SIMILAR BOOKS BY CATEGORY
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Oliver J. Thatcher
54 pages (2009/1901); 251KB download
WOWIO Books; ISBN: WOWIO-00525
DESCRIPTION
Oliver J. Thatcher notes: “As the Greek philosophers, while searching for the true ground behind the changes of nature, came to ask ‘What is the true—the ideal—state?’ so again modern thought, while searching for the basis of all knowledge, came to examine, also, the basis of all government.”
Thatcher writes of key elements in the search to understand the basis of government:
On Hobbes: “The people, to secure peace and protection, had irrevocably surrendered their right of governing to the king, under what he called a social contract.”
On Locke: “. . . [S]ociety is formed practically on such a contract, but . . . such rights as liberty, property, labor, are natural and can never be alienated. The king is only the representative of the people and can be overthrown. Property is property because earned by labor. Taxes must be voted by those that are taxed.”
On Montesquieu: “His idea of the preservation of a people’s freedom by the separation of the legislative, executive, and judicial powers . . . is one of the great principles of our constitution.”
On Rousseau: “. . . Rousseau elaborated on the idea of the social contract, and the supremacy of the people. To him the king became merely an administrative head. All were to be equal.”
Thatcher provides excerpts from the works of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Charles Montesquieu and Jean Jacques Rousseau to demonstrate this exploration of government’s underpinnings.