John Locke and Richard Ashcraft's Revolutionary Politics

This article assesses Richard Ashcraft's Revolutionary Politics and Locke's ‘Two Treatises of Government’. It argues that Locke's dealings with the colony of Carolina show that he was a social conservative in the 1670s. The text of the Second Treatise does not support Ashcraft's claim that Locke held similar views on the franchise to those of the Levellers. The views he expressed in 1688 suggest that he wanted to preserve, not transform, the ancient constitution. His Report on Poor Relief shows that he was unsympathetic to the poor in 1697. Although Ashcraft is right to portray Locke as working for revolution between 1681 and 1688, and although his redating of the Second Treatise is persuasive, he overstates Locke's social and political radicalism.