The Liberty of John Locke

John Locke 1 offered his Two Treatises of Government to justify a new king’s title to the crown of England. 2 This limited Locke’s fidelity to republican tradition. Instead, his First Treatise constituted a detailed and elaborate response to Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha , refuting the paternal hereditary right of kings (and so the Stuart monarchs) to their thrones. Locke’s Second Treatise considered the basis of legitimate political power, including Locke’s own conceptions of law and liberty, which contradicted Leviathan ’s harsh new doctrines. Locke concluded that law does not restrain, but preserves and enlarges liberty. Without law “there is no freedom” at a11 3