DOCUMENTS of FREEDOM Unit 1: The Foundations of American Government

History, Government & Economics through Primary Sources Reading 4: Rights

Handout A: Excerpts from Hobbes’s The Leviathan and

from Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government

Directions: Read, discuss, and analyze your assigned section, either Hobbes or Locke. Use
underlining, marginal notes, and other reading skills to find the main ideas and put the excerpt in
your own words. Next, you will share your section with students who read the other author’s work.
Then, you will work together to complete the table and answer the questions on Handout B.

THOMAS HOBBES
[BRACKETED PHRASES ARE ADDED AS AN AID TO UNDERSTANDING.]
[In a state of nature] Hereby it is manifest that endureth, there can be no security to any man,
during the time men live without a common how strong or wise soever he be, of living out
power to keep them all in awe, they are in that the time which nature ordinarily alloweth men
condition which is called war; and such a war as to live. And consequently it is a precept, or
is of every man against every man. … general rule of reason: that every man ought
to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of
In such condition there is no place for industry,
obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that
because the fruit thereof is uncertain: … and
he may seek and use all helps and advantages of
which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of
war. The first branch of which rule containeth the
violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor,
first and fundamental law of nature, which is: to
nasty, brutish, and short.
seek peace and follow it. The second, the sum of
THE right of nature … is the liberty each man the right of nature, which is: by all means we can
hath to use his own power as he will himself to defend ourselves. …
for the preservation of his own nature; that
Right is laid aside, either by simply renouncing
is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of
it, or by transferring it to another …And when a
doing anything which, in his own judgment and
man hath in either manner abandoned or granted
reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means
away his right, [as in consenting to obey a
thereunto [the best method to preserve his life]…
government that helps protect his life] then is he
And because the condition of man … is a said to be obliged, or bound, not to hinder those
condition of war of every one against every one, to whom such right is granted, or abandoned,
in which case every one is governed by his own from the benefit of it...
reason, … it followeth that in such a condition
The mutual transferring of right is that which
every man has a right to every thing, even to
men call contract…
one another’s body. And therefore, as long as
this natural right of every man to every thing If a covenant be made wherein neither of the

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Handout A: Page 2
parties perform presently, but trust one another, Therefore before the names of Just and Unjust
in the condition of mere nature (which is a can have place, there must be some coercive
condition of war of every man against every Power, to compel men equally to the performance
man) upon any reasonable suspicion, it is void: of their Covenants..., to make good that
but if there be a common power set over them Propriety, which by mutual contract men acquire,
both, with right and force sufficient to compel in recompense of the universal Right they
performance, it is not void… abandon: and such power there is none before
the erection of the Commonwealth.

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Handout A: Page 3
JOHN LOCKE
§ 4. government is, to have a standing rule to live by,
common to every one of that society, and made
TO understand political power right, and derive it
by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty
from its original, we must consider what state all
to follow my own will in all things, where the
men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect
rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the
freedom to order their actions and dispose of
inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of
their possessions and persons, as they think fit,
another man: as freedom of nature is, to be under
within the bounds of the law of nature; without
no other restraint but the law of nature…
asking leave, or depending upon the will of any
other man. A state also of equality, wherein all § 27.
the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one
Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be
having more than another…
common to all men, yet every man has a property
§ 6. in his own person: this nobody has any right to
but himself. The labor of his body, and the work
But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is
of his hands, we may say, are properly his…
not a state of license: though man in that state
have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his § 87.
person or possessions, yet he has not liberty to
[T]here and there only is political society, where
destroy himself, or so much as any creature in
every one of the members hath quitted his
his possession, but where some nobler use than
natural power, resigned it up into the hands of
its bare preservation calls for it. The state of
the community in all cases that excludes him
nature has a law of nature to govern it, which
not from appealing for protection to the law
obliges every one: and reason, which is that law,
established by it. And thus all private judgment
teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that
of every particular member being excluded,
being all equal and independent, no one ought
the community comes to be umpire, by settled
to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or
standing rules, indifferent, and the same to all
possessions… Every one… may not, unless it be to
parties…
do justice to an offender, take away or impair the
life, or what tends to the preservation of life, the § 123.
liberty, health, limb, or goods of another…
IF man in the state of nature be so free, as has
§ 22. been said; if he be absolute lord of his own
person and possessions, equal to the greatest,
THE natural liberty of man is to be free from any
and subject to nobody, why will he part with his
superior power on earth, and not to be under the
freedom? Why will he give up his empire, and
will or legislative authority of man, but to have
subject himself to the dominion and control
only the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of
of any other power? To which it is obvious to
man, in society, is to be under no other legislative
answer, that though in the state of nature he
power, but that established, by consent, in
hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very
the commonwealth … freedom of men under
uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion

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Handout A: Page 4

of others; for all being kings as much as he, every

man his equal, and the greater part no strict
observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of
the property he has in this state is very unsafe,
very unsecure. This makes him willing to quit a
condition, which, however free, is full of fears and
continual dangers: and it is not without reason,
that he seeks out, and is willing to join in society
with others, who are already united, or have a
mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of
their lives, liberties, and estates, which I call by
the general name, property.

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