Book
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire
by John Locke · 1689 · 14 reading cards · public domain
14 cards
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
Each person belongs to God, not to other people, so no one holds absolute power over another.
Locke grounds natural rights in theology: because we are all created by the same God, no one has absolute authority over another. Every man is God's 'property,' not other men's. Therefore, we cannot dispose of our own or others' lives at will. For example, slavery is wrong because it violates this principle of divine ownership of man.
“For men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another's pleasure.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
The exclusive right over one's own person is the foundation of all other property rights.
Locke establishes that self-ownership is fundamental: no one can claim the right to control another's body or mind. From this right derives the right to property over goods created by labor. For example, if a farmer cultivates a field, the harvest belongs to him because he has invested his labor, which is an extension of his person.
“Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
Law exists to protect and extend liberty, not to restrict it.
Locke rejects the idea that liberty and law are opposites. Without law, in a state of nature, freedom is insecure because anyone can violate another's rights. Well-made law sets clear boundaries that prevent conflicts and allow everyone to act safely. For example, traffic laws do not restrict your freedom to drive; they make driving possible without chaos and accidents.
“The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
In any legitimate state, the power to make laws is the supreme authority.
Locke argues that the legislative power is supreme because it sets the rules by which society lives. The other powers, executive and judicial, are subordinate to the law. For example, a king cannot rule arbitrarily but must obey the laws made by parliament. If the executive power violates the law, the people have the right to rebel.
“In all lawful governments, the legislative is the supreme power.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
The power to punish isn't granted by the state; it's borrowed from individuals.
Locke describes the state of nature, where there is no government but there is a moral law given by God. For this law to be respected, every man has the authority to enforce it, including punishing. For example, if someone steals from you, you have the right to demand compensation and punish proportionally. This power is ceded to the state when people form a civil society.
“In the state of nature, every one has the executive power of the law of nature.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
A government that becomes the aggressor loses legitimacy, and resistance becomes defense, not rebellion.
Locke starts from the premise that political power exists to protect life, liberty, and property. When legislators violate them, they abandon the role of arbiter and enter into conflict with the very people they were meant to protect, becoming mere aggressors. A parliament that arbitrarily seizes citizens' wealth loses its moral authority, and opposing it is no longer rebellion but legitimate self-defense.
“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 further obedience.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
No one is born a ruler or a subject: every power over a person must be justified, not inherited.
Locke attacks the idea that some are born to rule and others to obey, for instance through the divine right of kings. If everyone is equally free by nature, then any authority over a person must come from somewhere other than birth: from the consent of the governed. A concrete example: a public official has, as a person, no more rights than any citizen he serves.
“Men being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
Power over a free person is neither inherited nor seized: it is received only through their consent.
If people are naturally free, no one has a born right to command them; so government must be founded on consent, explicit or tacit. This mechanism turns rule from a relation of force into a contract: power exists only as long as the governed have accepted it. For example, elections do not create power; they merely register the population's agreement to be governed.
“No body can be but by his own consent subject to the political power of another.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
Defending life, liberty and property is a natural right, not the state's gift.
In the state of nature, before any government, a person is not helpless: he has the right to protect himself and to punish whoever harms him. Government is created precisely to organize this defense better, not to replace it with blind obedience. Example: self-defense is not a favor granted by law, but a pre-existing right that law merely recognizes.
“Man has by nature a power to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
The state administers wealth but never owns it: property exists before any government.
Locke extends consent to property as well: if life and liberty cannot be taken without agreement, goods earned through labor enjoy the same protection. The mechanism is that government administers but does not own the citizens' wealth; it belongs to them before any state exists. Example: expropriation without fair compensation is, in Locke's logic, theft committed by authority.
“The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
Freedom is not lawless chaos, but the predictable protection that laws give to everyone.
Locke distinguishes liberty from license: without laws, the strong dominate and the weak live in fear, so no one is truly free. Laws, written and equally applied, create the safe space in which people can act without fear. Example: a road with no traffic lights is not freer but more dangerous; common rules let everyone move.
“Where there is no law, there is no freedom.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
Liberty is not doing as you please, but being ruled only by fixed laws that bind everyone.
Locke dismantles an old confusion here: freedom is not the absence of rules but subjection only to rules known in advance and applied equally. The slave of someone who decides arbitrarily is less free than the citizen of law, even if the tyrant indulges his whims. Whoever can be punished today for what was permitted yesterday is not free but at the mercy of power. Common law is the fence that protects, not the cage.
“Freedom of Men under Government, is, to have a standing Rule to live by, common to every one of that Society.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
Your labor is yours, and whatever you touch with it leaves the commons and becomes your property.
Locke is laying the foundation of private property here: every person owns himself, and therefore his own effort. When your labour mixes with something nature provides, you remove it from the common state and make it yours. Someone picking apples from a forest that belongs to no one becomes their owner through the trouble of picking. This is the ground on which Locke then builds the whole right of property, including over cultivated land.
“The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his.”
Al doilea tratat despre cârmuire · 1689
Force that steps outside the law loses authority and becomes plain aggression.
Locke is limiting the right of resistance here: not every use of force may be met with force, only the one that steps outside the law. Legitimate government is itself a form of force authorised by law, and opposing it is not resistance but rebellion. But when a ruler acts without right, he leaves the position of authority and becomes an aggressor like any other. This is the theoretical basis for the right to remove a tyrant, which Locke develops in the rest of the treatise.
“Force is to be opposed to nothing but to unjust and unlawful force.”