Each person starts out life in a very similar way: in a whirl of blurring unknown that speeds up as things are understood. While it is similar for each person, it is also vastly different as starting points through time and space all give a person their own unique perspective on life, one that shapes them into the person that they are going to be. As the world is revealed to a person through their environment and those around them, they learn that they are a part of something that is bigger than themselves. No person is an island, but they are a part of a family, a culture, and more than likely, a society. A question that is common to man is, “Where did I come from?” and “Where am I going?” The question that is going to be pondered in this paper though is going to be more specific than that. Instead of looking on the individual level, the consideration is instead going to be the society that a person is born into, particularly the American Society, and how it came to be. A man that has had tremendous influence on this society is John Locke. A British man who lived and wrote before the American War for Independence who had undeniable influence on the Founding Fathers and the structure of American politics. Throughout his works, Locke was looking at a very particular power that is civil authority. His ideas were different and revolutionary for his time in such ways as the basis for civil authority, the extent of civil authority, the end of civil authority, along with a warning for the dissolution of civil authority.
To start at the beginning, one has to consider how any authority first came into power. Locke seemed to have written broadly about this topic as he cited himself from An Essay Concerning Certain False Principles in An Essay Concerning The True Original Extent and End of Civil Government. While the latter does not include all of the reasons for his beliefs behind this, he does show the reader his conclusions on the matter that are quite interesting:
Firstly. That Adam had not, either by natural right of fatherhood or by positive donation from God, any such authority over his children, nor dominion over the world, as is pretended. Secondly. That if he had, his heirs yet had no right to it.
Thirdly. That if his heirs had, there being no law of Nature nor positive law of God that determines which is the right heir in all cases that may arise, the right of succession, and consequently of bearing rule, could not have been certainly determined.
Fourthly. That if even that had been determined, yet the knowledge of which is the eldest line of Adam’s posterity being so long since utterly lost, that in the races of mankind and families of the world, there remains not to one above another the least pretence to be the eldest house, and to have the right of inheritance.” (25)
These four statements about the beginning of the human race have massive implications when it comes to the origin and inheritance of power. The first statement is tearing down the natural fabric of the paternal authority within the family and of man’s dominance over the created world. The second goes even further that if one could prove through omission that Adam did in fact have authority and dominion, that did not mean that it would have passed down to his children. Next, that even if it had passed on to his children, there were no natural rules as to say who gets what after the father dies. Finally, since Abel was killed by Cain, who was sent off to wander the world, it would have been difficult to find the eldest brother in order to set them in authority and have the right to inheritance. Locke starts at the beginning of time to him, the beginning of the bible, and quickly and effectively dismantles the standard reasoning of the day for the procession of power within the family. Without this procession of power, there is a power vacuum. This is potential done on purpose by Locke in order to show what he thought as the natural state of man.
To understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any other man.
A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another. (25)
Locke see this as the beginning of political power. In order to understand where it comes from, one has to understand the natural state of man. Basing his reasoning upon the Adam from the beginning of time, he sees that man is naturally equal to his other man. There is no power over another. The fact that “all power and jurisdiction is reciprocal” shows that life was based upon give and take or take and give in the case of crime and punishment. Man was very much a law unto himself with anarchy being the social norm in these times. If anarchy was the rule of the day, how did Locke see social order coming about? “But I, moreover, affirm that all men are naturally in that state, and remain so till, by their own consents, they make themselves members of some politic society, and I doubt not, in the sequel of this discourse, to make it very clear” (28). To Locke, the key is individual consent. Man is naturally in a state of freedom that allows him to do what he wants. If a man wanted to partner with another for the mutual benefit of combined forces, one could do that based upon consent. Locke is not clear about the place for coercion within his system, but consent of the ruled is very necessary to him.
Along these same lines to Locke is the extent of civil authority. Civil authority had to be bound and within certain perimeters for Locke. He noticed that there were three main levels within laws:
The laws that men generally refer their actions to, to judge of their rectitude or obliquity, seem to me to be these three:—1. The divine law. 2. The civil law. 3. The law of opinion or reputation, if I may so call it. By the relation they bear to the first of these, men judge whether their actions are sins or duties; by the second, whether they be criminal or innocent; and by the third, whether they be virtues or vices. 229-230
The order in which he places his laws as well as the lines that he draws with them is interesting here. He gives the first order to the divine for God to rule because “He has a right to do it; we are his creatures” (230). Within this divine law, it would set what is sin that could damn a soul along with the duty of the human race to fulfill while here on earth. He did not see merely a list of things to not do but a list of things that needed to be accomplished as well. These laws governed the relationship between the divine and man. Under the divine laws, falls the civil laws. These were the rules for man to follow when it came to life within a society. These would show the crimes and punishments or innocents of a person in his relationships within the civil circles. These laws governed the private man in his public endeavors. Lastly, came the laws of opinion or reputation. He labeled them also as virtues and vices. These would be how to evaluate a private man in his everyday actions in order to show his worth. Each of these levels of laws drive and shepherd a man in a particular way, from the most severe punishment, eternal damnation, to the least, a lack of reputation. This is how Locke saw the ordering of the laws.
A question comes up though when considering how he structures his law hierarchy. If this is how they are set up, to what end are they set up towards? Why does he think they are put in place in this particular way? What is their goal and how do they accomplish it? He gives three reasons for the divine law to come first, and it is because they are above and out of the civil magistrates jurisdiction:
First, because the care of souls is not committed to the civil magistrate, any more than to other men. It is not committed unto him, I say, by God; because it appears not that God has ever given any such authority to one man over another as to compel anyone to his religion.
In the second place, the care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God.
In the third place, the care of the salvation of men’s souls cannot belong to the magistrate; because, though the rigour of laws and the force of penalties were capable to convince and change men’s minds, yet would not that help at all to the salvation of their souls. (3)
The first reason is interesting because this draws the line that a man cannot be responsible for another man’s soul. One man cannot compel or convince another man into a religion. It is a personal choice and a belief that must be come to on a personal level. This is what the second reason is saying. The civil magistrate only has so many tools or avenues that he can go down in order to change a person. All the paths that he has available to him though are not the ways that affect the soul. It is a personal choice, an “inward persuasion” as he puts it. Finally, the punishments of the law are not the things that saves a person. The civil punishments are more akin to the punishments of hell than to the conversion of a soul. Divine punishment is something that does not happen on this earth, and it is left to another authority. Man and magistrates have to be concerned with their realm and the things that they can control, the things of earth. He starts with the area of the greatest importance and then moves on from there to the place of next importance. This leads to why the civil authority.
If the end of the divine law is of soul importance, what is the end of the civil authority? What makes it of next importance? To put it simple, Locke says that the point of the civil law is “The great and chief end, therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property; to which in the state of Nature there are many things wanting” (53). So according to Locke, the purpose of civil authority is for the protection of property. Yet, as quoted above, he says that civil laws are for telling if a person is a criminal or innocent. In order to connect these two together, one has to look into his definition of property and how it is linked to civil liberties. This can be seen earlier in the text, “The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests. Civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like” (3). In this case, to connect the two, property is not merely the possessions of a person but also the whole individual, including their wants and desires as they are wrapped up into a person’s liberty. The end of civil authority is to protect the person from those who would threaten them by use of the collective force of the commonwealth.
It now comes to the final set of laws, those of opinion and reputation. While not explicit from the context of the quote from page 229-230, this third set of laws does bring with it a warning about the dissolution of civil authority. Locke moves through a progression of thought that should shed some light on this subject, “He that will, with any clearness, speak of the dissolution of government, ought in the first place to distinguish between the dissolution of the society and the dissolution of the government” (73). This is to say that when a government falls, it is not merely the government that is falling but the society can also be involved. While the majority of this paragraph on page 73 is referring to the fall of society based upon the fall of the government, Locke does point it the opposite direction as well. “Whenever the society is dissolved, it is certain the government of that society cannot remain… governments are dissolved from within” (73-74). The laws of opinion and reputation have to hold up the society of a commonwealth in order for the government to hold up. Locke gives several examples of princes abusing their power and he comes to this conclusion at the end:
The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property; and the end while they choose and authorise a legislative is that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the society, to limit the power and moderate the dominion of every part and member of the society. For since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs to secure by entering into society, and for which the people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making: whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge which God hath provided for all men against force and violence. Whensoever, therefore, the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society, and either by ambition, fear, folly, or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people, by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty, and by the establishment of a new legislative (such as they shall think fit), provide for their own safety and security, which is the end for which they are in society. (75-76)
A society, commonwealth, or government is started because it is united in its cause which is to protect its people. When there is corruption within a part of it that is left to fester and grow within the system and it is not dealt with, it will lead to the system dying. A people should have an internal standard or culture that is common throughout the society in order for the society to know how to act within the commonwealth. This would be a shared value system. These would be the unspoken laws that govern all people from the inside out. This is how the people are to keep the power that be in check. When the magistrate breaks their own rules of law, it is the right of the people to stand up and hold the magistrate accountable or to demand the power be take away from the magistrate, causing the government to potentially fall for another to grow in its place.
John Locke had a very reasoned approach to the life and death of civil authority. He saw the clear connection between the individual and his consent in order to start and participate in the civil society. He saw the civil life is not all there is to life and order but there is a real need for religion and culture to save souls and influence leaders and individuals through culture by use of opinions and reputations. Lastly, he saw that the people needed an exit from a civil authority if there every came a time that the authority did not do its job correctly through personal corruption, bad legislation, or bad execution of the laws. He sought to build a system that he saw within the natural order of the cosmos for the people and by the people. This is the system that the Founding Fathers adapted for America.
Works Cited
Locke, John. A Letter Concerning Toleration; Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay; An Essay Concerning Human Understanding; The Principles of Human Knowledge; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Great Books of the Western World. Ed. Mortimer J. Adler and Philip W. Goetz. Trans. William Popple. Second Edition. Vol. 33. Chicago: Robert P. Gwinn; Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1990. 25. Print.