Locke Slavery

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Political Theory

DOI: 10.1177/00905917083178992008; 36; 495 originally published online May 6, 2008;Political Theory

James FarrLocke, Natural Law, and New World Slavery

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Political TheoryVolume 36 Number 4

August 2008 495-522 2008 Sage Publications

10.1177/0090591708317899

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495

Authors Note: For help or commentary, I would like to thank David Armitage, RobertBernasconi, Daniel Carey, Terrell Carver, Mary Dietz, Ruth Grant, Russell Hanson, StephenLeonard, Kirstie McClure, Christophe Miqueu, J. R. Milton, Mark Schemper, WilliamUzgalis, Alden Vaughan, and Gene Waddell. I am also indebted to discussions with universityaudiences at Oxford, Duke, Northwestern, Memphis, and the American PhilosophicalAssociation in Portland.

Locke, Natural Law,and New World Slavery

James Farr Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

This essay systematically reformulates an earlier argument about Locke and

new world slavery, adding attention to Indians, natural law, and Lockesreception. Locke followed Grotian natural law in constructing a just-war theoryof slavery. Unlike Grotius, though, he severely restricted the theory, making itinapplicable to America. It only fit resistance to absolute power in StuartEngland. Locke was nonetheless an agent of British colonialism who issuedinstructions governing slavery. Yet they do not inform his theoryor viceversa. This creates hermeneutical problems and raises charges of racism. If Locke deserves the epithet racist, it is not for his having a racial doctrine

justifying slavery. None of this makes for a flattering portrait. Lockes

reputation as the champion of liberty would not survive the contradictions inwhich new world slavery ensnared him. Evidence for this may be found inLockes reception, including by Southern apologists for slavery.

Keywords: Locke; slavery; America; natural law

In an 1819 letter, Thomas Jefferson paraphrased John Lockes definitionof a madman as someone who has a kink in his head on some partic-ular subject, which neither reason nor fact can untangle.

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Jefferson hadcertain Calvinists in mind; Locke, those enthusiasts persuaded of divineinspiration. But with respect to slavery , Locke as well as Jefferson had akink in his head and neither reason nor fact can untangle the contradic-tion of his conduct and writings.

This essay engages persistent controversies that circulate aroundLockes practical role in and theorization about new world slavery. These

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496 Political Theory

controversies, since the eighteenth century, gained scholarly gravity in1960 with the publication of the definitive edition of the Two Treatises of

Government by Peter Laslett, who connected Locke to new world slavery. 2Recently, the colonial reading of Locke has made the fact of his involve-ment in American affairs central to the interpretation of his writings. 3 Thereis by now a sizeable literature arguing that Locke intended to justify newworld slavery or his role in it; 4 and an equally sizeable one that he did not. 5

Rejoining the latter, this essay offers a systematic reformulation of an ear-lier argument that played a part in this controversial literature. 6 It providesthe occasion to respond to critics, clarify misunderstandings, and cast a

wider net across Lockes writings, both theoretical and colonial. In doingso, it also pays closer attentionas few haveto American Indians, naturallaw, and Lockes reception, as these bear on slavery.

The abstract provides a crib of the general argument. We begin with abrief account of Lockes only theory of slaveryby just-warand somebiographical facts relevant to the colonial context. Then follow the kinksand contradictions.

The Just-War Theoryand Lockes Colonial Context

In the Second Treatise , Locke developed a natural law theory thatexplained and justified slavery as a consequence of just war. Slavery wasthe condition of total servitude for an unjust aggressor taken captive in war.Locke presented his just-war theory, with severe restrictions, in chapters 4and 16Of Slavery and Of Conquestwith further glimpses inchapters 3, 7, 15, and 18, from the state of war to the dissolution of govern-ment. He defines slavery [as] nothing else, but the State of War continued,between a lawful Conqueror, and a Captive. Slaves, then, are Captivestaken in a just War (2.24; 2.85). 7 By his unjust aggression, the captive hasforfeited his own Life, by some Act that deserves Death (2.23). Justly, hiscaptor may put him to service in lieu of death. His power and authorityhis dominionover the captive-now-slave is absolute and arbitrary. Theslaves condition, when justified, contrasts dramatically with a person or apeople who deserve their rights and freedom under the law of nature or thelaws of civil society. At this level of abstractionand subject to severerestrictions, belowslavery may exist, in principle, whenever hostilitiescease to the satisfaction of the aggressed party, whether in ancient Rome,Saxon Britain, or wilderness America.



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Lockes intentions in forwarding his theory of slavery are not clear fromthe Two Treatises alone. If the theory were to be applied to the new world,

Locke would have known everything relevant to its application. For he wasfully informed or involved in colonial slavery, the slave trade, and newworld conditions for Africans, Indians, and English colonists. This was dueto his long colonial service and personal interests which began in 1667upon joining the household of Anthony Ashley Coopermerchant adven-turer, Lord Proprietor of Carolina, and, in 1672, Earl of Shaftesbury andLord Chancellor. Besides serving as Ashleys personal secretary and coun-selor (for fifteen years), Locke served as secretary to the Lords Proprietors

of Carolina (between 1671 and 1675) and the Council of Trade and ForeignPlantations (from 1673 to 1674). He also gained financially from hisservice under Ashley, investing alongside his patron in the Royal AfricanCompany (400 in 1674 and 200 more in 1675) and in the Bahamas trade(100 in 1675) which he liquidated at profit (in 1676). 8 Locke remained inShaftesburys colonial affairs until late 1682 when Shaftesbury fled toHolland and fell mortally ill. To judge by reading and correspondence,Locke never ceased to be informed about the new world, even during his

political exile between 1683 and 1690. He again accepted colonial servicefrom 1696 to 1700, under William III, as a leading commissioner of theBoard of Trade for colonial affairs.

As secretary, Locke read and often endorsed (with JL) sources of intelligence about slavery in the new world, including colonists raids, cap-ture, and trade of Indians. 9 Supplementing his official activities, Locke reador owned the leading atlases, travelogues, and discoveries, with theirdescriptions of African and Indian slaves. 10 Besides those by Jean de Lry(1578), Joseph Acosta (1604), Gabriel Sagard (1632, 1636), and Garcilasode la Vega (1633, 1658)which Locke cited in his writingsthese worksincluded A Relation of a Discovery Lately Made on the Coast of Florida(1664) by William Hilton, the atlas America (1671) by John Ogilby, and

Discoveries . . . from Virginia to the West of Carolina (1672) by JohnLederer and dedicated to Ashley. In Hilton, Locke found an earlyProposal from the Lords Proprietors of Carolina soliciting first settlerswith land grants; slave-owners were to receive twenty acres for everyNegro-man or Slave and ten for every Woman-Negro or Slave. 11 FromOgilby, he read tales of Spanish cruelties toward slaves and other tales of slaves having killed themselves, despairing of ever being released fromtheir slavery. He was also apprised of Negro Slaves grown Masterless inJamaica after the Spanish departed and before they submit[ted] themselvesto the English Government. For Ogilby, Locke likely wrote at least part if

Farr / Locke, Natural Law, and New World Slavery 497



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not all of the chapter on Carolina and confirmed the population count of Negro slaves from Guinea in Barbados. 12

Locke further informed himselfand othersby cartography and corre-spondence. He copied and improved the first (since lost) map of the CapeFear region. 13 In 1671, he drew a map of the whole of Carolina, naming manyprominent features. This map served as the basis for the official First LordsProprietorsMap, printed in (some later copies of) Ogilbys America .14 Lockealso corresponded with colonial agents, notably Sir Peter Colleton who inher-ited his fathers proprietorship in Carolina and owned a large plantation inBarbados. 15 Colleton kept Locke informed of the machinations of the other

leading colonists, including Sir John Yeamans who first brought Africanslaves to Carolina. 16 Locke also corresponded with Dr. Henry Woodward,surgeon and discoverer known to travel with younger Indian slaves andwho promised Shaftesbury skins and Indian slaves should he desire them. 17

Woodward informed Locke that the Westo Indians, with whom he hadopened trade relations, were a far more ingeneous people then our coastIndiansdespite rumors of cannibalismfor believing in the immortalityof the soul and some notions of the deluge. 18

Locke even claimed to have had personal intelligence about Indians.This has passed unnoticed by most commentators. But, in the Essay , Lockeopenly refers to some Americans , I have spoken with. 19 To infer from hismemoranda and the careful researches of Alden Vaughan and GeneWaddell, Locke spoke to Two Cassiques sonneseither to two sons of theEmperor of Cofitachequi or a Kiawah cassique or possibly to sons of twodifferent cassiques in coastal Carolina. Upon the recommendation of Woodward, the pair traveled to England in 1670 on the Lord Proprietorsship Carolina via Barbados where they were clothed and civilly treatedas guests of Peter Colletons younger brother, Thomas. Before returninghome via Bermuda in 1672, they were kindly received by his Majesty[Charles II], and received many rich presents from the King and Court.Their native names were not recorded, though they were presented to theKing, Restoration dignitaries, and presumably Locke, then secretary to theLords Proprietors, as Honest and Just. 20 To judge by the Essay , Lockespoke with them about numbers (and probably much else), estimating themof quick and Rational parts. It is likely that Honest and Just were to him,in a memorandum, envoys of honest just people. 21 They may havebeen living exemplars of the ancient savage Americans whose naturalEndowments and native rustick Reason Locke noted in the Essay andwhose Decency and Civility in their Discourses and Conversationsmerited attention in Some Thoughts concerning Education .22




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Locke, then, was a surveyor of intelligence about Indians, Africans, andEnglish colonists. However, he was also an agent of empire who issued or

transcribed instructions that shaped the new world about which he knewso much. The most important of these colonial instructions was theFundamental Constitutions of Carolina . While short-lived, this foundingdocument of the proprietary colony remains an important state paper in thehistory of slavery and English colonization. Lockes role was later down-played or denied when crediting Ashley as principal architect, even thoughColleton allowed at the time that Locke had played so great a hand in itscomposition. 23 Recently, as a result of the painstaking labors of David

Armitage, Lockes contributions in writing the Fundamental Constitutionsin 1669, amending them in 1670, and amending them again in 1682 hasbeen more fully established. 24

The two instructions on slavery in the Fundamental Constitutions arecentral to understanding Lockes writings and colonial conduct. Obliged bycharity, one made it lawful for slaves to be of what church any of themshall think best. . . . But yet, no slave shall hereby be exempted from thatcivil dominion his master has over him, but be in all other things in the

same state and condition he was in before. The other was far less charita-ble, save to owners: Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute powerand Authority over his Negro slaves, of what opinion or religion soever. 25

The additional emphasis on absolute < power and > authority was an earlyrevision that bolstered the phrase. While Locke did not make the revision,he was presumably present when it was, raising no objection to it, as he didto the prospects of an established church. 26 The addition was evocative of the language of absolute power that Locke used in the Two Treatiseswhen decrying slavery and tyranny. But it was also simply consonant withofficial declarations granting full and absolute Power and Authority to the

Lords Proprietors over the colonists in Carolina. 27 The notorious instruc-tion on Negro slaves was directly followed in the 1670 version by onewhich denied the legitimacy of landholding if purchased from the nativesor from any other person besides the Lords Proprietors. 28 The FundamentalConstitutions also instructed that All the children of leet men shall be leetmen, and so to all generations, thereby creating hereditary tenancy or serf-dom for poor whites. Hereditary nobility were also created in the form of landgraves (borrowing from Germanic sources) and cassiques (gestur-ing to the Latin original for South American Indian chiefs). 29

Lockes fortunes waxed and waned due to the Fundamental Constitutionsand slavery. At first, he fared well under their terms. The Lords Proprietorsnominated him their first landgrave in 1671, with a patent of four baronies




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of 12,000 acres each. This put him in line to become a Lord Proprietor him-self, should one of the eight lifetime proprietors die without an heir or

assignee. Locke Island at the mouth of Ashley River was named for himwith plans for a plantation. 30 A few years later Locke fantasized aboutestablishing on his very fine island . . . an empire of repose and letterswith his friend Nicolas Toinard, as Emperor. 31 Locke reador wrote of the Fundamental Constitutions as the best and Fairest Frame of govern-ment in Ogilbys America . The Model and Form of Government, as wellas the provisions for liberty of conscience, were there praised, to lure set-tlers crowded on Barbados and Bermuda. 32 No mention was made in the

chapter to the absolute power of the Lords Proprietors or over Negroslaves. Several decades after his death in 1704 and certainly in our time,Locke came to fare less well in the shadow of slavery and the FundamentalConstitutions , as we shall see below.

Given the depth of his informed involvement in new world slavery,Lockes hands are dirty. Knowing that those hands wrote the Two Treatisesand contributed to the Fundamental Constitutions , it is not unreasonable toassume a connection between them and, more generally, between Lockes

political theory and colonial practice. As noted, some scholars believeLocke intended precisely to justify African slavery in just-war terms. JamesTully has extended the reach of Lockes theory; it may also refer toAmerindian slavery. 33 But the situation is more complicated and vexing inlight of Lockes adversaries and the severe restrictions he placed on the

just-war theory. In any case, if Locke intended his just war theory to justifythe execrable practices of new world slavery, about which he knew somuch, then he did a spectacularly bad job of it. But there are reasons tobelieve that he did not so intend the theory, in whatever contradictions thislands him. To appreciate this, let us return to Lockes theory and the naturallaw tradition it followedand violated.

Locke on Filmer and Grotius

Not only was the First Treatise directed against Sir Robert Filmer, so toowas the chapter on slavery in the Second Treatise . Filmer was the onlyadversary cited; and indeed it was the only place that Locke actually quotedFilmer anywhere in the Second Treatise . The short passage came fromObservations Upon Aristotles Politiques Touching Forms of Government (1652), where Filmer pronounced that for those who favor popular com-monweals . . . true liberty is for every man to do what he list, or to live




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as he please, and not to be tied to any laws. 34 Within a paragraph, Filmerdrove home what he took to be the absurd conclusion from this view thatmen are by nature free-born, namely, that it is not lawful for any govern-ment but self-government to be in the world. He elaborated the absurdities,as he saw them:

[I]f the Fathers will promise for themselves to be slaves, yet for their childrenthey cannot, who have always the same right to set themselves at liberty,which their Fathers had to enslave themselves. 35

To this, Locke responded indignantly that Freedom of Men under Government is, to have a standing Rule to live by or, if in a state of nature, to be gov-erned by the Law of Nature (2.22). Moreover, he directly denied that afather or any man can enslave himself to any one (2.23). This involvedmore power than a man rightly has over himself, being the workmanship of God; and Biblical examples indicated that men did sell themselves; but tisplain, this was only to Drudgery , not to Slavery (2.24). Between quotingFilmer and interpreting Scripture, Locke defined justified slavery as thecontinued state of war between lawful conqueror and captive. Lockesfourth chapter was and remains noteworthy for its brevity, presumption of natural freedom, just-war doctrine, proscription of slavery by consent orself-sale, and pointed criticism of Sir R. F. It is also noteworthy sinceLocke introduced the prospect of the slaves suicide: For, whenever hefinds the hardship of his Slavery out-weigh the value of his Life, tis in hisPower, by resisting the Will of his Master, to draw on himself the Death hedesires (2.23).

Neither the scope of these issues nor the just-war theory itself was new withLocke. They were part of the framework of modern natural law (encompass-ing the law of nations). If Lockes theory of slavery surprises those enamoredof his account of natural rightsmuch less his so-called liberalismitmade perfect sense at the time in light of the law of nature and nations asso-ciated with Hugo Grotius and his followers. The tradition of natural law (andright) was by Lockes day long-standing. Within it, as Richard Tuck hasestablished, arguments that started with states of natural freedom or premisesconcerning natural right and duty (often) ended up justifying absolute power

or just enslavement. Gerson, Mazzolini, Molina, Selden, Hobbes, andPufendorf all did so, in varying ways. Grotius, however, was especiallyimportant because of the architectural grandeur of his theory and his influ-ence on Locke. In Tucks estimation, the most faithfully Grotian theoryavailable from the presses of the late seventeenth century was that of




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Locke. 36 While Locke was not in agreement with Grotius on crucial restric-tions, his theory of slavery (and much else) was Grotian in form.

In The Rights of War and Peace (1625), Grotius elaborated upon a justor solemn war in contrast to an unjust one. In book III, he considered whatwas permitted in a just war, including killing enemies and taking or enslav-ing prisoners. Contra Aristotle, Grotius reasoned:

There is no Man by Nature Slave to another . . . but it is not repugnant to nat-ural Justice that Men should become Slaves by a human Fact, that is by Vertueof some Agreement, or in Consequence of some Crime. . . . For if we considerthe Persons, not only they who surrender themselves, or submit by Promise toSlavery, are reputed Slaves; but all Persons whatsoever taken in a solemn War,as soon as they shall be brought into a Place whereof the Enemy is Master. 37

The general Right over Prisoners in a Just War extended broadly; indeed,the Effects of this Right are infinite, so that there is nothing that the Lordmay not do to his Slave. Besides the general argument, Grotius used locu-tions like a Crime that merited Death that echo in Locke. Even Lockesobservation about a slaves possible suicide is in Grotius. If a Prisoner of War found the Condition of a Slave too hard, it was in his own Power toavoid it, by . . . expos[ing] himself to the Effects of the EnemysResentment, and to the Loss of Life. 38

Given the historical practices of states since antiquity, Grotius renderedas justor lodged no objection againstsome consequences from the con-dition of slavery. Crucially, Locke rejected these, beginning with onequoted in the paragraph above, namely, that slaves could consensuallypromise themselves. Grotius went much further, however. He acknowl-

edged that conquerors enslave whole populationsthe whole Body,whether it be a State, or part of a Stateincluding non-combatants,women, and children. Moreover, as the Goods of every particular Prisoner,by the Right of War, belong to the Captors, so the Goods of the People ingeneral belong to the Conquerors, if they please. This extended in partic-ular to land. Most strikingly of all, neither do only they themselvesbecome Slaves, but their Posterity for ever; for whosoever is born of aWoman after she is a Slave, is born a Slave. 39

These are the very consequences that Locke denied were justifiable,especially in chapter 16, Of Conquest. That is, he restricted just warenslavement to captive aggressors, and spoils sufficient to pay for the costsand damages of war, however strange Doctrine (2.180) this appeared. 40

Lockes summary of his strange doctrine is telling, as are his examples of the Yoke of un just enslavement at the end.




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The short of the Case in Conquest is this. The Conqueror, if he have a justCause, has a Despotical Right over the Persons of all, that actually aided, and

concurred in the War against him, and a Right to make up his Damage andCost out of their Labour and Estates, so he injure not the Right of any other.Over the rest of the People, if there were any that consented not to the War,and over the Children of the Captives themselves, or the Possessions of eitherhe has no Power; and so can have, by Virtue of Conquest, no lawful Title him-self to Dominion over them, or derive it to his Posterity; but is an Aggressor,if he attempts upon their properties, and thereby puts himself in a state of Waragainst them; and has no better a Right of Principality, he, nor any of hisSuccessors, than Hingar , or Hubba the Danes had here in England ; or

Spartacus , had he Conquered Italy would have had; which is to have theirYoke cast off, as soon as God shall give those under their subjection Courageand Opportunity to do it. (2.196)

Not to be missed is Lockes stricture against inheritance . The just con-queror has no lawful title to dominion over innocents and children, nor canhe derive it to his Posterity. 41 The argument against inheritance cut the otherway, too. Locke was emphatic that the yoke not fall on the necks of slavechildren, whether alive or not-yet-born at time of their fathers capture:

For since a Father hath not, in himself, a Power over the Life or Liberty of his Child; no act of his can possibly forfeit it: So that the Children, whatevermay have happened to the Fathers, are Free-men, and the Absolute power of the Conqueror reaches no farther than the Persons of the Men, that were sub-dued by him, and dies with them. (2.189) 42

Not only does Locke here cross Grotiusand the practice of agesbut he

shows the incoherence of Filmers view. The point is not that children of slaves have, as Filmer argued, the right to set themselves at liberty. Theywere never by right slaves in the first place.

Filmer, Grotius, and their followers form a complex web for Locke.Filmer did not argue for the absolute power of a monarch on the basis of conquest, as opposed to Gods gift to Adam and his successors. Indeed, hecriticized just-war doctrine in Grotius for its failure to justify absolutepower, as Grotius alleged, and for its hidden message of popular resistance.

Wherefore it seems impossible, that there can be a just war, whereby a full rightof propriety may be gained, according to Grotius principles. . . . If it be admit-ted, that he that attempts to conquer hath a title, and he that is in possession hathnone: here the conquest is but in nature of a possessory action, to put the con-queror in possession of a primer right, and not to raise a title. . . . And thus upon




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the matter I cannot find in Grotius book De Jure Belli , how that any case canbe put wherein by a just war a man may become a King. . . . In effect he leaves

all people a right to plead in bar against the right of property of any prince.43

Subsequent defenders of Filmerlike Edmund Bohun, author of A Defenceof Sir Robert Filmer, against Algernon Sidney (1684)did embrace theargument from conquest. Bohun, Laslett says, approved of the justificationof William III as a conqueror in 1688 as a way of settling Tory doubts.Grotius, further, is the only one of the great natural lawyers who evenapproached the position which Locke demolishes. 44 Lockes restrictions

on just-war conquest not only thus demolish Grotius, but Bohun, as well;and they make possible praise for the English people who saved the Nationwhen it was on the very brink of Slavery and Ruine.

Theoretical Applicationsand the Rhetoric of Slavery

What had any of thisespecially the restrictions painstakingly elaboratedin chapter 16 of the Second Treatise to do with African and Indian slavery?This is not a rhetorical question given those commentators who believe Lockeintended to justify new world slavery. But consider how difficult Locke hasmade their belief. A simple endorsement of Grotius would have left in placethe enslavement of non-combatants, women, and children, the seizure of land, and especially the intergenerational institution of hereditary bondage.But, again, Locke placed restrictions on all these, the effect of which was tomake new world slavery a glaring exception to his theory. This misfit betweentheory and reality has led William Uzgalis to speculate that Locke was actu-ally condemning new world slavery, though evidence is wanting. 45 In anycase, those commentators who believe that Locke was justifying new worldslavery cannot venture that Locke himself did not know about the violationsto his restrictions. Locke knew virtually everything.

Save for one exception, furthermore, Locke did not mention the newworld when discussing slaveryor vice versa. In this, he was not unlikeGrotius and Filmer. This is all the more curious since, in the Second

Treatise , chapter 4 is on slavery and chapter 5 announces that in the begin-ning all the World was America (2.49). Consider the many opportunitieshe had when discussing Indians or America (e.g., 1.57, 142, 144, 153, 2.9,14, 26, 30, 41, 43, 108). Africa and Africans are scarcely noticed, save inthe instance where the enslavers are Moors and the captives European




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Christians (2.210n). The exception occurs in the First Treatise where Locketakes notice of slaves in the household of a Planter in the West Indies

who, with other members of his extended family, may be mustered and ledout against the Indians , to seek Reparation upon any Injury received fromthem (1.130). The planter, that is, had the power to make war againstIndians when he has suffered injury, taking with him Sons of his own,Friends, or Companions, Soldiers under Pay, or Slaves bought with Money(1.131). The planter had this war powercontra Filmerwithout beingeither Adams heir or an absolute monarch; and his title to the power overhis slaves was only from his purchase. This was analogous to Abraham

and the biblical patriarchs who, too, made war and bought Men and MaidServants (1.130) without enjoying the Absolute Dominion of a Monarch or an Inheritance descended from Adam (1.130).

The exceptional example is significant, beyond assailing Filmer, for itssociological portrait of martial, commercial, and familial relations in a colo-nial setting, most likely of the English , French , Scotch , and Welsh that arethere Peopling Carolina (1.144). It is also significant for what Lockeleaves unsaid or unclear. Though he mentions titleand, by implication,

entitlement, as Jeremy Waldron notesthe effect of insisting on it beingonly from purchase hardly makes it sound like an endorsement, much lessa justification. 46 Locke does not here (or anywhere) attempt to justify slaveryby purchase, treating it rather as colonial fact. Given what he says elsewhereabout just war and especially inheritance, 47 Locke was not in any case in aposition to justify slavery by purchase. He discusses the power not the rightof the planter over his slaves in a chapter that begins by bemoaning thosewho, like Filmer, are engaged in dressing up Power with all the Splendorand Temptation Absoluteness can add to it, without shewing who has a Rightto have it (1.106). 48 Moreover, Locke does not identify the race of the slaves,the status of Maid Servants, or the reparations due from the Indians. He alsointroduces further uncertainty into the example when he highlights theplanters Power in his Family over Servants, born in his House, and boughtwith his Money (1.130). This makes it unclear what is bought from whom;and it may elide the distinction between slaves and servants. 49 Invoking bib-lical Abraham suggests that drudgery (2.24) not slavery may be in the bar-gain, with natural law limits on the planters power. All told, the sole newworld exception in sections 1.130 and 1.131 raises more questions than itanswers, certainly about the reach of Lockes just-war theory.

Locke could have been explicit about tying new world slavery to justwars, had he wanted or intended. Another Lockean theorist certainlydid. 50 In his attack on Filmer, James TyrrellLockes confidante and the




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Ingenious and Learned Author of Patriarcha Non Monarcha (1.124)deployed natural law and just-war reasoning. Like Lockeand perhaps due

to their conversationsTyrrell held that nothing but a lawful War can giveany man a Right over the person of another and that a slave taken in a justWar deserved captivity by his own act or fault. 51 Many of the samerestrictions held, especially exempting children, though Tyrrell (as hadGrotius) allowed for limited voluntary enslavement by adults. Tyrrell hadhis sights on Filmer, theoretically, and the Stuarts, politically. But he usednew world examples to make points about conquest and slavery.

As for the rest of this argument [of Filmers against Grotius on conquest], itis drawn from principles never laid down nor maintained by Grotius : For firstif a People, that have no absolute Governor (as the Brasilians , and Caraibeeshave none, as I have already sayd) live peaceable and offend no body, I think it unlawful to make war upon such a People (as the Spaniards did) withoutany cause but to make them slaves. But if such a people will joyn together asthey often do, under a Corak or Captain created by themselves, and make anoffensive War upon their neighbors without just cause: I think they may justlybe Conquered, and become either slaves or subjects to the Conqueror, as well

as one single man in the same case, since both Grotius [citing book III, chap.7] and all writers allow the taking of slaves in a just war, but none ever madeit alike reasonable, to make slaves of those that have done them no injury. 52

It is not to be lost that Tyrrell here not only imagined that Indians mightbe taken slaves, but he judged the Spaniards unlawful conquerors in thenew world.

Tyrrell and 1.130-31 notwithstanding, Locke himself forged no explicitlinks between his just-war theory and Africa or the new world. It wouldhave been so easy do so, I conjecture, had Locke intended a direct connec-tion. All signs point toward England, however, as the site in mind. Lasletteditorializes that chapter 16 is a reflection on the origins, rights and powerof a monarchy which can only be English (2.175n). Locke names the

Norman Conquest (2.177) as an example of another restriction on a con-queror: tis plain he gets no Power by his conquest over those that Conquered with him. . . . And the conquering People are not . . . to be Slavesby Conquest (2.177). Locke finishes the section in no uncertain terms asto his referent: William Is conquest could reach no farther, than to theSaxons and Britains that were then Inhabitants of this Country. The

Normans that came with him, and helped to conquer, and all descendedfrom them are Freemen and no Subjects by Conquest (2.177). If, as Ithink, England is the primary , if not exclusive, site of Lockes intended




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application of his theoryin the context of Whig resistance to Stuartabsolutismthen this renders intelligible his restrictions on Grotius. As a

natural lawyer, Locke blocks Filmer and the likes of Bohun while takingaim at the Stuarts, whether Charles II or James II.

Rhetoric about slaves and slavery in and out of the Two Treatisesfurther suggests Lockes English targets. He opened the First Treatiseshocked that Filmer, an Englishman much less a Gentleman , would per-swade all Men, that they are Slaves and ought to be so. But, then, Filmerswere just One Slaves Opinions (1.51). Only servile Flatterers tomonarchy (like Filmer) would have all Men born to, what their mean

Souls fitted them for, Slavery (2.239).53

The People of England, by con-trast, saved the Nation from Slavery and Ruine (Preface) and datedtheir delivery from popery and slavery to the arrival of William III. 54

Examples are legion. Exempting outliers like the slavery of sin and Satanor the slavish temper in spoiled children, 55 Locke had his attention fixedprimarily, if not exclusively, on England and the stakes of resistance.Earlier, new to Shaftesburys circle, Locke invoked the old-world exampleof galley slaves who return from Turkey to make political points about

this island England.Whereby we may see it would be an hazardous attempt, if any should designit, to bring this island to the condition of a galley, whereby the greater partshall be reduced to the condition of slaves, be forced with blows to row thevessel, but share in none of the lading [cargo], nor have any privilege or pro-tection, unless they will make chains to be used like Turks, and persuadethem to stand still whilst they put them on. For let divines preach duty as longas they will, twas never known that men lay down quietly under the oppres-

sion and submitted their backs to the blows of others, when they thought theyhad strength enough to defend themselves. 56

Slavery was a rhetorically powerful fear for Englishmenor radicalWhigs, at least. They associated it with monarchical absolute power thatmight descend or had already descended upon the English nation. Filmerwas right in Patriarcha : the term slave was an invention to disgracemonarchy in England.

Locke, whatever else, was making a case against slavery on his island,not for slavery in the new world. And he was in no position, theoretically,to justify slave practices as he knew themincluding Slaves bought withMoney in the West Indies (1.130). 57 This still leaves problematic theFundamental Constitutions of Carolina and other colonial instructions; andwe need to consider the charge of racism.




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Colonial Instructionsand the Charges of Racism

The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina remains an important statepaper in the history of British colonization of America, despite its fitfulenforcement. 58 Lockes role in them was long suspected, running back tothe period of their composition. As Armitage has now shown, Locke waseven more intimately and doggedly involved, including in the revisions of 1682 when he was (probably) writing chapter 5 and revising chapters 4 and16 of the Two Treatises .59 As policy advisor and constitution writer, Locke

thus endorsed or made no objection to the notorious instruction that EveryFreeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and Authority over hisNegro slaves of what opinion or Religion soever. But what was the rela-tion between it and the just-war theory? Was it a deduction from or on equalfooting with the principles or restrictions of the theory? An answer wouldbe relatively straightforward if it could be shown that the absolute powerover Negro slaves was justified because those slaves had been unlawfulcombatants taken captive in a just war (in Africa or Carolina), subject to

Lockes restrictions. But these restrictions were utterly violated in the newworld, as Locke knew. In terms of his theory, Indian and African slaves suf-fered unjust bondage. The hereditary institution clinched the matter, what-ever one made of the justice of slave raids or the dominion of planters in theWest Indies.

The offending instruction is not unique in raising hermeneutic problemsfor understanding Locke. These are not logical problems in any technicalsense. But they are puzzling and raise further questions because they makeeven less clear Lockes considered judgmentsas political theorist or colo-nial administratorabout colonial life and slavery. Why, if he allegedlysought their enslavement or appropriation of their waste land, did hecounsel colonists not to molest . . . our neighbor Indians in their quiet pos-sessions? 60 Why, in 1671 after the visit of Honest and Just, did he draft aTemporary Law for Carolina dictating that no Indian upon any occasion orpretense whatsoever is to be made a slave? 61 Why, in 1698, did he instructGovernor Francis Nicholson of Virginia to gett a law passd restraining of Inhumane Severities . . . toward Slaves, and that Provision be made thereinthat the willful killing of Indians and Negroes may be punished with Death,and that a fit penalty be imposed for the maiming of them? 62 Was he, in1671 or 1698, forgetful of the absolute power and Authority clause of theFundamental Constitutions or the severities allowed toward captive aggressorsin the Second Treatise ? These questions and others like them will probably




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no way short of those of the most flourishing and polite nations 69 Theremay be condescension in these remarks about Indians or contempt in hissilence about Africans. The fact that Lockes contemporaries were moreevidently condescending or contemptuous may prove little about Locke forthose readers who find racism in any sort of condescension or silence. Butthe question regarding the legitimation of slavery is: did Locke articulate orembrace a racial doctrine or theory that justified new world slavery giventhe failure of the just-war theory to do so? This, surely, is what it means toinvoke philosophical racism. Such a theory need not have been as grand asGrotian natural law, but it had to offer something doctrinally as justifica-

tion. Racism in this theoretical or doctrinal sense was not a question aboutblind hatred, inchoate bigotry, or misanthropic passionhowever muchthey gripped Locke, if in fact they did so.

A racist doctrine or theory, if Locke had articulated or embraced one,would have had to explain, empirically , the racial inferiority of Africans orIndians in comparison to other races. But this task was insufficient. Even aSouthern apologist for slavery like George Fitzhugh knew in 1857 thatinferiority of race is quite as good an argument against negro slavery as in

its favor.70

One needed, therefore, a component of racial doctrine or theoryto justify, normatively , why racial inferiors deserved their bondage. Butnowhere did Locke attempt any such theory. He did not endorse or antici-pate the two historically dominant empirical theoriespolygeny anddegeneracy. 71 He was not a polygenist who explained racial differences interms of different species. He remained within the Christian worldview thatthere was a single race of men descended from Adam. He also wrote noth-ing that indicated that he embraced the degeneracy theory as if Africans orIndians had been degraded over the course of time due to environmentalconditions and attested to by mental deficiency or skin color. 72 Nowhere inhis writings, moreover, did Locke sketch even the bare outlines of a norma-tive justification of slavery on the basis of race. The only theory Lockearticulated was the restricted just-war theory, however far afield it provedfrom the realities of the new world. In Lockes actual world, it applied toEngland in the throes over absolute power. If as is logically or biograph-ically possibleLocke thought new world slavery was justified on thebasis of raceor anything else, for that matterhe wrote not a word of it.As legacy, he left subsequent commentators to wonder what, if anything,made him feel that slavery or his own colonial activities were justified sincehe wrote nothing about race and crafted a just war theory that made newworld slavery its most glaring exception.




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Lockes Receptionand Subsequent Reputation

The reception of Lockeas of any notable, complex figureholds out theprospect of clarifying seeming contradictions by returning to understandingscloser in time to his own. However, in the case of slavery, the contradictionsare mirrored in the history of Lockes reception. 73 In the midst of his reception,moreover, Lockes colonial instructions caught up with his reputation as thechampion of liberty and limited government. That reputation was usuallyhailed for its support of liberal or radical causes, including revolution and

abolition. It was also long protected from much scrutiny by writers whoignored or apologized for his theory of slavery or the FundamentalConstitutions . Ignorance, if not apology, allowed for some ironic appropria-tions of Locke, especially by Americans proclaiming their rights and eventu-ally revolting against Britain. In 1726, for example, John Norris used Lockeancategories and rhetoric to defend his fellow South Carolinians in havingthrown off (in 1719) the governing structures of the Fundamental Constitutions .There was no rebellion against Persons pretending the Authority of our

Lord Proprietors, only the return to government by compact amongEnglishmen, averse to Tyranny, and not willing to be driven to the Slave-Market. 74 Norris, in short, mobilized Lockean arguments and rhetoric to jus-tify the overthrow of a colonial government that Locke helped create! In 1764,James Otis asserted the rights of British colonists in America, quoting thefamous lead line of Mr. Locke that slavery is so vile and miserable an estateof man. Using Lockes principles, as he took them, Otis insisted that theColonists are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, white orblack. Enslaving those of any color was a shocking violation of the law of nature. 75 Lockean arguments were race-neutral and anti-slavery, in otherwords. In resistance to British taxation, John Dickinson quoted Locke on prop-erty and used his rhetoric: We are thereforeI speak it with griefI speak with indignationwe are Slaves. 76 Dickinson subsequently appealed tosuch a friend to mankind as Mr. Locke who, under no circumstances,thought absolute dominion just or legal or anything but inconsistent, asslavery is with property. 77 As The Sinfulness of American Slavery became anational issue, Locke was the ur -source for arguments about the liberty of man, granted that slavery is so vile and miserable an estate. 78 When someabolitionists reluctantly came to acknowledge that Locke introduced thearticle on Negro slavery in the Fundamental Constitutions , accommoda-tions were made: These sentiments of Locke did not lower him in the eyesof our ancestors. 79




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Locke found more vigilant readers in those who wished to disgrace himas the proxy for Americans. In the fateful year of 1776, Josiah Tucker put the

Fundamental Constitutions and the Two Treatises to work against each otherand the cause of Rebel Americans. He even invented, so as to ridicule, theExcuse, or Apology that the Fundamental Constitutions was a product of Lockes youth and service to Shaftesbury. In the concluding pages of hisantirepublican screed against Locke, Richard Price, Benjamin Franklin andother Republican-Zealots Answers to Popular Objections Tucker citedthe notorious instruction on the absolute power and authority of freemenover their Negro slaves. He snidely editorialized that Such is the

Language of the humane Mr. Locke! The great and glorious Assertor of thenatural Rights and Liberties of Mankind. To block the apology-from-youth,he then quoted the mature revolutionarys reference in chapter 7 (2.85) toslaves being Captives taken in a just War . Tucker argued no further andpaid no attention to Lockes restrictions on enslavement in chapter 16. Thatwas beside the point he was driving at. He dismissed any other appeal to theSecond Treatise : And if [Locke] has maintained Opinions in other distantParts of his Book, which seem to contradict this Position, I am not to be

answerable for his seeming Contradiction. Tucker ended his attack byanalogizing the condition of the Englishman taken prisoner in the presentWar to that of the poor Negroes. 80 Polemical purposes notwithstanding,Tucker tied the two texts together and implicated Locke in positions thatwere neither humane nor consistent. 81

The American historian George Bancroft came to conclusions aboutLocke not unlike Tuckers. Without polemic, he nonetheless brought to bearon Locke and Carolina his democratic, nationalist, and anti-British histori-ography. He paid most attention to the frame of government intended by theFundamental Constitutions . In framing constitutions for Carolina, Lockeforgot the fundamental principles of practical philosophy. There can be nosuch thing as the creator of laws, so much as tending to actual arrange-ments. And there was the rub:

The contrast between the magnificent model of a constitution and the hum-ble settlements of Carolina, rendered the inappropriateness of the forms tooludicrously manifest. Was there room for a palatine and landgraves, for

barons and lords of manor, for an admiralty court and a court of heraldry,among the scattered cabins between the Chowan and the ocean?

Bancroft, however, thought he saw a connection between Lockes colonialdesigns and his theoreticalor at least announced position on slavery in




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Two Treatises . He quoted Lockes definition of slavery as the state of warcontinued between conqueror and captive, having noted that Locke . . .

sanctioned slavery in Carolina. To Bancrofts Locke, slavery seemed nounrighteous institution. Aware that several American writers have attemptedto exonerate Locke from his share in the work which they condemn, thehistorian insisted that slavery harmonizes with the principles of his philos-ophy, and with his theories on government. The proof of harmony was notto be found in or between the texts themselveswhich Bancroft barelyskimmedbut in the fact that to his late old age, he preserved with carethe evidence of his legislative labors. 82

The most intriguing receptors of Lockes writings on slavery were ante-bellum Southern apologists. They are all the more intriguing becauseBernasconi and Mann, making their case against his racism, have assertedthat the defenders of slavery also cited Locke as one of their authorities.But the examples they cite do not support their assertion. 83 Indeed, theyprove antithetical points about the reception of Locke among Southernapologists. Those who fiercely and loyally defended slavery in the AmericanSouth rejected Lockes just war theory and pilloried the Fundamental

Constitutions . When antebellum defenders of the Southern race and itspeculiar institution cited or made reference to the Second Treatise , it wasto attack natural rights and the social contract as insufficient for social orderor the protection of dependants, including slaves. And they distanced their(tendentious) apologies for slavery from the Fundamental Constitutions ,deeming its model of government an aristocratic, inhuman, and short-livedfailure.

This Southern pattern began with the first serious and sustained defenseof slavery in the antebellum periodThomas Dews Review of the Debatein the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832 .84 Dew began by itemizing his-toric justifications of slavery, including war, listing natural law theoristslike Grotius and Vattel. Reflecting Lockes extant reputation as a theorist of natural rights, Dew included him, in a slightly astonished tone:

Even Locke, who has so ably explored all the faculties of the mind, and whoso nobly stood forth against the monstrous and absurd doctrines of Sir RobertFilmer and the passive submissionists of his day, admits the right to make

slaves of prisoners whom we might justly have killed.85

Dew then quoted from Lockes chapter 6actually 2.23 of chapter 4on using slaves for service without committing injury by it. However,negro slavery in the United States was, Dew candidly admitted, the result




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of slave raids and a slave trade so shocking to the feelings of mankindthat it was a violation of the principles of humanity. Judging by its

effects, we must condemn it, and consequently agree that slavery in ourhemisphere was based upon injustice in the first instance. Leaving Lockebehind, Dew shifted the terms of argumentas did all later contributors topro-slavery propaganda. Captivity during warjust or notwas not theissue. The hereditary institution of slavery was justifiable on other grounds,mainly its beneficence to whites, masters, women, and slaves themselves.A merrier being does not exist on the face of the globe, than the negroslave of the United States. Lockean-styled arguments about natural equal-

ity amounted to quackery. If, Dew warned, colored men were freed,they would still be virtually slaves; talent, habit and wealth, would makethe white the master still. Even if slavery began against the laws of manand God, the South cannot now attempt its extirpation. 86

Locke came in for more criticism as apologists contrasted the social natureof man and the beneficence of hereditary institutions, including slavery, withLockes account of the state of nature and the social contract. Aristotle wasdeemed superior to Locke in these matters. This was the general position of

Albert T. Bledsoe in his influential Essay on Liberty and Slavery of 1856, andstrongly endorsed by George Frederick Holmes. 87 It was also repeatedlyarticulated by that most iconoclastic of apologists and strident critics of LockeGeorge Fitzhughwho believed the world needed many moreforms of slavery, beyond Negro slavery. On Fitzhughs telling, Locke wasa materialist and the father of all infidelity. He was the fount of thepestiferous isms of the North after Jeffersons plagiarism of him in the

Declaration of Independence .88 On such issues, the Southerners took aim atthe Locke whose reputation was secured by his liberal and radical principles.However, they also took note of the Fundamental Constitutions . Fitzhughthought Lockes Carolina Republic was a tissue of absurdities, havingsignally failed in practice; attesting the great truth that governments areGod-made, not man made. 89 Not to be outdone by Fitzhugh, a Virginian,Carolinians were especially judgmental when remembering Lockes role intheir colonial past. For example, W. Duncan recounted:

At the request of one of the proprietors, the celebrated John Locke framed a

scheme of government for the whole province of Carolina. The GrandModel, as it was called, though, complete of its kind, was too complicated,if not too monarchical, for an infant colony; yet the proprietors adopted it asthe fundamental law of the province, and such, for twenty-three years, itnominally remained. As a matter of fact, however, it was never brought into




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operation, though the governor of each district in the province strove hard tocomply with its requisitions, in spite of the continued and ultimately success-

ful opposition of the colonists.90

William H. Trescott thought the colonial document embodied a too refinedand fanciful theory. While some provisions of Lockes constitutiondeserved respectful notice, in comparison to it we have, so to speak,democratized very aristocratic institutions. 91

DeBows Review was the literary vehicle for many of the apologetics andattendant criticisms of Locke. Behind it lay the energies of the ardent seces-

sionist, J. D. B. de Bow. He, too, inveighed against Locke, in his namesake Review , in Charters and Constitutions of South Carolina (1856). 92

Bancrofts history, as well as Thomas Coopers 10-volume Statutes at Large of South Carolina , formed the basis of de Bows historical sketch. deBow thought (incorrectly) that he identified Lockes handwriting on thecopy of the Fundamental Constitutions in Charleston. Locke drafted themon Shaftsburys principles, but these were consonant to the feelings of thegreat metaphysician himself. de Bow noted the almost absolute powerthey granted to the Lords Proprietors, as well as their design to establishan order of nobility in America. Under Locke, they [the leetmen whowere in effect slaves] could never be emancipated; their descendantsmust forever be as themselves.

With regard to the slaves proper of the constitutionthe negroesthe worstfeature of the Roman law was displayed, the masters power of life and deathover them. The present condition of the African slave, when contrasted withthis, ought forever to silence the wretched cry of abolitionism.

None of this was acceptable, even in the 1660s, because the freeholdersconsent was never consulted. But it all came to naught: The constitu-tions were ill-suited to colonial infancyand when power came, they wererejected with indignation. Thus passed away the labors of Locke. . . . Intwenty-three years the immortal instrument was dead. So much, de Bowconcluded, for the exploded constitutions of John Locke. 93

In the end, the reception of Locke on new world slavery records a historyof contradictions, as if a mirror to those found in his texts and life. One fea-ture of this reception history, however, fits the argument of this essay: noone thought Locke succeeded in justifying slavery in America. Revolutionariesand abolitionists ignored or invented apologies for his theory and practicein relation to slavery. Antirepublican polemicists like Tucker and nationalist




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historians like Bancroft seized upon their incoherent failure. Southern apol-ogists dismissed their falsity to the benignity of slavery and the glories of

the colonists. To this day, Locke inspires radically different receptions.But whatever else may be said of the Two Treatises , the FundamentalConstitutions and other colonial instructions explode the coherence of hiswritings and the reputation he long held. There is glaring contradictionbetween their mandate of absolute power and Lockes principles regarding

just-war and natural law. All this makes Locke if not a mystery at least avery difficult figure to understand. How could Lockea philosopher of such judgment and criticism and reflectionlive with such contradiction

and be so guilty of immoral evasion of the consequences of his laborstaken as a whole? 94 But he did. A kink in his head, he partook of the mad-ness of American slavery. He not only held a strange Doctrine, he wasstrangely indifferent to contradiction on so grave a matter and, worse, to thelives and liberties of the persons made slaves in the new world.

Notes

1. Lenni Brenner, ed., Jefferson and Madison on Separation of Church and State (Fort Lee,NJ: Barricade Books, 2004), 272.2. Peter Laslett, Introduction, in Two Treatises of Government (Cambridge, UK:

Cambridge University Press, 1988 [1960]), especially 102, 105-6, 237n, 284n.3. James Tully, An Approach to Political Philosophy: Locke in Contexts (Cambridge, UK:

Cambridge University Press, 1993), 137-76; Barbara Arneil, John Locke and America: The Defence of English Colonialism (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1996); Mark A. Michael, LockesSecond Treatise and the Literature of Colonization, Interpretation 25 (1998): 407-27; DuncanIvison, Locke, Liberalism, and Empire, in The Philosophy of John Locke: New Perspectives ,ed. Peter R. Arnstey (London: Routledge, 2003), 86-105; Herman Lebovics, Imperialism and

the Corruption of Democracies (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), chap. 5; andDavid Armitage, John Locke, Carolina, and the Two Treatises of Government , PoliticalTheory 32 (2004): 602-27. Slavery, surprisingly, is not always discussed in this literature.

4. David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Oxford, UK: OxfordUniversity Press, 1988 [1966]); Martin Seliger, The Liberal Politics of John Locke (London:Allen and Unwin, 1968); H. M. Bracken, Essence, Accident, and Race, Hermathena 116(1973): 81-96; Richard H. Popkin, The Philosophical Bases of Modern Racism, inPhilosophy and the Civilizing Arts , ed. Craig Walton and John P. Anton (Athens: OhioUniversity Press, 1974), 126-65; Wayne Glausser, Three Approaches to Locke and the SlaveTrade, Journal of the History of Ideas 51 (1990): 199-216; Robert Bernasconi, Lockes

Almost Random Talk of Man: The Double Use of Words in the Natural Law Justification of Slavery, Perspektiven der Philosophie 18 (1992): 293-318; Tully, An Approach ; JenniferWelchman, Locke on Slavery and Inalienable Rights, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 25(1995): 67-81; and Robert Bernasconi and Anika Maaza Mann, The Contradictions of Racism: Locke, Slavery and the Two Treatises , in Race and Modern Philosophy , ed. AndrewValls (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 89-107.




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5. John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke: An Historical Account of the Argument of the Two Treatises of Government (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University

Press, 1969), 108-10, 174-77; William Uzgalis, The Same Tyrannical Principle: LockesLegacy on Slavery, in Subjugations and Bondage: Critical Essays on Slavery and SocialPhilosophy , ed. Tommy L. Lott (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), 49-79; JeremyWaldron, God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Lockes Political Thought (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 200-6; Douglas Lewis, Locke and theProblem of Slavery, Teaching Philosophy 26 (2003): 261-82; Ian Shapiro, John LockesDemocratic Theory, in Two Treatises of Government , ed. Ian Shapiro (New Haven, CT: YaleUniversity Press, 2003), 334; and Paul Sigmund, Selected Political Writings of John Locke(New York: Norton, 2005), 371.

6. James Farr, So Vile and Miserable an Estate: The Problem of Slavery in Lockes

Political Thought, Political Theory 14 (May 1986): 263-89; and James Farr, Slaves Boughtwith Money, Political Theory 17 (August 1988): 471-74.7. Parenthetical references are to treatise and section number of Peter Laslett, ed., Two

Treatises of Government (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988 [1960]).Emphases are Lockes.

8. Maurice Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press,1957), 115n3; and Roger S. Woolhouse, Locke: A Biography (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2007), 111, 463.

9. See especially Langdon Cheves, ed., The Shaftesbury Papers and Other Records Relating to Carolina (Columbia: South Carolina Historical Society, 1897).

10. John Harrison and Peter Laslett, Library of John Locke (Oxford, UK: OxfordUniversity Press, 1965).

11. The Lords Proprietors continued to solicit new settlers when Locke was secretary. SeeVerner Crane, The Southern Frontier: 1670-1732 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,1929); M. Eugene Sirmans, Colonial South Carolina: A Political History, 1663-1763 (ChapelHill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966); and Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The

Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717 (New Haven, CT: YaleUniversity Press, 2002).

12. John Ogilby, America (London: 1671), 317, 342, 377, 380.13. Lockes map of Cape Fear is reprinted in Cornelius M. D. Thomas, James Forte

(Wilmington, NC: J. E. Hicks, 1959).14. See William Patterson Cumming, Naming Carolina, North Carolina Historical

Review 22 (1945): 34-42; and Worthington Chauncey Ford, Early Maps of Carolina,Geographical Review 16 (1926): 264-73. There is a partial reproduction of this map inWilliam P. Cumming, The Southeast in Early Maps , 3rd ed. (Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1998), plate 35.

15. See E. S. de Beer, ed., Correspondence of John Locke , 8 vols. (Oxford, UK: Clarendon,1976), #254 (where a map of Carolina is discussed), #270 (in which Locke intimates plansof travel to Carolina), #275 (where herbal medicines used by Indians and Negroes are iden-tified), #279 (on the success of cattle in Carolina), #287 (with reference to Lock Island), and

#289 (on inter-colonial trade and political intrigue in England). Other colonial correspondentsincluded Joseph West, Isaac Rush, Richard Lilburne, and Andrew Percival, who variously con-veyed to Locke intelligence about the Indians Trade and a plan to send him some dressedDeare Skinnes (#318).

16. K. H. D. Haley, The First Earl of Shaftesbury (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1968), 349.




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36. Richard Tuck, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development (Cambridge,UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 173.

37. Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace , book III, ed. Richard Tuck (Indianapolis:Liberty Fund, 2005 [1625]), 1360f.38. Grotius, Rights of War and Peace , 1360n, 1362, 1482, 1482n.39. Grotius, Rights of War and Peace , 1362, 1374, 1378. For these views, Rousseau con-

demned Grotius and the rest.40. Restrictions aside, they also differ in that Grotius thought slavery was a possible con-

clusion of war whereas Locke defined it as wars continuation (especially at 2.24).41. Arguably, this crucial stricture also weighs against the justification of slavery by pur-

chase. It raises an obvious question about the alienation of property: if the conqueror cannot pass title to his Posterity, how can he justly sell his slaves to anonymous others who are not

his heir(s) and are even further removed from the slaves original act that deserved death?Neither heir nor buyer stands in relation to the slave as does the conqueror. Although Lockenowhere argues directly about the justice of trade in slaves, this passage suggests that slavesbought with money (1.131) were not justifiably enslaved.

42. Dies with them precludes any possibility that hereditary slavery is fundamental toLockes conception of right, as asserted by Welchman, Locke on Slavery, 81.

43. Filmer, Patriarcha , 270-71.44. Laslett, Introduction, 385n.45. Uzgalis, The Same Tyrannical Principle. Lockes intentions aside, Uzgalis rein-

forces the disjuncture between Lockes theory and African slavery in America.

46. Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality , 202, 206. Entitlement notwithstanding, Waldronconcludes that there is simply no possibility of reconciling Lockes very limited theory of legitimate enslavement with the reality of the institution in the Carolinas or anywhere else inthe Americas.

47. See note 41 above.48. Locke oftenthough not invariablydistinguished power from right. For example, he

responded to Filmers claim that fathers anciently had the power to sell or castrate theirchildren by saying, If this proves a right to do so, we may, by the same Argument, justifieAdultery, Incest, and Sodomy (1.59). Later, he observes how the practice of the strong andpowerful . . . is seldom the rule of Right (2.180). cf. 1.59, 2.186, and 2.199 (where Tyranny

is the exercise of Power beyond Right , which nobody can have a Right to).49. John A. Simmons, The Lockean Theory of Rights (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 1992), 176. Simmons also notes the confusion between slave and servant (in 1.130),adding perhaps Locke finds it hard to refer to those who are clearly unjustly enslaved (by hisown principles) as slaves, however contentedly he may have profited from the slave trade him-self. Generally, see Richard Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the

International Order from Grotius to Kant (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999), 169-70.50. Tyrrell offered a theory of property in what Tuck ( Natural Rights Theories , 154-55,

170) calls the Lockean section of Patriarcha Non Monarcha . Tuck speculates that Tyrrellchanged his mind because of Lockes intervention just prior to publication. David Wootton and

John Marshall deny this, arguing that Tyrrell was the innovator who influenced Locke. SeeWootton, ed., Political Writings of John Locke (New York: Penguin, 1993), 49-64; andMarshall, John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge, UK: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1994), 234-37.

51. James Tyrrell, Patriarcha Non Monarcha (London, 1681), 62, 87, 113 (first pagination,which ends at 136).




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52. Tyrrell, Patriarcha Non Monarcha , 118 (second pagination, which renumbers whatshould have been 137 as 97 and proceeds from there).

53. This passage is read as Lockes endorsement of Sidneys argument that there are nat-ural slaves by Ian Simmons, The Mind of John Locke: A Study of Political Thought in its Intellectual Setting (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 172. But their mean souls (emphasis added) is clearly a reference to royalist authors.

54. Locke, Political Essays , 307.55. Locke, Political Essays , 26; Grant and Tarcov, Some Thoughts concerning Education ,

sec. 50.56. Locke, Political Essays , 154-5; also J. R. Milton and Philip Milton, eds., Essay con-

cerning Toleration (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 2006), 294-95. Locke also refers here to fairprisoners of war who deserve to be treated civilly in contrast to the cruel treatment of gal-

ley slaves. This opens a possible gap between the Second Treatise and the Essay concerningToleration .57. With this passage in mind, Lockes theory, if intended to sanction the colonial slave

trade . . . could do so only by denying its own deepest premises argues Jerome Huyler, Lockein America (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1995), 344n63. Locke is not unlikeAristotle in this mismatch of theory and practice, despite their substantive differences aboutnatural slavery. In working out his theory [Aristotle] does not make the supposition that he isdescribing contemporary slavery or even that what he is saying is applicable to it. The theorydoes not explicitly or otherwise pretend to be a theory directly or indirectly concerned withcontemporary slavery. . . . Aristotle simply failed to allow his theory of ownership to exert any

pressure on his own practice while he lived. See Malcolm Schofield, Saving the City:Philosopher-Kings and Other Classical Paradigms (New York: Routledge, 1999), 133.

58. The Constitutions never made much impact on the actual government of Carolina(Goldie, ed. Political Essays , 161)as antebellum Southerners observed. For recent assess-ments, see J. R. Milton, John Locke and the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, Locke

Newsletter 21 (1990): 111-33; and Vicki Hsueh, Giving Orders: Theory and Practice in theFundamental Constitutions of Carolina , Journal of the History of Ideas 63 (2002), esp. 425-26.

59. Armitage, John Locke, Carolina; and J. R. Milton, Dating Lockes Second Treatise , History of Political Thought 16 (1995): 356-90.

60. Cheves, Shaftesbury Papers , 327.

61. The temporary laws are in CO5/286/41, reprinted in Cheves, Shaftesbury Papers , 367.62. These instructions are in CO5/1359/266-303. Laslett, Introduction, 284n, alleged

that the Instructions to Governor Nicholson . . . regard negro slaves as justifiably enslavedbecause they were captives taken in a just war. But this is a serious misstatement that has mis-led many subsequent scholars who have not consulted the originals. There is nothing in theInstructions on captives taken in a just war, much less that they prove that Locke thought theraids of the Royal African Company were just wars. This was previously observed in Farr,So Vile and Miserable an Estate, 286n29; and later in Ruth Grant, John Lockes Liberalism(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 68n, who concludes that Lockes theory . . .can in no way support that institution.

63. See Quentin Skinner on the myth of coherence in Meaning and Understanding inthe History of Ideas, History and Theory 8 (1969): 3-53; and Waldron, God, Locke, and

Equality , introduction.64. Bernasconi and Mann, The Contradictions of Racism, 100-1.65. For example, Bracken, Essence, Accident, and Race, 81-96; Popkin, Philosophical

Bases, 126-65; Bernasconi, Lockes Almost Random Talk of Man, 293-318; and chapters in




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Andrew Valls, ed., Race and Modern Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005).On Lockes anti-essentialism, see Peter R. Anstey and Stephen A. Harris, Locke and Botany,

Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37 (2006): 151-71.66. Bernasconi and Mann, Contradictions of Racism, 90, 100. They concede, however,the theorys unsuitableness for the task of justifying slavery.

67. Ibid., 101.68. Filmer, Patriarcha , 94.69. Locke, Essay , II.xvi.6; IV.xii.11. Similarly, Locke insists that the Americans are not

all born with worse understandings than the Europeans, in Ruth Grant and Nathan Tarcov,eds., Conduct of the Understanding (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1996), 179.

70. George Fitzhugh, Southern Thought Again, DeBows Review 23 (1857): 451. It wasnot necessary to denigrate the Negro race to defend slavery, argues Larry E. Tise, Proslavery:

A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701-1840 (Athens: University of GeorgiaPress, 1987), 12. That is, some pro-slavery arguments refused racism, Michael OBrien,Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860 , vol. 2 (ChapelHill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 960.

71. cf. Bracken, Essence, Accident, and Race; Farr, So Vile and Miserable an Estate;Valls, ed., Racism and Modern Philosophy , chaps. 6, 7, 13; and William Uzgalis, AnInconsistency Not to be Excused: On Locke and Racism, in Philosophers on Race , ed. JulieK. Ward and Tommy L. Lott (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2002), 81-100.

72. Locke, indeed, positively dissociates color from any conception of man in the Essay(IV.vii.16) when he ridicules the English Child who can demonstrate to you that A Negro

is not a man , because Whiteness was one of the constant simple Ideas of the complex Idea hecalls Man . Similarly, in Draft B, a child who hath noe other Idea of a man, but a whiteishcolour of his face has an imperfect idea of man. Moreover, a child unused to the sight of a More [Moor] & having had some such description of the devill would call a negro a devillrather then a man & at the same time perhaps call a Dryll [mandrill] a man. See Nidditch andRogers, eds., Drafts , 202, 192. These passages (concerning childish impressions) underminethose interpretations that Locke consciously or clearly advanced philosophical racism on thebasis of species-nominalism or anything else.

73. Mark Goldie, ed., The Reception of Lockes Politics , 6 vols. (London, 1999).74. John Norris, The Liberty and Property of British Subjects (London: J. Roberts, 1726),

x, 22, 23, 27.75. James Otis, Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (Boston: Edes and Gill,

1764), 6, 29.76. John Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British

Colonies (Philadelphia: David Hall, 1768), 6, 38.77. John Dickinson, An Essay on the Constitutional Power of Great Britain over the

Colonies in America (Philadelphia: William and Thomas Bradford, 1774), 103, 103n.78. Charles Elliott, The Sinfulness of American Slavery (Cincinnati, OH: Swormstedt and

Power, 1850), 205-6.79. Benjamin Ferris [Amicus], Slavery among the Puritans: A Letter to the Rev. Moses

Stuart (Boston: Little, Brown, 1850), 41.80. Josiah Tucker, A Series of Answers to Certain Popular Objections, Against Separating

from the Rebellious Colonies (Gloucester, MA: R. Raikes, 1776), ix, xiii, 103, 104-5.81. Later, Jeremy Bentham also mocked the liberty-champion for the Fundamental

Constitutions , a performance which from that day to this has never been more spoken of in anyother character than that of a failure (in Armitage, John Locke, Carolina, 620). Armitage




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claims that Tucker and Bentham were theoretically acute about Locke. This seems generousgiven their polemic, brevity, and inattention to restrictions in chapter 16.

82. George Bancroft, History of the United States of America, from the Discovery of the American Continent (Boston: Little, Brown, 1874 [1834]), 145, 150, 151, 171n.83. Bernasconi and Mann, The Contradictions of Racism, 32, 105n32, referring to

W. Duncan, North Carolina, Part I, DeBows Review 11 (July 1851): 30-40; and J. D. B. deBow, Charters and Constitutions of South Carolina, Part 1, DeBows Review 20 (April 1856):395a-414a.

84. On Dew and Our Slavery Question, see OBrien, Conjectures of Order , chap. 18.Also see Colin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant AtlanticWorld, 1600-2000 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

85. Thomas R. Dew, Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 and 1832

(Richmond, VA: T. W. White, 1832), 19. This passage was reprinted in Professor DewsEssays on Slavery: Origin of Slavery, and its Effects on the Progress of Civilization, Chapter II, DeBows Review 11 (July 1851): 24.

86. Dew, Professor Dews Essays, 20, 38, 42, 46, 97, 106, 111 (reprinting passages fromDew, Review of the Debate ).

87. Albert Taylor Bledsoe, Essay on Liberty and Slavery (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott,1856), mostly reprinted in Liberty and Slavery: or, Slavery in the Light of Moral and PoliticalPhilosophy, in Cotton is King! , ed. E. N. Elliott (Augusta, GA: Pritchard, Abbott, andLoomis, 1860), 273ff. Approval came from George Frederick Holmes, Bledsoe on Libertyand Slavery, DeBows Review 21 (August 1856): 138, 143.

88. George Fitzhugh, The Politics and Economics of Aristotle and Mr. Calhoun, DeBows Review 27 (August 1857): 166; and The Revolutions of 1776 and 1861 Contrasted,Southern Literary Messenger 37 (December 1863): 719. Also see Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society (Richmond, VA: A. Morris, 1854), 175, 187; Southern ThoughtAgain, 455; and C. Vann Woodward, ed., Cannibals All, or Slaves Without Masters ,(Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1988 [1857]), 13, 71.

89. Fitzhugh, The Revolutions of 1776 and 1861 Contrasted, 721-23.90. Duncan, North Carolina, 32.91. W. H. Trescott, South CarolinaA Colony and State, DeBows Review 27 (December

1859): 682, 685.

92. de Bow, Charters and Constitutions of Carolina, reprinting the previously unidentifiedarticle by de Bow, Carolina Political Annals, Southern Quarterly Review 7 (April 1845): 479-526.

93. de Bow, Charters and Constitutions of Carolina, 396, 398n, 399, 401-4, 406, 411.94. Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke , 174n.

James Farr is professor of political science and director of Chicago field studies atNorthwestern University, where he teaches topics in political theory and American studies. Hecontinues to research, among other things, Lockes colonial entanglements with AmericanIndians.


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Locke Slavery