This analysis is pretty straightforward. Just about everything that you and everyone you know thinks about when they think about the idea or concept of American democracy is found in the political writings of John Locke. His writings exercised tremendous influence over those fellows in Philadelphia battling over the issue of whether or not to sever the colonies from British rule. Thomas Jefferson’s original first draft of the Declaration of Independence almost at times reads like a greatest hits of Locke’s foundational thinking.
Locke is one—if not the singularly—central figure lying at the heart of liberalism. Now, understand, that that is liberalism in the conventional sense, not the sense in which it has been twisted into some sort of dirty word by modern conservatives. Liberalism in the Lockean sense boils down to a few essentials which are basically common sense in the post-monarchical world of widespread democratic revolution. Those essentials include expectations of the government to preserve the rights of all citizens to freedom, property and establishment of order and authority for the public good. To reveal just how far modern conservatism has perverted the original understanding of political liberalism, a key component of Locke’s political writings is the persistent and prevalent requirement that the best government is that with powers limited in scope and authority. In other words, Lockean liberalism is the mainstay of conservative ideology which is continually demanding a smaller role in the lives of everyone by the government.
The key element in the formulation of a Lockean theory of governance which can be gleaned from his any writings on the many subjects touching upon that influence and authority has to do with his fundamental premise that the main job of any ruling system is the establishment of law and order. Here is where Locke’s view definitely become out of step with modern conservatives. Law and order is a term usually applied to punishment and restraint of rights. For Locke, however, the primary function of the government’s authority on the issue of maintaining law and order is extending freedom rather curtailing it and preserving rights than limiting them. Thus, law and order and in the political writings of Locke means that the government protects the rights of individuals to own property, that statutory legislation should be applied as precisely so that it be applied as broadly as possible for the primary purpose of maintaining the peace, offer protective obstructions against slavery and economic exploitation and, perhaps most importantly, include provisions for the public to legally rise up against in rebellion against a government either actively trying deprive citizens of its rights or taking no action when those rights were being deprived by external forces.
Locke’s political writings are embedded into the constitutions of every democratically elected government in the world. When it comes to America specifically, Locke is—through the influence of his writings—every bit as a major player in the re-emergence of democracy as a viable form of government as Thomas Paine or Alexander Hamilton, the two most important figures of the Revolution to next make into the Oval Office.
