John Locke And American Government Essay

I am John Locke. I heard that you're going to have a meeting with the statesman. So, I decided to give you my ideas about the government that would inspire you. As you know it's really important to give citizens their natural rights (life, liberty, and property). Because I believed that everyone was born free, equal, and independent. And the meaning of my natural rights are life: everyone is entitled to live. Liberty: everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn't conflict with the first right. Property: everyone is entitled to own all they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it doesn't conflict with the first two rights. Another thing if the government agrees to give citizens their natural rights. I've

During the colonial period in America, the British government had a lot of control over the American colonies. To get money after a long and costly war, the British raised taxes, tightened trade regulations, and created strict laws that each of the colonies had to follow. However, many colonists viewed the new laws differently than the British Government did. They believed that the Parliament was interfering with their unalienable rights. Many American colonists wanted to abolish this, which eventually led to the writing of the Declaration of Independence.

In contrast to Britain, the colonists believed in direct representation which is representation in government by having someone from a certain region represent that area. British government or Parliament believed in virtual representation

The Founding Fathers of the United States relied heavily on many of the principles taught by John Locke. Many of the principles of Locke’s Second Treatise of Government may easily be discovered in the Declaration of Independence with some minor differences in wording and order. Many of the ideas of the proper role of government, as found in the Constitution of the United States, may be discovered in the study of Locke. In order to understand the foundation of the United States, it is vital that one studies Locke. A few ideas from Hume may be found but the real influence was from Locke. Rousseau, on the other hand, had none.

The Second Treatise of Government provides Locke's theorizes the individual rights and involvement with the government; he categorizes them in two areas -- natural rights theory and social contract. 1.Natural state; rights which human beings are to have before government comes into being. 2.Social contact; when conditions in natural state are unsatisfactory, and there's need to develop society into functioning of central government.

John Locke was one of the most revolutionary political thinkers of the seventeenth century, and possibly of all time. His ideas regarding natural rights had major effects on almost every western society, most notably the United States. Locke’s ideas were crucial in the crafting of the United States Constitution and more importantly, the creation of American culture, both social, governmental, and economic. Locke was the inspiration for the three branch government system in America along with the representative democracy and the government acting as a third party to protect the rights of the people and to settle disputes. Economically, America is a highly commercial society with little government interference with business and personal income other than taxes levied by the government. American society almost mirrors Locke’s idea of a commercial society with individuals spending their time working to make money in a capitalist society and then spending said money and doing whatever they please when they are not working. Locke’s influence on the United States is so substantial that he could arguably be named as one of the founding fathers. Though Locke’s philosophy has been important to American society for years, and his ideas are still used in contemporary politics, it is necessary to examine modern America and decide if Lockean philosophy is appropriate for the America of today.

Following, numerous years of tension and issues, including unfair taxation, and unlawful restrictions, Great Britain and the colonies, underwent a revolution resulting in their separation. Through their new found freedom came the Declaration of Independence, a formal proclamation affirming the colonies to be ¨Free and Independent States.¨ The Declaration incorporates numerous ideas about government and people, many of which are found in John Locke's natural rights philosophy. Natural rights philosophy explains that all people, after leaving the state of nature, enter into a social contract with their government. In doing so they choose to give up some of their rights but gain protection and inalienable rights. The ideas formulated by John Locke and incorporated into the Declaration of Independence include the belief a person is afforded the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness regardless of their social status or wealth but by being a part of society. Another accumulated concept is the notion that a government derives its power to govern from the consent of the people when they enter into a social contract. Lastly, the power of the people to overthrow a government that fails to protect their unalienable rights was a part of natural rights philosophy incorporated into the Declaration. The Declaration of Independence was a significant component of early America as it sets the goals and ideas for the country as well advocating natural rights

The American Revolution was preceded in part by a series of British Parliament laws that regulated trade and taxes. Rumors from England that more taxes might follow encouraged some colonists to begin thinking about whether they really consented to taxes passed by a Parliament to which they elected no representatives. (1) This particular legislation of taxation caused tensions between colonists and local imperial officials, who readdressed the colonists concerns that the British Parliament would not address American complaints concerning the new laws. The unwillingness to respond to American demands for change by the British opened the doors to colonial argument that they were part of a corrupt and tyrannical empire in which their traditional liberties were at stake! This position eventually served as the foundation for the Declaration of Independence.

"Our Revolutionary Army took on the greatest superpower of the time," said Colin Powell, former United States Secretary of State and retired four-star general of the United States Army in an interview discussing the Revolutionary War. The British settlers in America became increasingly self-sufficient and felt the British Crown was forcing high tax and denying them their civil liberties. Clearly, the British saw the colonies as a nation they could threaten. However, with a fresh enlightened perspective American 's saw the British Crown 's action as unjustly and would rebel against the crown. Eventually, The British superpower would be defeated by an unruly, inexperienced, divided America to prevail over the world 's mightiest monarch of that time.

The colonies had little to no rights or authority due to being controlled by the government. Therefore, they wanted to break away from Britain, have freedom and no longer to be taxed by the British Parliament. British America’s perspective over the debate on taxation and representation was that the American colonies did not have any representation, therefore meant, that they had no say over the British rule. British Americans demanded that they had the right to have their own representation in the Parliament. “That it is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives”(Dickenson, The Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress). However, the British believed that the colonies had a form of representation, a “virtual representation” they called it, but the colonists demanded an actual representation since they believed the British was doing them

When looking at the Declaration of Independence and the justifications which Jefferson used in order to encourage the dissolve of the ties between the United Colonies and Great Britain, it becomes apparent how much of the theories of John Locke that Jefferson used as the basis for his argument. Focusing particularly on the second paragraph of the Declaration, the arguments for the equality of each man and the formation and destruction of governments come almost directly from Locke's Second Treatise of Government. The other arguments in the Declaration of Independence deal primarily with each citizen's rights and the natural freedoms of all men, two areas that Locke also spent

After the French and Indian War the United Colonies and Britain began to clash. This was, for the most part, due to taxation without representation. Britain had began to tax the colonists heavily due to the debt of the war. On top of this King George III had just made the proclamation of 1763, preventing all colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains. This upset the colonists because they had just fought risking their lives for that land and now they are told they cannot use it. Britain's point of view on “taxation without representation” was that the colonists were being represented through virtual representation. While the colonists’ point of view was that virtual representation was not a fair way to be represented and instead should be represented through actual representation.

The British thought that the people in America should be happy with virtual representation which basically meant all of the members of the parliament represent the entire population, the British people argued that the colonists in America were represent the same way as people in Britain that don’t have any say during elections. American colonists believed in actual representation which meant they wanted people from the colonies to actually have seats in the parliament, and because this wasn’t going to happen they believed they should only be represented and taxed by people known and chosen by themselves who served on their legislatures.

John Locke was born on August 29, 1632, into a middle class family during late Renaissance England. Locke started his studies at Christ Church in Oxford. He then went into medical studies and received a medical license, which he practiced under Anthony Cooper. They became friends, and when Cooper became Earl of Shaftesbury, Locke was able to hold minor government jobs and became involved in politics. Shaftesbury steered Locke towards the views of a government whose law was fair to all, and all were under the law.

The previous fragment we’ve read belongs to the work of John Locke, ‘Second Treatise of Civil Government’, who published it anonymously in 1689. It is a work of political philosophy, in which Locke talks about civil society, natural rights and separation of powers. Locke was one of the first empirical philosophers and he believed that the human being was born with no knowledge, and that experience and observation were the base of all human wisdom.