John Locke, the Declaration of Independence, and U.S. Slavery

Locke's Natural Rights and the Declaration of Independence

Three values John Locke discussed in his 1690 work Two Treatises of Government are echoed in the wording of the Declaration of Independence, the document by which the American colonies announced their separation from George III of England. These were the rights of all human beings to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property. Locke argued that no human being — even when he or she agreed to the social contract implicit in the relationship between the ruler and the ruled — could be deprived of these three rights. Such rights were eternally part of the human condition. The temporary forfeiture of these rights to a sovereign government was only accomplished by the voluntary will of the people of a nation, a will that could at any time be withdrawn.

The Right to Life and Colonial Grievances

Locke argued that to deprive a human being of the right to life was fundamentally wrong. For a king to conscript a human being into involuntary servitude in His Majesty's Navy, or to force American colonists to unwillingly house troops in their homes, deprived those human beings of their lives and livelihoods. Similarly, to tax people unjustly, without representation, was to take away their means to life — namely, their income. Each of these grievances cited by the colonists reflected a direct violation of the Lockean right to life.

Liberty, Property, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Liberty, argued the American colonists, was additionally being denied to the American people by the king's refusal to grant them representation in Parliament — the body that was compelling them to comply with the very policies described above. To be required to obey without any voice in the legislature denied the colonists their liberty in the most fundamental sense.

The last value discussed by Locke — the right to property — is reconfigured as the right to happiness in the Declaration of Independence. Happiness is not simply the right of ownership, but the right of self-determination and the right to earn money through trade, as well as security in the already established rights of liberty and life. Although the sovereign was not physically occupying or seizing the property of the colonists, he was impinging upon their happiness — hence the final words of the Declaration's echoing of Locke.

Locke's Philosophical Concept of Slavery

The philosophical definition of slavery, the methods by which it was practiced, and the nature of the enslaved condition as understood by John Locke all fundamentally differed from the practice of this abhorrent institution in the United States.

Locke defined slavery and tyranny in terms of the relationship between the ruled and the ruler. A ruler became a tyrant when he or she broke the natural laws of society and ruled by personal fiat, simply to enrich themselves. A tyrant who did not care about the welfare of the governed was effectively enslaving the populace — using the people as a means rather than respecting their physical integrity and the consent upon which legitimate leadership depended. Revolt against such ruling slavery was therefore justified. However, the relationship of enslaved to enslaver in the Southern United States was something categorically different: a system of permanent bondage imposed upon people by encoded law and by birth, sanctioned by the Constitution and protected by the government — not for the self-enrichment of the state, but because a segment of the populace wished the institution to continue.