Once upon a time in America, we held certain truths to be unassailable.
We believed that all men and women were born equal: that is, with equal rights.
We believed every individual had the right to be secure in his or her person and property.
We believed that property was obtained either through original appropriation from nature (homesteading) or through voluntary transfer from a previous rightful owner, whether as a gift or in trade.
We believed that the right to be secure in one’s person and property meant the right to use force to protect those rights.
We believed that individuals in a community had the right to delegate the protection of their rights to a governing body: i.e., a government.
We believed that if that government were to chronically violate the very rights they were charged with protecting, that the community had a right to “alter or abolish” that government.
These ideas won the hearts and minds colonial America. They were enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. They inspired Americans to fight a Revolutionary War and liberate their country from the mightiest empire on the planet. They were encoded in the new system of government established by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
These ideas made America the wonder of the world. Because of America’s example, they revolutionized Europe and then much of the rest of the world.
Under the labels of “equality,” “inalienable rights,” “consent of the governed,” “popular sovereignty,” “democracy,” and “limited government,” these ideas became the political catechism of modernity: in high school social studies textbooks, academic journals, and citizenship tests.
And the influence of all of these earth-shaking ideas—as well as others like “the rule of law” and “the separation of powers”—can be traced to a single, slim book by a single (and also slim) author: The Second Treatise of Government by John Locke.
Locke’s ideas have since been largely abandoned throughout the world, America included. Some, like “limited government,” have been ignored, aside from lip service. And labels like “equality” and “rights” have been twisted to mean something antithetical to what Locke and the American Founders meant.
But the tremendous impact of Locke’s ideas demonstrate how the pen truly is mightier than the sword and how, as Victor Hugo wrote, “Nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come.”
May liberty’s time come again.