Second Treatise of Government

In one of the founding texts of modern political thought, Locke argues that legitimate government rests on the consent of the governed, that all people possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property, and that citizens may justly resist rulers who violate their trust. Written amid the upheavals of seventeenth-century England, the Second Treatise laid the intellectual foundations of liberal democracy and directly inspired the American Declaration of Independence. Clear, rigorous, and revolutionary, it reshaped how the world understands authority, freedom, and the rights of the individual against the state. Enduringly influential, Locke’s Second Treatise of Government remains essential reading for anyone who would understand the origins of modern liberty and self-government.