Back to Study Library
Round One of the Presidential 1776 Award is now closed. Thank you to all who participated! Regional finalists will be announced by March 30, 2026. See Competition Rules for details.
Round One of the Presidential 1776 Award is now closed. Thank you to all who participated! Regional finalists will be announced by March 30, 2026. See Competition Rules for details.
95. Men all being naturally free, equal, and independent, no-one can be deprived of this freedom etc. and subjected to the political power of someone else, without his own consent. The only way anyone can strip off his natural liberty and clothe himself in the bonds of civil society is for him to agree with other men to unite into a community, so as to live together comfortably, safely, and peaceably, in a secure enjoyment of their properties and a greater security against outsiders. Any number of men can do this, because it does no harm to the freedom of the rest; they are left with the liberty of the state of nature, which they had all along. When any number of men have in this way consented to make one community or government, this immediately incorporates them, turns them into a single body politic in which the majority have a right to act on behalf of the rest and to bind them by its decisions. ['incorporate' comes from Latin corpus = 'body'.]
96. [In this section Locke makes the point that a unified single body can move in only one way, and that must be in the direction in which 'the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority'. Majoritarian rule is the only possibility for united action. Locke will discuss one alternative—namely universal agreement—in section 98.]
97. Thus every man, by agreeing with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation to everyone in that society to submit to the decisions of the majority, and to be bound by it. Otherwise—that is, if he were willing to submit himself only to the majority acts that he approved of—the original compact through which he and others incorporated into one society would be meaningless; it wouldn't be a compact if it left him as free of obligations as he had been in the state of nature. . . .
98. For if the consent of •the majority isn't accepted as the act of the whole ·body politic· and as binding on every individual, the only basis there could be for something's counting as an act of the whole would be its having the consent of •every individual. But it is virtually impossible for that ever to be had. Even with an assembly much smaller than that of an entire commonwealth, many will be kept from attending by ill-health or by the demands of business. For that reason, and also because of the variety of opinions and conflicts of interests that inevitably occur in any collection of men, it would be absurd for them to come into society on such terms, that is, on the basis that the society as a whole does nothing that isn't assented to by each and every member of it. It would be like Cato's coming into the theatre only to go out again. [This refers to an episode in which the younger Cato conspicuously walked out of a theatrical performance in ancient Rome, to protest what he thought to be indecency in the performance.] Such a constitution as this would give the ·supposedly· mighty Leviathan a shorter life than the feeblest creatures; it wouldn't live beyond the day it was born. [For 'Leviathan', see Job 41. Hobbes had adapted the word as a name for the politically organised state.] We can't think that this is what rational creatures would want in setting up political societies. . . .
99. So those who out of a state of nature unite into a community must be understood to give up all the power required to secure its purposes to the majority of the community (unless they explicitly agree on some number greater than the majority). They achieve this simply by agreeing to unite into one political society; that's all the compact that is needed between the individuals that create or join a commonwealth.
Thus, what begins a political society and keeps it in existence is nothing but the consent of any number of free men capable of a majority [Locke's phrase] to unite and incorporate into such a society. This is the only thing that did or could give a beginning to any lawful government in the world.
100. To this I find two objections made. First,
History shows no examples of this, no cases where a group of independent and equal men met together and in this way began and set up a government.
It is impossible for men rightly to do this, because all men are born under government, and so they are bound to submit to that government and aren't at liberty to begin a new one.
I shall discuss these in turn, giving twelve sections to the first of them·.
·THE 'HISTORY IS SILENT' OBJECTION·
101. Here is an answer to the first objection. It is no wonder that history gives us very little account of men living together in the state of nature. As soon as any number of men were brought together by the inconveniences of that state, and by their love of society and their lack of it, they immediately united and incorporated if they planned to continue together. If we can conclude that men never were in the state of nature because we don't hear not much about them in such a state, we can just as well conclude that the soldiers of Salmanasser or -erxes were never children because we hear little of them before the time when they were men and became soldiers. In all parts of the world there was government before there were records; writing seldom comes in among a people until a long stretch of civil society has, through other more necessary arts ·such as agriculture and architecture·, provided for their safety, ease, and affluence. When writing does eventually come in, people begin to look into the history of their founders, researching their origins when no memory remains of them; for commonwealths are like individual persons in being, usually, ignorant of their own births and infancies; and when a commonwealth does know something about its origins, they owe that knowledge to the records that others happen to have kept of it. And such records as we have of the beginnings of political states give no support to paternal dominion, except for the Jewish state, where God himself stepped in. They are all either plain instances of the kind of beginning that I have described mentioned or at least show clear signs of it.
102. Rome and Venice had their starts when a number of men, free and independent of one another and with no natural superiority or subjection, came together ·to form a political society·. Anyone who denies this must have a strange inclination to deny any evident matter of fact that doesn't agree with his hypothesis. [Locke then quotes an historian who reports that in many parts of the American continent people had lived together in 'troops' with no government at all, some of them continuing thus into Locke's time. Then:] You might object: 'Every man there was born subject to his father, or to the head of his family'; but I have already shown that the subjection a child owes to a father still leaves him free to join in whatever political society he thinks fit. But be that as it may, it is obvious that these men were actually free; and whatever superiority some political theorists would now accord to any of them, they themselves made no such claim; by consent they were all equal until by that same consent they set rulers over themselves. So their political 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.
103. [Locke gives another example: colonists from ancient Sparta. Then:] Thus I have given several historical examples of free people in the state of nature who met together, incorporated, and began a commonwealth. Anyway, if the lack of such examples were a good argument to show that governments couldn't have been started in this way, the defenders of the paternal empire ·theory of government· would do better leave it unused rather than urging it against natural liberty ·and thus against my theory·: my advice to them would be not to search too much into the origins of governments, lest they should find at the founding of most of them something very little favourable to the design they support and the governmental power they contend for. We wouldn't be running much of a risk if we said 'Find plenty of historical instances of governments begun on the basis of paternal right, and we'll accept your theory'; though really there is no great force in an argument from what •has been to what •should of right be, ·even if they had the historical premise for the argument·.
104. [This short section repeats the conclusion of the preceding sections.]
105. I don't deny that if we look back as far as history will take us into the origins of commonwealths, we shall generally find them under the government and administration of one man. Also, I am inclined to believe this:
Where a family was numerous enough to survive on its own without mixing with others (as often happens where there is much land and few people), the government commonly began in the father. By the law of nature he had the power to punish, as he thought fit, any offences against that law; this included punishing his offspring when they offended, even after they had become adults; and it is very likely that each submitted to his own punishment and supported the father in punishing the others when they offended, thereby giving him power to carry out his sentence against any transgression. This would in effect make him the law-maker and governor over everyone who continued to be joined up with his family. He was the most fit to be trusted; paternal affection secured their property and interest under his care; and the childhood custom of obeying him made it easier to submit to him than to anyone else. So if they had to have •one man to rule them (for government can hardly be avoided when men live together), who so likely to be •the man as their common father, unless negligence, cruelty, or some other defect of mind or body made him unfit for it?
But when •the father died and left as his next heir someone who was less fit to rule (because too young, or lacking in wisdom, courage, or the like), or when •several families met and agreed to continue together, it can't be doubted that then •they used their natural freedom to set up as their ruler the one whom they judged to be the ablest and the most likely to rule well. And so we find the people of America—ones who lived 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, ·and made their own choices of ruler·. Other things being equal, they have commonly preferred the heir of their deceased king; but when they find him to be any way weak or uncapable, they pass him over and choose the toughest and bravest man as their ruler.
106. So the prevalence in early times of government by one man doesn't destroy what I affirm, namely that
the beginning of political society depends upon the individuals' consenting to create and join into onesociety; and when they are thus incorporated they can set up whatever form of government they think fit.
But people have been misled ·by the historical records· into thinking that by nature government is monarchical, and belongs to the father. So perhaps we should consider here why people in the beginning generally chose this ·one-man· form ·of government·. The father's pre-eminence might explain this in •the first stages of some commonwealths, but obviously the reason why government by a single person •continued through the years was not a respect for paternal authority; since all small monarchies (and most are small in their early years) have at least sometimes been elective.
107. [Locke repeats the reasons given in section 105 for fathers to be accepted as rulers in the early years of a political society. Then:] Add to that a further fact:-
Monarchy would be simple and obvious to men •whose experience hadn't instructed them in forms of government, and •who hadn't encountered the ambition or insolence of empire, which might teach them to beware of the. . . .drawbacks of absolute power which a hereditary monarchy was apt to lay claim to.
So it wasn't at all strange if they didn't take the trouble to think much about methods of restraining any excesses on the part of those to whom they had given authority over them, and of balancing the power of government by placing different parts of it in different hands. . . . It is no wonder that they gave themselves a form of government that was not only obvious and simple but also best suited to their present state and condition, in which they needed defence against foreign invasions and injuries more than they needed a multiplicity of laws. [Locke elaborates that last point: 'the equality of a simple poor way of living' meant that there would be few internal disputes, whereas there was always a need to be defended against foreign attack.]
108. And thus we see that the kings of the Indians in America are little more than generals of their armies. They command absolutely in war, because there there can't be a plurality of governors and so, naturally, command is exercised on the king's sole authority; but at home and in times of peace they exercise very little power, and have only a very moderate kind of sovereignty, the resolutions of peace and war being ordinarily made either by the people as a whole or by a council. ·It is important to keep America in mind, because· America even now is similar to how Asia and Europe were in the early years when there was more land than the people could use, and the lack of people and of money left men with no temptation to enlarge their possessions of land.
109. And thus in Israel itself the chief business of their judges and first kings seems to have been to be leaders of their armies. [This long section backs up that claim with a number of Old Testament references, all from Judges and 1 Samuel.]
110. So there are two ways in which a commonwealth might begin.
•A family gradually grew up into a commonwealth, and the fatherly authority was passed on ·in each generation· to the older son; everyone grew up under this system, and tacitly submitted to it because its easiness and equality didn't offend anyone; until time seemed to have confirmed it, and made it a rule that the right to governing authority was to be hereditary. •Several families. . . .somehow came to be settled in proximity to one another, and formed a social bond; they needed a general whose conduct might defend them against their enemies in war; and so they made one man their ruler, with no explicit limitation or restraint except what was implied by the nature of the thing [Locke's phrase] and the purposes of government. This lack of precautions reflected the great mutual confidence of the men who first started commonwealths—a product of the innocence and sincerity of that poor but virtuous age.
Whichever of those it was that first put the rule into the hands of a single person, it is certain that •when someone was entrusted with the status of ruler this was for the public good and safety, and that •in the infancies of commonwealths those who had that status usually used it for those ends. If they hadn't, young societies could not have survived. . . .
111. That was in the golden age, before vain ambition and wicked greed had corrupted men's minds into misunderstanding the nature of true power and honour. That age had more virtue, and consequently better governors and less vicious subjects, ·than we do now·; so there was (on one side) •no stretching of powers to oppress the people, and consequently (on the other side) •no disputatious attempts to lessen or restrict the power of the government, and therefore •no contest between rulers and people about governors or government. In later ages, however, ambition and luxury led monarchs to retain and increase their power without doing the work for which they were given it; and led them also (with the help of flattery) to have distinct and separate interests from their people. So men found it necessary to examine more carefully the origin and rights of government; and to discover ways to restrain the excesses and prevent the abuses of the power they had put into someone's hands only for their own good, finding that in fact it was being used to hurt them. [This section has another footnote quoting Hooker.]
112. This shows us how probable it is •that people who were naturally free, and who by their own consent created a government in either of the ways I have described, generally put the rule into one man's hands and chose to be under the conduct of a single person, without explicitly limiting or regulating his power, which they entrusted to his honesty and prudence. And •that they did this without having dreamed of monarchy being 'by divine right' (which indeed no-one heard of until it was revealed to us by the theological writers of recent years!), and without treating paternal power as the foundation of all government. What I have said ·from section 101 up to here· may suffice to show that as far as we have any light from history we have reason to conclude that all peaceful beginnings of government have been laid in the consent of the people. I say 'peaceful' because I shall have to deal later with conquest, which some regard as a way for governments to begin.
·THE 'BORN UNDER GOVERNMENT' OBJECTION·
113. The other objection I find urged against my account of how political societies begin—·see section 100·—is this:
All men are born under some government or other, so it is impossible for anyone to be at liberty to unite with others to begin a new government; impossible, anyway, to do this lawfully.
If this argument is sound, how did there come to be so many lawful monarchies in the world? To someone who accepts the argument I say: Show me any one man in any age of the world who was free to begin a lawful monarchy, and I'll show you ten other free men who were at liberty, at that time, to unite and begin a new government of some form or other. For it can be demonstrated that if someone who was born under the dominion of someone else can be free enough to ·come to· have a right to command others in a new and distinct empire, everyone who is born under the dominion of someone else can have that same freedom to become a ruler, or subject, of a distinct separate government. And so according to this line of thought, either •all men, however born, are free, or •there is only one lawful monarch, one lawful government, in the world. In the latter case, all that remains for my opponents to do is to point him out; and when they have done that I'm sure that all mankind will easily agree to obey him!
114. This is a sufficient answer to their objection; it shows that the objection makes as much trouble for their position as it does for the one they are opposing. Still, I shall try to reveal the weakness of their argument a little further. They say:
All men are born under some government and therefore can't be at liberty to begin a new one. Everyone is born a subject to his father, or his king, and is therefore perpetually a subject who owes allegiance to someone.
It is obvious mankind has never admitted or believed that any natural subjection that they were born into without their own consent, whether to father or to king, made them subjects ·for the rest of their lives· and did the same to their heirs.
115. For history, both religious and secular, is full of examples of men removing themselves and their obedience from the jurisdiction they were born under and from the family or community they grew up in, and setting up new governments in other places. That was the source of all the numerous little commonwealths in the early years: they went on multiplying as long as there was room enough for them, until the stronger or luckier swallowed the weaker; and then those large ones in turn broke into pieces which became smaller dominions. Thus history is full of testimonies against paternal sovereignty, plainly proving that what made governments in the beginning was not a natural right of the father being passed on to his heirs. If that had been the basis of government, there couldn't possibly have been so many little kingdoms. There could only have been one universal monarchy unless men had been free to choose to separate themselves from their families and whatever kind of government their families had set up for themselves, and to go and make distinct commonwealths and other governments.
116. This has been the practice of the world from its first beginning to the present day. Men who are now born under constituted and long-standing political states, with established laws and set forms of government, are no more restricted in their freedom by that fact about their birth than they would be if they had been born in the forests among the ungoverned inhabitants who run loose there. Those who want to persuade us that by being born under a government we are naturally subject to it. . . .have only one argument for their position (setting aside the argument from paternal power, which I have already answered), namely: our fathers or ancestors gave up their natural liberty, and thereby bound up themselves and their posterity to perpetual subjection to the government to which they themselves submitted. . . . But no-one can by any compact whatever bind his children or posterity; for when his son becomes an adult he is altogether as free as the father, so an act of the father can no more give away the liberty of the son than it can give away anyone else's liberty. A father can indeed attach conditions to the inheritance of his land, so that the son can't have possession and enjoyment of possessions that used to be his fathers unless he becomes ·or continues to be· a subject of the commonwealth to which the father used to belong. Because that estate is the father's property, he can dispose of it in any way he likes.
117. This has led to a widespread mistake ·concerning political subjection·. Commonwealths don't permit any part of their land to be dismembered, or to be enjoyed by any but their own members; so a son can't ordinarily enjoy the possessions—·mainly consisting of land·—of his father except on the terms on which his father did, namely becoming ·by his own consent· a member of that society; and that immediately subjects him to the government he finds established there, just as much as any other subject of that commonwealth. So free men who are born under government do give their consent to it, ·doing this through the inheritance of land·; but they do this one by one, as each reaches the age ·at which he can inherit·, rather than doing it as group, all together; so people don't notice this, and think that consent isn't given at all or isn't necessary; from which they infer that they are naturally subjects just as they are naturally men.
118. But clearly that isn't how governments themselves understand the matter: they don't claim that the power they had over the father gives them power over the son, regarding children as being their subjects just because their fathers were so. If a subject of England has a child by an English woman in France, whose subject is the child? Not the king of England's; for he must apply to be accounted an Englishman. And not the king of France's; for •his father is at liberty to bring him out of France and bring him up anywhere he likes; and anyway •who ever was judged as a traitor (or deserter) because he left (or fought against) a country in which he was born to parents who were foreigners there? It is clear, then, from the practice of governments themselves as well as from the law of right reason, that a child at birth is not a subject of any country or government. He is under his father's tuition and authority until he reaches the age of discretion; and then he is free to choose what government he will put himself under, what body politic he will unite himself to. . . .
119. I have shown that every man is naturally free, and that nothing can make him subject to any earthly power except his own consent. That raises the question: What are we to understand as a sufficient declaration of a man's consent—·sufficient, that is·, to make him subject to the laws of some government? The common distinction between explicit and tacit consent is relevant here. Nobody doubts that an •explicit consent of a man entering into a society makes him perfectly a member of that society, a subject of that government. Our remaining question concerns •tacit consent: What counts as tacit consent, and how far does it bind? That is: What does a man have to do to be taken to have consented to be subject of a given government, when he hasn't explicitly given such consent? I answer:
If a man owns or enjoys some part of the land under a given government, while that enjoyment lasts he gives his tacit consent to the laws of that government and is obliged to obey them. [See the explanation of 'enjoyment' in section 31.] This holds, whether •the land is the owned property of himself and his heirs for ever, or •he only lodges on it for a week. It holds indeed if •he is only travelling freely on the highway; and in effect it holds as long as •he is merely in the territories of the government in question.
120. To understand this better, consider how •land comes within the reach of governments. When a man first incorporates •himself into any commonwealth he automatically brings with him and submits to the community •the possessions that he does or will have (if they don't already belong to some other government). ·Why? Well·, suppose it is wrong, and that
someone could enter with others into society for securing and regulating property, while assuming that his land, his ownership of which is to be regulated by the laws of the society, should be exempt from the jurisdiction of the government to which he himself is subject.
This is an outright contradiction! So the act through which a person unites •himself—his previously free self—to any commonwealth also unites •his possessions—his previously free possessions—to that commonwealth. Both of them, the person and his possessions, are subject to the government and dominion of that commonwealth for as long as it exists. From that time on, therefore, anyone who comes to enjoy that land—whether through inheritance, purchase, permission, or whatever—must take it with the condition it is already under, namely, submission to the government of the commonwealth under whose jurisdiction it falls.
121. ·So much for •land; now for •the users of land·. If a land-owner hasn't actually incorporated himself in the society ·of the commonwealth whose domain includes the land in question·, the government ·of that commonwealth· has direct jurisdiction only over the land; its jurisdiction reaches as far as the land-owner only when and to the extent that he lives on his land and enjoys it. The political obligation that someone is under by virtue of his enjoyment of his land begins and ends with the enjoyment. So •if a land-owner who has given only this sort of tacit consent to the government wants to give, sell, or otherwise get rid of his land, he is at liberty to go and incorporate himself into some other commonwealth, or to agree with others to begin a new one in any part of the world that they can find free and unpossessed. In contrast with that, if •someone has once by actual agreement and an explicit declaration given his consent to belonging to some commonwealth, he is perpetually and irrevocably obliged to continue as its subject; he can never be again in the liberty of the state of nature—unless through some calamity the government in question •comes to be dissolved, or by some public act •cuts him off from being any longer a member of that commonwealth.
122. But submitting to the laws of a country, living quietly and enjoying privileges and protection under them, doesn't make a man a member of that society; all it does is to give him local protection from, and oblige him to pay local homage to, the government of that country. This doesn't make him a member of that society, a perpetual subject of that commonwealth, any more than you would become subject to me because you found it convenient to live for a time in my household (though while you were there you would be obliged to comply with the laws and submit to the government that you found there). And so we see that foreigners who live all their lives under another government, enjoying the privileges and protection of it, don't automatically come to be subjects or members of that commonwealth (though they are bound, ·by positive law and· even in conscience, to submit to its administration, just as its subjects or members are). Nothing can make a man a subject except his actually entering into the commonwealth by positive engagement, and explicit promise and compact.—-That is what I think regarding the beginning of political societies, and the consent that makes one a member of a commonwealth.
123. If man in the state of nature is as free as I have said he is—if he is absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest and subject to nobody—why will he part with his freedom? Why will he give up this lordly status and subject himself to the control of someone else's power? The answer is obvious:
Though in the state of nature he has an unrestricted right to his possessions, he is far from assured that he will be able to get the use of them, because they are constantly exposed to invasion by others. All men are kings as much as he is, every man is his equal, and most men are not strict observers of fairness and justice; so his hold on the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very insecure. This makes him willing to leave a state in which he is very free, but which is full of fears and continual dangers; and not unreasonably he looks for others with whom he can enter into a society for the mutual preservation of their •lives, •liberties and •estates, which I call by the general name •'property'. (The others may be ones who are already united in such a society, or ones who would like to be so united.)
124. So the great and chief purpose of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property. The state of nature lacks many things that are needed for this; ·I shall discuss three of them·. First, The state of nature lacks •an established, settled, known law, received and accepted by common consent as the standard of right and wrong and as the common measure to decide all controversies. What about the law of nature? Well, it is plain and intelligible to all reasonable creatures; but men are biased by self-interest, as well as ignorant about the law of nature because they don't study it; and so they aren't apt to accept it as a law that will bind them if it is applied to their particular cases.
125. Secondly, the state of nature lacks •a known and impartial judge, with authority to settle all differences according to the established law. In that state everyone is both judge and enforcer of the law of nature, ·and few men will play either role well·. Men are partial to themselves, so that passion and revenge are very apt to carry them too far, and with too much heat, in their own cases; and their negligence and lack of concern will make them remiss in other men's cases.
126. Thirdly, the state of nature often lacks •a power to back up and support a correct sentence, and to enforce it properly. People who have committed crimes will usually, if they can, resort to force to retain the benefits of their crime; ·this includes using force to resist punishment·; and such resistance often makes the punishment dangerous, even destructive, to those who try to inflict it.
127. Thus mankind are in poor shape while they remain in the state of nature—despite all their privileges there—so that they are quickly driven into society. That is why we seldom find any number of men living together for long in this state. The drawbacks it exposes them to. . . .make them take refuge under the established laws of government, and seek there to preserve their property. This is what makes each one of them so willingly give up his power of punishing, a power then to be exercised only by whoever is appointed to that role, this being done by whatever rules are agreed on by the community or by those whom they have authorized to draw up the rules for them. This is the basic cause, as well as the basic justification, for the legislative and executive powers ·within a government· as well as for the governments and societies themselves.
128. For in the state of nature a man has, along with his liberty to enjoy innocent delights, two powers. The first is to do whatever he thinks fit for the preservation of himself and of others, so far as the law of nature permits. This law makes him and all the rest of mankind into one community, one society, distinct from all other creatures. And if it weren't for the corruption and viciousness of degenerate men, there would be no need for any other law—no need for men to separate from this great •natural community and by •positive agreements combine into separate smaller associations. [See the explanation of 'positive' on page 3.] The other power a man has in the state of nature is the power to punish crimes committed against the law of nature. He gives up both these powers when he joins in a particular politic society—a private one, so to speak—and brings himself into any commonwealth, separate from the rest of mankind.
129. The first power. . . .he gives up to be regulated by laws made by the society, so far as is required for the preservation of himself and the rest of the society. Such laws greatly restrict the liberty he had under the law of nature.
130. Secondly, he wholly gives up the power of punishing; the natural force that he could use for punishment in the state of nature he now puts at the disposal of the executive power of the society. Now that he is in a new state, in which
he will enjoy many advantages from the labour, assistance, and society of others in the same community, as well as protection from the strength of the community as a whole,
he must also ·give up something. For·
he will have to part with as much of his natural freedom to provide for himself as is required for the welfare, prosperity, and safety of the society.
As well as being necessary, this is fair, because the other members of the society are doing the same thing.
131. But though men who enter into society give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in the state of nature. . . .each of them does this only with the intention of better preserving himself, his liberty and property (for no rational creature can be thought to change his condition intending to make it worse). So the power of the society or legislature that they create can never be supposed to extend further than the common good. It is obliged to secure everyone's property by providing against the three defects mentioned above ·in sections 124-6·, the ones that made the state of nature so unsafe and uneasy. Whoever has the legislative or supreme power in any commonwealth, therefore, is bound (1) to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and known to the people (and not by on-the-spot decrees), with unbiased and upright judges appointed to apply those laws in deciding controversies; and (2) to employ the force of the community •at home only in the enforcement of such laws, or •abroad to prevent or correct foreign injuries and secure the community from attack. And all this is to be directed to the peace, safety, and public good of the people, and to nothing else.
Locke, J. (1689). Second Treatise of Government. In Early Modern Texts (p. 11). https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/locke1689a.pdf