Second Treatise of Government

Before modern democracy was inevitable, it had to be invented. In 1690, John Locke sat down to dismantle the most powerful idea in Western politics: that kings ruled by divine right, that subjects were born to obey. What he produced was a blueprint for human freedom that would reshape the world. Locke argues that political authority must rest on consent, that governments exist to protect natural rights to life, liberty, and property, and that when rulers become tyrants, the people retain the right to alter or abolish them. This is the argument that made revolution respectable, that planted the seeds of the American and French Revolutions, and that gave liberalism its vocabulary. More than three centuries later, every debate about the limits of government, the nature of consent, and the rights of individuals still takes place in a house Locke built.