John Locke's Second Treatise of Government was one of the most influential works read by America's Founding Fathers. As Thomas P. Peardon wrote, "John Locke [was] . . . a main source of the ideas of the American Revolution of 1776. . . . So close is the Declaration of Independence to Locke in form, phraseology, and content, that Jefferson was accused of copying the Second Treatise. This, of course, he did not do. But the ideas of the Declaration are those ideas of English constitutionalism to which Locke had given expression. . . . Nor was Locke's influence confined to the Declaration of Independence; it was felt in the ideas and often the phrasing of State Declarations and Constitutions. He was quoted, too, in the Federal Convention of 1787 and often referred to thereafter. . . . Locke's Second Treatise is . . . the distillation of a wisdom derived from centuries of struggle for liberty and justice in government."
In this, the second of his Two Treatises of Government, John Locke examines humankind’s transition from its original state of nature to a civil society. One can see the lasting influence of Locke’s ideas through their familiarity to the modern reader―the roots of classical liberalism are here, and many of Locke’s arguments foreshadow contemporary debates concerning government, liberty, and property rights. The introduction and annotations included in this edition are intended to contextualize the work and prevent misunderstanding, without advancing any particular scholarly interpretation or merely summarizing Locke’s reasoning. This edition has its origin in the acclaimed Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought and adheres to the anthology’s format and high standards of accuracy and accessibility.
The Broadview Anthology of Social and Political Thought is edited by Andrew Bailey (University of Guelph), Samantha Brennan (University of Western Ontario), Will Kymlicka (Queen’s University), Jacob Levy (McGill University), Alex Sager (Portland State University), and Clark Wolf (Iowa State University).
