by John Locke
To this I find two objections made: 1. That there
are no instances to be found in story of a company of
men, independent and equal one amongst another, that met
together, and in this way began and set up a government.
2. It is impossible of right that men should do so,
because all men, being born under government, they are to
submit to that, and are not at liberty to begin a new
one.
To the first there is this to answer: That it is not
at all to be wondered that history gives us but a very
little account of men that lived together in the state of
Nature. The inconveniencies of that condition, and the
love and want of society, no sooner brought any number of
them together, but they presently united and in
corporated if they designed to continue together. And if
we may not suppose men ever to have been in the state of
Nature, because we hear not much of them in such a state,
we may as well suppose the armies of Salmanasser or
Xerxes were never children, because we hear little of
them till they were men and embodied in armies.
Government is everywhere antecedent to records, and
letters seldom come in amongst a people till a long
continuation of civil society has, by other more
necessary arts, provided for their safety, ease, and
plenty. And then they begin to look after the history of
their founders, and search into their original when they
have outlived the memory of it. For it is with
commonwealths as with particular persons, they are
commonly ignorant of their own births and infancies; and
if they know anything of it, they are beholding for it to
the accidental records that others have kept of it. And
those that we have of the beginning of any polities in
the world, excepting that of the Jews, where God Himself
immediately interposed, and which favours not at all
paternal dominion, are all either plain instances of such
a beginning as I have mentioned, or at least have
manifest footsteps of it.
. He must show a strange inclination to deny evident
matter of fact, when it agrees not with his hypothesis,
who will not allow that the beginning of Rome and Venice
were by the uniting together of several men, free and
independent one of another, amongst whom there was no
natural superiority or subjection. And if Josephus
Acosta′s word may be taken, he tells us that in many
parts of America there was no government at all. "There
are great and apparent conjectures," says he, "that these
men [speaking of those of Peru] for a long time had
neither kings nor commonwealths, but lived in troops, as
they do this day in Florida- the Cheriquanas, those of
Brazil, and many other nations, which have no certain
kings, but, as occasion is offered in peace or war, they
choose their captains as they please" (lib. i. cap. 25).
If it be said, that every man there was born subject to
his father, or the head of his family. that the
subjection due from a child to a father took away not his
freedom of uniting into what political society he thought
fit, has been already proved; but be that as it will,
these men, it is evident, were actually free; and
whatever superiority some politicians now would place in
any of them, they themselves claimed it not; but, by
consent, were all equal, till, by the same consent, they
set rulers over themselves. So that their politic
societies all began from a voluntary union, and the
mutual agreement of men freely acting in the choice of
their governors and forms of government.
And I hope those who went away from Sparta, with
Palantus, mentioned by Justin, will be allowed to have
been freemen independent one of another, and to have set
up a government over themselves by their own consent.
Thus I have given several examples out of history of
people, free and in the state of Nature, that, being met
together, incorporated and began a commonwealth. And if
the want of such instances be an argument to prove that
government were not nor could not be so begun, I suppose
the contenders for paternal empire were better let it
alone than urge it against natural liberty; for if they
can give so many instances out of history of governments
begun upon paternal right, I think (though at least an
argument from what has been to what should of right be of
no great force) one might, without any great danger,
yield them the cause. But if I might advise them in the
case, they would do well not to search too much into the
original of governments as they have begun de facto, lest
they should find at the foundation of most of them
something very little favourable to the design they
promote, and such a power as they contend for.
But, to conclude: reason being plain on our side
that men are naturally free; and the examples of history
showing that the governments of the world, that were
begun in peace, had their beginning laid on that
foundation, and were made by the consent of the people;
there can be little room for doubt, either where the
right is, or what has been the opinion or practice of
mankind about the first erecting of governments.
I will not deny that if we look back, as far as
history will direct us, towards the original of
commonwealths, we shall generally find them under the
government and administration of one man. And I am also
apt to believe that where a family was numerous enough to
subsist by itself, and continued entire together, without
mixing with others, as it often happens, where there is
much land and few people, the government commonly began
in the father. For the father having, by the law of
Nature, the same power, with every man else, to punish,
as he thought fit, any offences against that law, might
thereby punish his transgressing children, even when they
were men, and out of their pupilage; and they were very
likely to submit to his punishment, and all join with him
against the offender in their turns, giving him thereby
power to execute his sentence against any transgression,
and so, in effect, make him the law-maker and governor
over all that remained in conjunction with his family. He
was fittest to be trusted; paternal affection secured
their property and interest under his care, and the
custom of obeying him in their childhood made it easier
to submit to him rather than any other. If, therefore,
they must have one to rule them, as government is hardly
to be avoided amongst men that live together, who so
likely to be the man as he that was their common father,
unless negligence, cruelty, or any other defect of mind
or body, made him unfit for it? But when either the
father died. and left his next heir- for want of age,
wisdom, courage, or any other qualities- less fit for
rule, or where several families met and consented to
continue together, there, it is not to be doubted, but
they used their natural freedom to set up him whom they
judged the ablest and most likely to rule well over them.
Conformable hereunto we find the people of America, who-
living out of the reach of the conquering swords and
spreading domination of the two great empires of Peru and
Mexico- enjoyed their own natural freedom, though,
caeteris paribus, they commonly prefer the heir of their
deceased king; yet, if they find him any way weak or
incapable, they pass him by, and set up the stoutest and
bravest man for their ruler.
Thus, though looking back as far as records give us
any account of peopling the world, and the history of
nations, we commonly find the government to be in one
hand, yet it destroys not that which I affirm- viz., that
the beginning of politic society depends upon the consent
of the individuals to join into and make one society,
who, when they are thus incorporated, might set up what
form of government they thought fit. But this having
given occasion to men to mistake and think that, by
Nature, government was monarchical, and belonged to the
father, it may not be amiss here to consider why people,
in the beginning, generally pitched upon this form,
which, though perhaps the father′s pre-eminency might, in
the first institution of some commonwealths, give a rise
to and place in the beginning the power in one hand, yet
it is plain that the reason that continued the form of
government in a single person was not any regard or
respect to paternal authority, since all petty
monarchies- that is, almost all monarchies, near their
original, have been commonly, at least upon occasion,
elective.
First, then, in the beginning of things, the
father′s government of the childhood of those sprung from
him having accustomed them to the rule of one man, and
taught them that where it was exercised with care and
skill, with affection and love to those under it, it was
sufficient to procure and preserve men (all the political
happiness they sought for in society), it was no wonder
that they should pitch upon and naturally run into that
form of government which, from their infancy, they had
been all accustomed to, and which, by experience, they
had found both easy and safe. To which if we add, that
monarchy being simple and most obvious to men, whom
neither experience had instructed in forms of government,
nor the ambition or insolence of empire had taught to
beware of the encroachments of prerogative or the
inconveniencies of absolute power, which monarchy, in
succession, was apt to lay claim to and bring upon them;
it was not at all strange that they should not much
trouble themselves to think of methods of restraining any
exorbitances of those to whom they had given the
authority over them, and of balancing the power of
government by placing several parts of it in different
hands. They had neither felt the oppression of tyrannical
dominion, nor did the fashion of the age, nor their
possessions or way of living, which afforded little
matter for covetousness or ambition, give them any reason
to apprehend or provide against it; and, therefore, it is
no wonder they put themselves into such a frame of
government as was not only, as I said, most obvious and
simple, but also best suited to their present state and
condition, which stood more in need of defence against
foreign invasions and injuries than of multiplicity of
laws where there was but very little property, and wanted
not variety of rulers and abundance of officers to direct
and look after their execution where there were but few
trespassers and few offenders. Since, then, those who
liked one another so well as to join into society cannot
but be supposed to have some acquaintance and friendship
together, and some trust one in another, they could not
but have greater apprehensions of others than of one
another; and, therefore, their first care and thought
cannot but be supposed to be, how to secure themselves
against foreign force. It was natural for them to put
themselves under a frame of government which might best
serve to that end, and choose the wisest and bravest man
to conduct them in their wars and lead them out against
their enemies, and in this chiefly be their ruler.
Thus we see that the kings of the Indians, in
America, which is still a pattern of the first ages in
Asia and Europe, whilst the inhabitants were too few for
the country, and want of people and money gave men no
temptation to enlarge their possessions of land or
contest for wider extent of ground, are little more than
generals of their armies; and though they command
absolutely in war, yet at home, and in time of peace,
they exercise very little dominion, and have but a very
moderate sovereignty, the resolutions of peace and war
being ordinarily either in the people or in a council,
though the war itself, which admits not of pluralities of
governors, naturally evolves the command into the king′s
sole authority.
And thus, in Israel itself, the chief business of
their judges and first kings seems to have been to be
captains in war and leaders of their armies, which
(besides what is signified by "going out and in before
the people," which was, to march forth to war and home
again at the heads of their forces) appears plainly in
the story of Jephtha. The Ammonites making war upon
Israel, the Gileadites, in fear, send to Jephtha, a
bastard of their family, whom they had cast off, and
article with him, if he will assist them against the
Ammonites, to make him their ruler, which they do in
these words: "And the people made him head and captain
over them" (Judges 11. 11), which was, as it seems, all
one as to be judge. "And he judged Israel" (Judges 12.
7)- that is, was their captain-general- "six years." So
when Jotham upbraids the Shechemites with the obligation
they had to Gideon, who had been their judge and ruler,
he tells them: "He fought for you, and adventured his
life for, and delivered you out of the hands of Midian"
(Judges 9. 17). Nothing mentioned of him but what he did
as a general, and, indeed, that is all is found in his
history, or in any of the rest of the judges. And
Abimelech particularly is called king, though at most he
was but their general. And when, being weary of the ill-
conduct of Samuel′s sons, the children of Israel desired
a king, "like all the nations, to judge them, and to go
out before them, and to fight their battles" (1 Sam. 8.
20), God, granting their desire, says to Samuel, "I will
send thee a man, and thou shalt anoint him to be captain
over my people Israel, that he may save my people out of
the hands of the Philistines" (ch. 9. 16). As if the only
business of a king had been to lead out their armies and
fight in their defence; and, accordingly, at his
inauguration, pouring a vial of oil upon him, declares to
Saul that "the Lord had anointed him to be captain over
his inheritance" (ch. 10. 1). And therefore those who,
after Saul being solemnly chosen and saluted king by the
tribes at Mispah, were unwilling to have him their king,
make no other objection but this, "How shall this man
save us?" (ch. 10. 27), as if they should have said:
"This man is unfit to be our king, not having skill and
conduct enough in war to be able to defend us." And when
God resolved to transfer the government to David, it is
in these words: "But now thy kingdom shall not continue:
the Lord hath sought Him a man after His own heart, and
the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over His
people" (ch. 13. 14.). As if the whole kingly authority
were nothing else but to be their general; and therefore
the tribes who had stuck to Saul′s family, and opposed
David′s reign, when they came to Hebron with terms of
submission to him, they tell him, amongst other
arguments, they had to submit to him as to their king,
that he was, in effect, their king in Saul′s time, and
therefore they had no reason but to receive him as their
king now. "Also," say they, "in time past, when Saul was
king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and
broughtest in Israel, and the Lord said unto thee, Thou
shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain
over Israel."
Thus, whether a family, by degrees, grew up into a
commonwealth, and the fatherly authority being continued
on to the elder son, every one in his turn growing up
under it tacitly submitted to it, and the easiness and
equality of it not offending any one, every one
acquiesced till time seemed to have confirmed it and
settled a right of succession by prescription; or whether
several families, or the descendants of several families,
whom chance, neighbourhood, or business brought together,
united into society; the need of a general whose conduct
might defend them against their enemies in war, and the
great confidence the innocence and sincerity of that poor
but virtuous age, such as are almost all those which
begin governments that ever come to last in the world,
gave men one of another, made the first beginners of
commonwealths generally put the rule into one man′s hand,
without any other express limitation or restraint but
what the nature of the thing and the end of government
required. It was given them for the public good and
safety, and to those ends, in the infancies of
commonwealths, they commonly used it; and unless they had
done so, young societies could not have subsisted.
Without such nursing fathers, without this care of the
governors, all governments would have sunk under the
weakness and infirmities of their infancy, the prince and
the people had soon perished together.
