John Locke's Second Treatise Of Government Summary

John Locke, among one of the most important political philosophers, wrote Two Treatises of Government. In it, he defended the claim that men are naturally free and equal. All men have rights including life, liberty, and property, things that are important to civil societies. These rights can be ensured through a civil government or authoritative figure that gives them freedom, tolerance, and property. The State of Nature, a model that Locke follows to understand human nature, justifies peoples rights and how they attain them through a government. The second chapter, “On the State of Nature”, is one of the most important chapters in Locke’s Second Treatise. He puts the thought that we need to understand that we exist in a state of perfect freedom and equality and governed by reason. Locke defines the state of nature on the third page of this book as this,

“To understand political power right. . . we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature. . .

A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal,
no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection. . .” (3)

From these two paragraphs in Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, it contains definitions of liberty and private property of possessions.
Locke is showing the Natural Law which states that men morally participate in acts, or rights, and they have a right to defend their life from invasion. Also, their freedom is equal for all “without subordination or subjection” (3). For Locke, he believes in the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and to seek justice for those who violate it. He says that we all have “a right to punish the transgressors of [the Law of Nature]” (5). Even without a government or an authority, it still permits that all men can act as one and that the state of men can be characterized by tolerance, reason, and
equality.
One of these ‘rights’, that Locke eludes to in both this passage and other parts throughout the book, include the protection of property rights. Locke believes there are only two ways a government can exist: a state of nature and the civil society. Locke claims that civil society was created for the protection of property. On page 58 of Second Treatise, he states that “. . . The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community. . . in a secure enjoyment of their properties and a greater security against any that are not of it. . .” “Properties” could mean one’s conscience, freedom, labor, happiness, or any material object. However, Locke means "properties" as in life, liberty, and estate. He believes that the government, or authority, should protect and ‘secure’ these fundamental rights.
Locke believes in the full adopting of the Natural Law in political organizations. Giving freedom to individuals for their rights and their properties is what Locke strives to convey in his book, Second Treatise of Government. This model, essential to civil governments, became a foundation for those who wanted to live in a society that was natural to be free and equal. Their property couldn’t be seized, partly from it being a natural right, but this would go against the idea that governments couldn’t lead without “life, liberty, and property”.