disputes by reference to laws; and lastly, no "power" to execute punishment. Thus, says Locke,

the power of the society, or legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good; but is obliged to secure every one's property, by providing against those three defects above-mentioned, that made the state of nature so unsafe and uneasy.

After outlining the bounds of government, Locke sets out his idea of the perfect democracy. He says this:

The majority having, as has been showed, upon men's first uniting into society, the whole power of the community naturally in them, may employ all that power in making laws for the community from time to time, and executing those laws by officers of their own appointing; and then the form of the government is a perfect democracy.

Locke then delineates the bounds of government: to govern by promulgated established laws; the laws must be “designed for no other end ultimately, but the good of the people;” government "must not raise taxes on the property of people, without the consent of the people;” and the legislator must not "transfer the power of making laws to anybody else."

What on earth is left of my equal freedom? I have sacrificed it to the common good, to the majority, to the greater force of the consent of the majority? I have agreed that the majority can consent to government appropriating my property under the guise of tax? Oh yes, and if government is naughty and ventures beyond its mandate, say by imposing additional taxes, we can – wait for it – we can be "aggrieved." And we can take our grievance to . . .? Well – to the government. And if government laughs at us, what then? "The appeal lies nowhere but to Heaven." And it gets worse.

The legislative can never revert to the people whilst the government lasts; because having provided a legislative with power to continue for ever, they have given up their political power to the legislative, and cannot resume it.

But can we please perhaps vote a government out which has abused and exceeded its mandate? Well,

if [the people] have set limits to the duration of their legislative, and made this supreme power in any person, or assembly, only temporary; or, else, when by the miscarriages of those in authority it is forfeited; upon the forfeiture, or at the determination of the time set, it reverts to the society, and the people have a right to act as supreme, and continue the legislative in themselves; or to erect a new form, or under the old form place it in new hands, as they think good.

Now, Mr. Jefferson, you also noted that if government becomes “destructive” to the ends for which it was created, the People could abolish it.

TJ: Yes, I did!

JBH: Well, Mr. Jefferson, here is the first big problem. If the government has abused its mandate to please the majority who, for example, want the minority to be compelled to hand over large amounts of property to the majority, how do you get rid of the government? You can only do so if you can get the majority to relinquish its iron grip on your possessions! Remember, it's all about the greater force of the consent of the majority. But who is going to agree to relinquish something he believes he is "entitled" to?

The other possibility that Locke envisages, like you, is the people expelling the government. But this he reserves only to the case where government uses force upon the people without authority and in breach of its mandate. Then, says Locke, "the people have the right to remove it by force." Now, how likely is that, Mr. Jefferson? By this time, government has, by majority consent, usually reserved most or all force to itself. So the aggrieved have to overcome two obstacles: the majority; and if they can achieve that, the power the people have vested in government. And, of course, all governments make insurrection a criminal offence, even a treasonable offence, entitling government to suspend all rights; in the common good, and for the preservation of law and order, of course. Locke himself describes this state as "a state of war with the people."

Now, anyone thinking this through should quickly see that placing government in the hands of a majority, and endowing it with absolute authority to use force, makes it impossible to remove government so long as it attracts majority support, no matter how much it tramples over its original mandate. And the easiest way to maintain majority support is to take from the minority and give to the majority. But we are not talking here about some tiny proportion of the people having their freedoms trampled on. Usually it means 50% or more of the people, as any Western democratic election shows.

Even providing that "a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," as in Amendment II of the Constitution, does not come close to curing this mechanism of oppression. The well regulated Militia would have to be a rival army equal to, or more powerful than, the government forces, to be effective in such a circumstance. Government can also simply define what this Militia may comprise, as it does, or simply maintain that the military forces of the state are that Militia. Most governments also simply restrict the "right of the people to keep and bear arms."

Thus, if we follow Locke's reasoning through, we discover that man has consented to surrender his equal freedom in order to attain those basic securities necessary to remedy the defects of man's state of nature, those three rather insignificant "defects" of his freedom, only to find he will be subject to the whim of the majority, backed up by a force that he has no hope of challenging. In man’s condition of equal freedom, the principal threat came from those of relatively equal strength to himself; under Locke's formula, the threat is from an immensely more powerful entity, supported by an easily manipulated majority. Who in their right mind would consent to such an inversion of threat?

Locke’s ridiculous claim that men would consent to such an inversion of threat reveals either an ignorance of history, or a willful denial of it. It is a simple fact that more people have lost their lives at the hands of government than in any other way. The most savage carnages ever perpetrated upon mankind have been at the hands of governments. And the People have had little or no say in whether they wished to participate in the carnage, or be the victims of it. According to Locke, the mere fact of joining in a community is a consent to take part in, or be a victim of, such carnage.

Now, as I have already mentioned, Locke reinforced his vision of tyranny in a piece of drivel called A Letter Concerning Toleration. Locke poses himself a hypothetical question: "What if the [government] should enjoin any thing by his authority, that appears unlawful to the conscience of a private person?" Well, Locke says this is unlikely to happen – because remember, there are such great people in government as Earl of Shaftesbury – but if it does, we should follow our consciences and bear the consequences of the unlawful law. And he goes even further. A private person – note, no longer a free person – should

abstain from the actions that he judges unlawful; and he is to undergo the punishment, which is not unlawful for him to bear; for the private judgment of any person concerning a law enacted in political matters, for the public good, does not take away the obligation of that law, nor deserve a dispensation.

To compensate for the loss of freedom, Locke offers us religion. As long as we are all free to follow our own religion, we should be grateful. So our freedom has been reduced to freedom of religion. But that itself depends on government 'tolerating' our religion.

Locke thus distinguishes between political society and the care of each man's soul. And the care of our souls must be "left entirely to every man's self." And "political society is instituted for no other end, but only to secure every man's possession of the things of his life."

It is the duty of government, says Locke, to safeguard men's lives and their property.

Therefore the [government] cannot take away these worldly things from this man, or party, and give them to that; nor change propriety amongst fellow subjects (no not even by a law), for a cause that has no relation to the end of civil government.

On that theme, Locke poses another hypothetical question. What if government does make laws taking away from one person and giving to another? What if government makes laws

to enrich and advance [it's] followers . . . with the spoils of others. What if the [government] believe[s] that [it] has a right to make such laws, and that they are for the public good; and [its] subjects believe the contrary? Who shall be judge between them? I answer, God alone.

So there we are, Gentlemen! By "consenting" to relinquish only a tiny fraction of our condition of equal freedom, so as to have a common mechanism to protect that freedom, Locke leads us into servitude. Our only remedy is to appeal to Heaven, and to God.

So, Gentlemen, you have now had an opportunity to see first-hand the legacy you have bestowed on us. Government does appropriate an enormous proportion of income through tax; it taxes gains made on property; it deprives children of their inheritances by taxing the dead; it can take private property for what it determines is "public use;" it can press-gang people into fighting wars they find offensive, although, thank God, that power is not currently being exercised; it has effectively banished God from public life; and so we could go on. But worse, those who believe strongly that government has breached its mandate from the people are powerless to resist; if they did, they would be incarcerated. And if the High Priestess of Liberal Fundamentalism is elected to the presidency in 2008 by promising "to enrich and advance [her] followers . . . with the spoils of others," there can be no doubt that she will exacerbate these assaults on the freedom of the People.

TJ: Remember, I was not directly involved in the drafting of the Constitution; I was in Paris. And that is why I pushed so hard for a Bill of Rights. I feared that the Constitution had insufficient safeguards to protect individuals, and vested excessive power in government.

Principles of Equal Freedom?

JBH: So you did, Mr Jefferson, and I’ll come to those Rights in a moment, or what Locke called men’s civil interests. But before we do, I’d like us to go back to where Locke started – man’s condition of equal freedom. I’d like us to consider whether any principles can be derived from this equal freedom which could form the foundation of government based on universal consent of the People, and what authority the People would be prepared to award such a government. If we can achieve that, we can then go on to determine whether men would consent to modify or restrict those principles in any respect.

Founding Fathers (FFs): Since one of the goals of the Constitution was to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity," we think it reasonable to revisit that issue, especially in light of where we can now see we have ended up. So explain how you think we could derive principles of universal consent from the concept of equal freedom espoused by Locke.

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NEXT: The Ten Principles of Freedom: The Equal Freedom Principles; Principles 1 to 4. This article is an abridged and slightly modified extract of the forthcoming book The Ten Principles of Freedom.