Revolutions of '76 and '61 [pp. 36-47]

REVOLUTIONS CONTRASTED.
part of his book to adopt some of his theories. In truth, there is
no political science in his work. It is a mere political index.
Any clever man, with a good library, a good librarian, and half a
dozen clerks, might turn out twenty such works in a year.
Locke's doctrine of human equality, which was plagiarized
literatiri et verbatim by Mr. Jefferson, and incorporated in the
Declaration of Independence and put into active force in the Chi cago Platform, on which Mr. Lincoln was nominated, is thus ex pressed in the beginning of the eighth chapter of his work on
Civil Government: "MAen being, as has been said, by nature, all
free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of his own
estate and subjected to the political force of another without his
own consent. The only way by which any once divests himself of
his natural liberty and puts on the bonds of society, is by agree ing with other men, to join and unite in a community for their
comfortable, safe, and peaceable living, one among another, in a
secure enjoyment of their properties and a greater security against
any that are not of it." This passage in Locke, is almost literally
copied into the first two sentences of the Declaration of Independence. First, "All mnen are created equal;" secondly, "Governments aire instituted among men." That is, man is not a social
animal, born into society, born a member and subject of government, but, society and government are human discoveries and
institutions-not pre-ordained by God, like flocks, and hives, and
herds. This is the infidel doctrine of Locke's and the Declaration of Independence. Thirdly, "That governments derive their
just power from the consent of the governed." Now, men and
horses and all creatures subject to government, submit to be governed, but do not consent to be governed; a consent government
is no government, for it implies that all shall think alike, conse ltio. But to constitute a government at all, the rulers must
think for those who are ruled. Those who consent are not governed, for to be governed implies that one is required and compelled to do -by a superior power, that which, left to himself, he
would not do. He alone is governed whose will is subjected and
controlled by the will of another. He submits but does not consent.
These doctrines of Locke, put into distinct and imposing form
in the Declaration of Independence and exported from America to
France, acted like a torpedo shot into a magazine. They blew up,
first the French monarchy, and shortly thereafter, all the monairchies of Western Europe, but established in their stead, not the
absurdity of a "consent government," but the military despotism
of Bonaparte.
This disruption and dislocation of all of the ties of society consequent upon the doctrines of Locke, and our Declaration of Independence, have kept Europe in the critical throes of social and
political revolution for seventy-five or eighty years past. We
have neither time nor space to follow out and depict its history,
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