Upon reading Locke’s Second Treatise Of Government it becomes apparent that he was

an advocate of the limitation of political power. Locke proposes a separation of power within

government as a means to satisfy this before the idea emerges in Montesquieu’s writings (Gough

1973). Locke believed that governmental power should be vested in more than one institution in

order to safeguard against one institution having too great a degree of power. Locke’s writing is a work against absolutism, which he saw as a sure road to tyranny. This is an issue which forms a firm basis of Locke’s theory and will be discussed below.

Locke has taken the two principle rights man enjoys in the State of Nature, the right to interpret the Law of Nature for ourselves and the right to punish anyone who goes against it, and has given them two independent institutions (Ashcraft 1987). These institutions, while both designed to be working towards the common good, have come into being in Locke’s system in such a way that society is protected against abuse of this system. Locke’s assumption of mans “frailty” leads him to include these insurance’s agai

Locke argues that it would not at all be ideal to have a situation whereby any man has a hand in both the Legislative and Executive branches of government. Locke feels that in this case the man would consider himself supreme. “it may be too great a temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons, who have the power of making the laws, to have also in their hands the power to execute them, whereby they may exempt themselves from obedience to the laws they make.” and thus in Locke’s terms he believes that said person may “come to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community, contrary to the end of society and government.” (Locke, 143).

When man emerges from the State of Nature he does this initially, according to Locke, by releasing his individual rights of the execution of the Law of Nature to the community. Everyone makes a simultaneous contract with each other to surrender this right to the community. That is his right to punish anyone that has transgressed the Natural Law. To then move from a community to a political society we must establish the Legislature via an “informal majoritarian process” (Lloyd Thomas 1995). While the Legislative power is brought into being by the majority it is not via any form of contract direct with the people. Were it to be the legislative powers with which the people held contract, rather than the executive, conflict could arise in matters of dispute between the people and the Legislature at which point a stalemate could be reached. Both would have equal rights and powers over the other and no conclusion would follow. As far as Locke is concerned the power wielded by the Government belongs to the people so this could not be so, the people must be free to withdraw their trust at any point in time (Locke 149). Hence in Locke’s model the legislative itself was accountable to the people. Simultaneously remaining supreme over the Executive and maintaining the power to oversee its duties.

Clearly the fact that both institutions o

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