Government affects life every day. Citizens of the United States are born into a inherited freedom. Some of these freedoms include but are not limited to the freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom assembly. As a nation history is littered with conflicts and wars that were fought to protect those freedoms. These days those hard-fought battles are taken for granted as it is easy to assume that they are entitlements. These freedoms that are enjoyed were not won easily nor did they occur overnight. In fact, in the 17th century people were hungry for some sort of consistency this left the door open for philosophers and their philosophies to make an impact. Philosophers such as John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau made strong cases for their individual points of view however, of these three the closest to the most scripturally correct theory of government is John Locke.
When developing a view of government Locke answered some very important questions. One of which was what is political power?
"Political Power, then, I take to be a right of making laws, with penalties of death and, consequently, all less penalties for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the execution of such laws and in the defense of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this only for the public good.”
The absolute most critical impact that molded the establishing of the Assembled States originates from John Locke, a
While our country was fighting for its independence at an early age there was one man who had the most powerful influence from the tip of his pen and this man was John Locke. John Locke had an incredible amount of influence on the declaration of independence and this came from the fact that he expressed the radical view that “government is morally obliged to serve the people, namely by protecting life, liberty, and property.” John Locke was a big part of helping influence what this country has come to be today and he often goes unrecognized when labeling big contributors to the declaration of independence.
John Locke liked freedom, he thought that freedom was good for the government. “...(W)e must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose [manage] of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature….” (Doc A) This states that Locke wants freedom but their comes consequences. To have this freedom men needed to create a government with a legislature and an executive. Locke’s main idea was people had rights.
John Locke was perhaps one of the most influential political philosophers of the modern period. In the Second Treatise of Government, John Locke discusses the move from a state of nature and perfect freedom to a then governed society in which authority is given to a legislative and executive power. His major ideas included liberalism and capitalism, state of nature, state of war and the desire to protect one’s property.
John was the most influential political philosopher of the modern period. John wrote the two treatises of government in which he defended the claims that men are by nature “free and equal against claims that God had made all people naturally subject to monarchy” (). He also, argued that the people did have rights, such as, the right to life, liberty, and property, in which they have a foundation independent of the laws of any particular society. Locke also claimed that men are naturally free and equal as part of jurisdiction for understanding legitimate political government. Apparently, the government exists by the consent of the people and, that is in order to protect the rights of the people and promote the public good, for that reason if the government fails it can be resisted and replaced with a new government.
The United States Constitution has a great impact on American’s life. The U.S. Constitution recognized America’s national government, fundamental laws, and guaranteed certain basic rights for its citizens. Out of all the philosophers, John Locke’s philosophy had the greatest impact on the decisions that were made at the Philadelphia Convention and the writing of the United States Constitution. Locke introduced the ideas of natural rights and limited government.
As stated before, Locke determined that the purpose of government is to protect life, liberty and property. In chapter IX, he gave us the basic concept of government. “First, there wants an established, settled, know law, received and allowed by common consent to be the standard of right and wrong, and the common measure to decide all controversies between them (P. 124). This, as he described later, is the legislative branch. He goes into more detail in chapter XI. “Secondly, there wants a
Many of John Locke’s ideas were input into the Declaration of Independence, as his primary words “life, liberty” and instead of property, the pursuit of happiness, are the basis of the American Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Locke’s arguments concerning liberty influenced the works of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, as his Second Treatise is imitated in the Declaration of Independence. When the founding fathers adopted the resolution for the nation’s
Why is government necessary? In the words of Alexander Hamilton, “Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint” (Federalist No. 15 137). Men have a sin nature and must have an authority set in place to keep them from falling into anarchy. America has federal and state governments with a system of checks and balances for exactly this reason, but one sector of the government has overstepped the bounds that were set for it in this country’s infancy. In order to answer the question of whether more power should be put into the hands of the federal or state government, three things must be considered: the history of state’s rights in America, the differing types of government, and the constitution itself.
The main staple of John Locke, and America 's explanation as to why a country (in
John Locke is not well known as a founder of the Declaration of Independence, but he is a main figure behind the philosophy of it. At first the Declaration and Locke seem to have no connection, but once one takes the time to look deeper they can see that the Declaration echoes Locke. Locke’s philosophy is condensed into a few hundred words under Thomas Jefferson’s pen.
Several people believed that there were better ways to rule over a country. For example, Thomas Hobbes thought that people were born selfish and couldn't handle making their own decisions so they needed a stronger government; like an absolute monarchy. However, other Enlightenment thinkers believed the opposite. This made people question the way their government ran and people believed they deserved more rights. In the end, we gained a democracy. We created the Declaration of Independence, US Bill of Rights, The US Constitution and may more important documents. Rousseau helped form the ideas behind some of these important documents. He wrote the Social Contract which says that the government should rule according to the will of the people. Adam Smith also said that governments should not interfere with a free market economy. John Locke also believed that people should be able to rebel against their government if it was not protecting the natural rights of the people. Other philosophers contributed to the making of the government as well. Some including Montesquieu and Voltaire. That is how the American government was impacted by the
As a citizen of the United States of America it is easy to get caught up with your day to day life and not realize everything going on around you. If you sit back and think about all the ways government affects you, you will be amazed. Let’s discuss our different levels of government, our federalist style of government, the pros and cons associated with our federalist style, the way government affects you daily, the private sector, as well as what things our government is involved in I feel is unnecessary.
In order for Locke to come up with his opinions of the role of state
The government has significantly impacted today’s civilization, not only ours, but everybody’s around the world. People may think that we created our government, but in reality all of our ideas of government came from the Romans. For example, the ideas of veto, balance of powers, and representation all came from Rome. Our Senate here in the United States was named after the Senate of Rome. Not only did the Roman people influence our government, they also massively impacted our laws. “Legal ideas like trial by jury, civil rights, contracts, personal property, legal wills, and corporations all were
John Locke was been one of Americas most significant figures who influence how the country’s political system works today. Locke redefined the whole nature of the government, his views were similar to Thomas Hobbes’ ideas (Hobbes concluded that people are incapable of ruling themselves because it’s in our nature to self-centered not need to a strong leader to control us), however Locke was more optimistic about people’s ability to reason to help avoid tyranny. In Locke’s Second Treatise of Government he identified the basis to a reasonable government. According to Locke a ruler should gain their authority by the people who will be governed because the duty of the government is to protect the natural rights its people (life, liberty, and property), and said that if the government failed to protect these rights, the people should have the right to overthrow its government. These ideas greatly influence Thomas Jefferson when writing the Declaration of Independence. Federalism has also greatly impacted the political system in the United States because it’s the relationship between the authority and people. There are many ways the government can be divided. For example, a cooperative federalism is when the federal government governs unlimitedly and forces lower governments to supervise and enforce national