Classical Liberalism: The Right to Rebel–Part Three

The right to rebel is the last notion introduced by John Locke in the Second Treatise.

Locke reiterates why men create government in the first place:

The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they chuse and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of 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…

By now, you are probably tired of reading this, but repeats it for a reason.  Men are borne free and they only enter into an agreement to create a government in order to protect their God given rights.  People sometimes forget the proper relationship between citizen and government.

It even gets better, as Locke explains the term rebellion:

…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.

For me, these are some of the most poignant and most important words ever penned in the history of political writing.  Locke turned the idea of rebellion on its head.  Hitherto, rebellion by the people was seen as a sin against the “god-king.”  Now Locke has turned the tables.  When governments violate the social contract the spells out the rights of men, the purpose of government and the limits of government, it is the government itself that is in a “state of war” against its own citizens.

So not only is “rebellion” the fault of the state, man, by nature’s God, is entitled to regain his freedom through any means deemed necessary.

The importance of the concept cannot be stressed enough.  It is the threat of the freedom of the people to change government to return it to its original purpose that is supposed to keep it docile and when that doesn’t work, it is the duty of the people to change the government and to restore it to its original state, i.e., limited to the purposes of protecting the basic freedoms of men.

The take home lesson from this section of the Second Treatise? Government is created to protect the rights of man–life, liberty, and property.  This is accomplished by limiting the uncertainties of crime or foreign threats.  When government goes beyond playing the umpire and threatens the rights of men, that government is illegitimate.

Finally, Locke describes a government in rebellion against the people (bold mine):

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. What I have said here, concerning the legislative in general, holds true also concerning the supreme executor, who having a double trust put in him, both to have a part in the legislative, and the supreme execution of the law, acts against both, when he goes about to set up his own arbitrary will as the law of the society. He acts also contrary to his trust, when he either employs the force, treasure, and offices of the society, to corrupt the representatives, and gain them to his purposes; or openly preengages the electors, and prescribes to their choice, such, whom he has, by sollicitations, threats, promises, or otherwise, won to his designs; and employs them to bring in such, who have promised before-hand what to vote, and what to enact.

Thus to regulate candidates and electors, and new-model the ways of election, what is it but to cut up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of public security? for the people having reserved to themselves the choice of their representatives, as the fence to their properties, could do it for no other end, but that they might always be freely chosen, and so chosen, freely act, and advise, as the necessity of the common-wealth, and the public good should, upon examination, and mature debate, be judged to require. This, those who give their votes before they hear the debate, and have weighed the reasons on all sides, are not capable of doing. To prepare such an assembly as this, and endeavour to set up the declared abettors of his own will, for the true representatives of the people, and the law-makers of the society, is certainly as great a breach of trust, and as perfect a declaration of a design to subvert the government, as is possible to be met with. To which, if one shall add rewards and punishments visibly employed to the same end, and all the arts of perverted law made use of, to take off and destroy all that stand in the way of such a design, and will not comply and consent to betray the liberties of their country, it will be past doubt what is doing. What power they ought to have in the society, who thus employ it contrary to the trust went along with it in its first institution, is easy to determine; and one cannot but see, that he, who has once attempted any such thing as this, cannot any longer be trusted.

I will ask you, have not our House members done the very things Locke described as being in a state of war with the people?  Our House members voted for Cap and Trade without reading the bill (it was still being written as it was being voted on).  Our House members certainly did not sit down and read the 1000 page health care bill.  They refused debate.  They refused to consider all sides.  Furthermore, isn’t promising money to legislators for their vote–which happened with both Cap and Trade and health care the same thing as Locke describes when he says “he… either employs…treausre”or other measures to capture their vote?

Our government, by Locke’s own standards, (and by the standards of his student, Thomas Jefferson) is at war with the rights of the people to enjoy their God given rights.  The question is, how does it end?

Does this attack on our rights end with voting the usurpers out in 2012 or will the violation of our natural rights cause those who still understand their freedoms to invoke their right to restore government to its proper role?

Tags: Health care, Second Treastise