1) John Locke was highly influential on the Founding Fathers of the United States and his ideas of natural rights and revolution were drawn upon when the US rebelled against Britain. 2) Locke sought to bring order to political systems through constitutional balances, just as Newton sought to bring order to the physical universe through laws of physics. 3) Locke and Hobbes had differing views of human nature and the state of nature that led man, with Locke believing in more natural rights and consent of the governed compared to Hobbes' view of authoritarian rule.

1. Justice & Power
session vi
Locke
No other thinker is held to have influenced the beliefs of our Founding Fathers more than John
Locke. When we rebelled two hundred and thirty-seven years ago in order to restore our “rights of
Englishmen,” the ideas, arguments, often even the very words were Lockean. Ironically, the
acceptance by both Britain and the United States of Locke’s thesis that subjects retain the right of
revolution is the best explanation why we, practically alone among the nations of the world, have not
experienced revolution since 1783.
During the second half of the seventeenth century the Scientific Revolution continued to sweep
before it the ill-digested Aristotelianism of the late medieval scholastics. Locke read avidly about the
latest discoveries and newest experiments. His faith in man’s potential for reasonableness fills every
page of the Second Treatise. As Newton sought laws which would allow predictability and thus
“bring order” to the physical universe, Locke sought a constitutional balance in England which
would bring order to the political scene.
Just as in the case of Plato and Aristotle, it is most rewarding to compare Hobbes and Locke. Their
lives, with many interesting similarities and contrasts, span the period during which English
absolutist monarchy gave way to two-party parliamentary government. Why should these two Oxford
graduates who came from middle-class families, and who both depended on aristocratic patronage,
have taken opposite sides on the constitutional issue of their age? Why should a study of the new
science have disposed ont to authoritarian monarchy, the other to parliamentary government “by
consent”?
A key to understanding their different views lies in the “first principles” they posited. Compare the
“state of nature” as each man describes it. Was there ever such a thing as man living in the state of
nature? Just how much importance do you assign to these seventeenth century concepts? If there
never was social contract does that mean that American civil religion is based on a myth that doesn’t
merit belief any more?
What else must be tossed into the”dustbin of history”? Equality? Inalienable rights? As you read
these excerpts from Jefferson’s principle source for the Declaration of Independence, consider
carefully whether Locke still rings true. Are these words which have inspired so many readers before
you empty today? Are “equality,” the “rights of man,” and “government by consent” simply jingles, a
piece of Madison Avenue psychic engineering, which suddenly becomes “inoperative” when it
involves personal sacrifice or risk?
Jim Powers, Justice & Power; A Primer in Political Philosophy. 1977, p. 22