Hobbes, Locke, and the American Constitutional Framers

Introduction: Two Theorists and a Revolution

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were English social contract theorists who produced their major works approximately one hundred years before the American Revolution, each describing why men enter political society and what shape the resulting state ought to take. Because of their insistence that the state ought to be justified — or else dissolved — according to whether it satisfied the principles for which it had originally been established, both thinkers were highly influential among the Founding Fathers in America. The founders appealed to the writings of Hobbes and Locke to argue that the English sovereign had crossed the lines limiting its authority in the colonies, thereby justifying their overthrow of that sovereign. The founders also weighed the writings of both theorists carefully as they developed the American Constitution, seeking to establish a government that would be justified according to principles that would genuinely serve the body politic living under it.

Hobbes and the Social Contract

Both Hobbes and Locke imagined a situation in which human beings lived in a state of nature before entering political society. Hobbes believed that men were basically ill-tempered and untrustworthy, and therefore held that they agreed to surrender their rights to a sovereign who would rule them absolutely for their own benefit. He favored a large and powerful government capable of enforcing its will on subjects in order to control their natural unruliness. In Hobbes's view, only an absolute sovereign could prevent the perpetual conflict that would otherwise define human life.

Locke and the Social Contract

John Locke, on the other hand, thought that men in the state of nature were fundamentally good. Because of their need to be secure in their property and to protect themselves from outside forces, however, they banded together to form a state that would serve their individual interests. Locke therefore favored a limited government whose primary purpose was to protect its citizens' rights and which would otherwise act almost entirely on their behalf. Where Hobbes saw the sovereign as a necessary master, Locke saw it as a servant accountable to the people.