Second Treatise of Government

Locke begins this chapter by again emphasize the power of the legislative branch, saying, “there can be but one supreme power, which is the legislative, to which all the rest must be subordinate” (77). He again explains that the legislative is the most powerful of all the branches within political society, but it still must answer to the supreme power of the people and community from which it was begat. Though the community is not considered a form of government, it is still both the means and the ends of political action, and therefore retains final say and rights in the affairs of the government.

Locke makes the point that while the legislative does not always need to be in action, the executive must in some way or another always be present. This is because “there is not always need of few laws to be made, but always need of execution of the laws that are made” (79). This follows with what Locke asserted before, that the executive should remain accessible to both those who are appointed to its ministration and to the people it serves, because active laws are always in need of oversight and conference regarding their continual procession and integration into, and at times removal from, the community as its needs change over time.

Because of this, the executive actually retains a power over the legislature that it itself does not possess, namely the power of “assembling and dismissing the legislative” (81). This is critical to a smooth and healthy operation of government, because the legislature does not always need to play an active role in the political society, and an overactive legislature would only burden the people it serves with excessive laws and their consequent additions, revisions, omissions, and adoptions.

Locke restates that his conception of the legislature is one that is subordinate to the will and needs of the people. This doesn’t just mean that the people have a right to its laws and actions; they also have a right to depose an ill-functioning legislative body and install a new, updated version if their ends so qualify and justify it. Locke emphasizes this point by saying, “Whatsoever cannot but be acknowledged to be of advantage to the society, and people in general, upon just and lasting measures, will always, when done, justify itself” (83). This is his way of reminding people that the legislature is in place to carry out and bring into political being the essence of natural law—the same natural law that exists for all under the state of nature. If a legislature begins to craft laws that cannot readily be justified, or attempts to write laws that do not align with self-evident rights, then the people have at least the right to question those laws, and at most the right to reorganize the legislature to better suit their needs.

This chapter deals with something important to Locke’s critique of absolute monarchy and the formation of new, or the operation of existing, commonwealths.

Locke defines prerogative as the executive’s ability to discern the reach and power of laws at any given time. He writes:

the good of the society requires, that several things should be left to the discretion of him that has the executive power: for the legislators not being able to foresee, and provide by laws, for all that may be useful to the community, the executor of the laws, having the power in his hands, has by the common laws of nature a right to make use of it for the good of the society, in many cases, where the municipal law has given no direction, till the legislative can conveniently be assembled to provide for it (83-84).

In short, what makes the executive superior and equal to the legislature is its capacity to enact or repeal certain laws when situations demand it, to allow for immediate action that is not readily prescribed by existing legislation. An example of this would be the emergency powers given to the executive branch during war or natural disasters, both extremely volatile circumstances that require swift and decisive action, which the legislature’s standing laws may not have foreseen.

This is an incredible power, one that could become very dangerous if used excessively or with a carte blanche attitude. Locke reminds the reader, “The reigns of good princes have been always most dangerous to the liberties of their people” (86). He describes how past princes and leaders engaged in righteous action, righteous prerogative, for the good of the state and the people with which they were entrusted; consequently, present leaders may seek to engage in the same level of prerogative and executive power, based on the reputation of past action. This is wildly harmful to the integrity of the political society and its people, because not all action taken in righteous prerogative is necessarily righteous action, and because not all executives are good or righteous leaders.

Locke notes that those who doubt a people’s ability to question a leader’s prerogative are doing their political society, their community, and themselves a disservice. Accepting a rule on the basis of past action, with no examination of the present circumstances that inspired this prerogative, breeds fertile soil for the growth of tyranny and despotic action.

Chapter 15 serves as a kind of synthesis of Chapters 11-14, with Locke’s ultimate point being a demonstration of where assumptions regarding parental, political, and despotic power can lead to serious consequences for both a political society and a community.

Regarding parental power, otherwise known as paternal power, Locke states, “The power of the father doth not reach at all to the property of the child, which is only in his own disposing” (89). Evocative of his prior arguments, Locke again reminds the reader that while a child may not possess fully developed capacities for reason or judgment, and because of this is somewhat dependent on and powerless against the parents, that does not mean that the parents own the child or their property, in Locke’s definition meaning the actual person of the child.

This is a critical stipulation because paternal power was often cited as one basis for the existence of a monarchy. The monarch was in essence the patriarch of the nation, and all the subjects were his children, over whom he held supreme authority and judgment. This dynamic was itself based in the biblical notion of God being the governing paternal force of creation, with all humankind as his children. The absolute monarch, being chosen by divine right, was assumed to have analogous power over his people; however, Locke argues that God gave humankind freewill and a nature and property of their own in their person, and he has no say in deciding for them what action to take. Therefore, any attempt by a monarch or ruler to insist on their right to fully govern a people based on the model of paternal power is ill-founded at best and blasphemous at worst.

Locke also examines political power, which he defines as

that power, which every man having in the state of nature, has given up into the hands of the society, and therein to the governors, whom the society hath set over itself, with this express or tacit trust, that it shall be employed for their good, and the preservation of their property (89).

Notice how Locke says that the society, the community, is responsible for installing the governors; the governors do not install themselves. He elaborates that political power is only useful so long as it is deployed for the express purpose of the public good, and any political power that deviates, either explicitly or implicitly, from that public good is no longer tenable. In fact, political power is only good so long as it upholds the compact made between the governors and the people to carry out as much good as possible within its framework. Once an action violates that compact, the political society is rendered useless, and the compact null and void.

Finally, Locke outlines a third type of power, despotical power, which he describes as “an absolute, arbitrary power one man has over another, to take away his life, whenever he pleases” (89).

Despotical power is, in Locke’s view, rare and necessarily so. It arises from conditions like slavery or capture during war, where one man or entity seizes another and forcibly holds the other’s life in his ownership. This situation is untenable under Locke’s system because one man cannot own another person—that person is their own property. The belief that one can truly own another is what creates the highly extreme and dangerous position of despotical power. The only way to resolve this condition is for both parties to enter into a compact that grants each party their rightful ownership over their own person.

All these power systems work together, and often cohabitate, in a political society, and it is Locke’s opinion that all people should recall the natural law, and the equality among all that lies within, when navigating power structures of varying degrees and scope.