Second Treatise of Government

*An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent and End of Civil-Government* is the second of Locke's *Two Treatises*. Across 19 chapters Locke moves from a state of nature governed by natural law to the formation of civil society, the labor theory of property, the legitimacy and limits of legislative and executive power, and — most provocatively — the conditions under which a people may dissolve a government that has violated their trust. The American Declaration of Independence is unthinkable without it; modern liberal democracy traces its lineage to Locke's arguments here.