The State of Nature in the American Revolution: Confirming Locke, Denying Hobbes

In his Second Treatise, John Locke identifies five ways in which the state of nature arises in human history.  First, when our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived without formal institutions of government, they were living in a state of nature, in which all human beings are equally free; and during Locke's lifetime, he saw that the foraging bands of native Americans were still living in such a state of nature (ST, 49, 101-111).  

Second, people living under a government can choose to leave that country, and thus revert to a state of nature, and then they can emigrate either to another society with a ruling government or to a vacant part of the world where they can set up a new government (ST, 113-18, 121).  

Third, whenever people living under a government find themselves under the immediate attack of aggressive individuals, and there is no way to call in the protection of government, then the people under this threat have the natural right to momentarily enter the state of nature, so that they can reclaim "the executive power of the law of nature" to punish those who violate that law of nature, which includes the natural right of killing in self-defense (ST, 19).  

Fourth, whenever a government is dissolved, the people revert back to the state of nature, and they have the right to establish a new government by consent; this includes the dissolution of government by popular rebellion against a government that has become despotic (ST, 211-43).

Fifth, all the rulers of independent governments around the world are in a state of nature in their international relations because there is no world government over them (ST, 14).

In all five of these ways, we can see Locke's state of nature in the American Revolution.  Much of the evidence for this is conveniently collected in a book by Mark Somos--American States of Nature: The Origins of Independence, 1761-1775 (Oxford University Press, 2019).

1.  THE ORIGINAL STATE OF NATURE

First of all, many American colonial thinkers explicitly recognized that many of the Native American Indians were living in a state of nature as described by Locke.  As early as 1725, John Bulkley, a prominent clergyman and surgeon in colonial Connecticut, quoted from Locke's account of the state of nature in the Second Treatise and argued that the "Aborigines of this Country" were living in this state of nature.  Bulkley also followed Locke's lead in applying Jose de Acosta's Natural and Moral History of the Indies (1604) to the Native Americans.  (Bulkley's writing can be found in Exploring the Bounds of Liberty: Political Writings of Colonial British America from the Glorious Revolution to the American Revolution, eds. Jack P. Greene and Craig B. Yirush [Liberty Fund, 2018], I: 595-627.)

In 1768, the Massachusetts House of Representatives sent a letter to their colonial agent in London, which argued that the colonists had a natural right to property, so that the British Crown could not take their property without their consent.  James Otis and Samuel Adams were probably the primary authors of this letter.  In one passage, they wrote:

"Property is admitted to have an existence, even in the savage state of nature.  The bow, the arrow, and the tomahawk; the hunting and the fishing ground, are species of property, as important to an American savage, as pearls, rubies, and diamonds ae to the Mogul, . . . . And if property is necessary for the support of savage life, it is by no means less so in civil society" (quoted in Somos, 68, n. 29).

Particularly interesting here is the recognition that the American Indians had a natural claim to property in their hunting and fishing grounds.  Bulkley had argued that the Indians did not own the land on which they hunted and fished, because they had not invested their labor in the land by cultivating it for agriculture; and consequently, the colonists in Connecticut could claim the land that they had appropriated for farming.

Remarkably, the freedom that the American Indians enjoyed in their state of nature was so attractive that many of the English and French settlers chose to become Indians--"White Indians" they were called.  Hector de Crevecoeur observed that "thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those Aborigines having from choice become Europeans!"  Some of the Europeans who became Indians said that they did this because they had "the most perfect freedom."  In his study of the White Indians, historian James Axtell suggested that "it may well be that the adults who chose to become Indians did so for some of the reasons that many of their countrymen turned to revolution" (The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America [Oxford University Press, 1985], 302-303, 327, 377).

In applying the Lockean understanding of the state of nature to the American Indians, the American colonists saw that in that state of nature all men were equally free and independent, in that no man could rule any other man without that man's consent.  They saw that this natural equality of liberty did indeed apply to all men, including slaves, and to all women as well as men.  This radical conception of human equality of rights was clearly affirmed, for example, by James Otis in his 1761 speech in Paxton's Case and in 1764 in his Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved.

2.  EMIGRATING TO THE STATE OF NATURE

Some of the colonists argued that it was this equal freedom in the state of nature that had drawn so many of the original European settlers to leave Great Britain and go to America, where they could revert to the state of nature.  This would illustrate what Locke identified as the second way in which people could enter a state of nature by leaving their native country to find freedom somewhere else.  For example, in 1765, Dennys Deberdt, who had just been appointed the colonial agent for Massachusetts in London, wrote a public letter that claimed that all the colonies, except Georgia and Nova Scotia, were settled by Englishmen fleeing oppression and seeking "civil and religious liberties," and that when they moved to America, "they were then in a state of nature, under no civil government, but what they form'd themselves."  Their colonial charters should therefore be understood as "compacts" with Britain to which they had freely consented.

3.  SELF-DEFENSE IN THE STATE OF NATURE

The revolutionary colonists also contended that once Great Britain violated those original compacts with the colonies and launched an attack on the rights of the colonists--their natural rights and their rights as Englishmen--the colonists could rightly invoke their natural right of self-defense in the state of nature, which was Locke's third way in which people could return to a state of nature.  The American colonists, however, expanded the individual right of self-defense to a collective right of the American people to defend their community against attack.

One of the clearest statements of this idea came some years after the Revolution in James Wilson's Lectures on Law (1790-1791):

"The defence of one's self, justly called the primary law of nature, is not, nor can it be abrogated by any regulation of municipal law.  This principle of defence is not confined merely to the person; it extends to the liberty and the property of a man; it is not confined merely to his own person; it extends to the persons of all those, to whom he bears a peculiar relation--of his wife, of his parent, of his child, of his master, or his servant: nay, it extends to the person of everyone, who is in danger; perhaps, to the liberty of everyone, whose liberty is unjustly and forcibly attacked.  It becomes humanity as well as justice" (Works of James Wilson, ed. Robert Green McCloskey [Harvard University Press, 1967], 2: 609).

Thus, the people acting as a community could exercise their natural right of self-defense in defending their liberty from unjust attack.

The revolutionary colonists also protested against King George III's attempts to disarm the colonists as a violation of their natural rights and their rights as Englishmen.  That individuals have a natural right to momentarily enter a state of nature in defending themselves against attacks has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as a natural right that is also a constitutional right.  This was most clearly stated in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), which ruled that cities and states that ban handguns have violated the natural right to keep and bear arms for self-defense, a natural right protected in the Second and Fourteenth Amendments.

In the McDonald decision, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a dissent in which he argued that recognizing the right of individuals to carry handguns for self-defense is contrary to the state's monopoly on legitimate violence.  In support of this argument, he quoted from section 128 of Locke's Second Treatise, which speaks of the powers individuals have in the state of nature that they must give up when they enter civil society.  In the state of nature, a man has the power "to do whatsoever he thinks fit for the preservation of himself and others within the permission of the Law of Nature."  But when he joins a particular political society, he "gives up" this power that he had in the state of nature.  But here Stevens ignores what Locke says in explaining that a man "gives up" natural rights only "the better to preserve" them in a civil society, and that a man in civil society may kill a thief or anyone who acts as an aggressor threatening his life, in circumstances where there is no way to call in officers of the government for protection (ST, 18-19, 131).

4.  IN THE STATE OF NATURE AFTER THE DISSOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT

In 1774, the American colonists were divided by a debate between Patriots and Loyalists over the state of nature.  The Patriots believed that since the British imperial government over the colonies had been dissolved, the Americans had been thrown back into a state of nature, in which the American people had the natural authority to establish a new government to secure their natural rights.  The Loyalists believed that Parliament still had governmental authority over the colonies, and therefore the Americans were not in a state of nature, although there was a need to settle the American disputes with Parliament in a way that would preserve American liberty while maintaining Parliamentary rule over the colonies.

On September 5, 1774, the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia for the first time.  On the next day, they began their debates; and Patrick Henry of Virginia was the first to speak.  Here is what John Adams wrote in his Diary for that speech:

Mr. Henry. Government is dissolved. Fleets and Armies and the present State of Things shew that Government is dissolved. -- Where are your Land Marks? your Boundaries of Colonies.

We are in a State of Nature, Sir. I did propose that a Scale should be laid down. That Part of N. America which was once Mass. Bay, and that Part which was once Virginia, ought to be considered as having a Weight. Will not People complain, 10,000 People Virginians have not outweighed 1,000 others.

I will submit however. I am determined to submit if I am overruled.

A worthy Gentleman Ego near me, seemed to admit the Necessity of obtaining a more Adequate Representation.

I hope future Ages will quote our Proceedings with Applause. It is one of the great Duties of the democratical Part of the Constitution to keep itself pure. It is known in my Province, that some other Colonies are not so numerous or rich as they are. I am for giving all the Satisfaction in my Power.

The Distinctions between Virginians, Pensylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders, are no more.

I am not a Virginian, but an American.

Patriots like John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Roger Sherman agreed with Henry in arguing that they were in a state of nature, and that they would need to establish a new government.

On September 8, Joseph Galloway spoke for the Loyalists in denying that the colonists were in a state of nature.  Here is what Adams wrote in his Diary:

Mr. Galloway. I never could find the Rights of Americans, in the Distinctions between Taxation and Legislation, nor in the Distinction between Laws for Revenue and for the Regulation of Trade. I have looked for our Rights in the Laws of Nature -- but could not find them in a State of Nature, but always in a State of political Society.

I have looked for them in the Constitution of the English Government, and there found them. We may draw them from this Soursce securely.

Galloway went on later to propose a Plan of Union, which would create a Colonial Parliament that would act together with the British Parliament in legislating for the colonies.  The Congress voted to reject this plan, and the plan was even stricken from the records of the Congress's proceedings.

Loyalists like Galloway had to contend either that the state of nature never existed, or that while it could exist, it was a dangerous condition of violent disorder, and therefore should be avoided at all costs.  In taking the second position, they assumed a Hobbesian view of the state of nature as a "war of all against all."

Patriots like Henry had to contend that the state of nature was a reality of human history, and that it could be a state of social order in which people act as a community capable of establishing a new government.  Thus, the Patriots assumed a Lockean view of the state of nature as a social state of peace, even if it could become a state of war in the absence of government.

The Patriots thought that the experience of Massachusetts in 1774 confirmed their view of the state of nature.  As a result of Parliament's passage of the Coercive Acts in the spring, the government of Massachusetts under its colonial charter was dissolved, and Massachusetts was reduced to a state of nature; but the people of Massachusetts organized themselves through hundreds of local meetings and committees of correspondence to create extralegal governing bodies that could send delegates to the Continental Congress, which could then become a provisional government for a union of the colonies.

We can see here that the fundamental debate in the American Revolution and American Founding was over the state of nature.

This debate continued in some form throughout the Founding period.  For example, when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 proposed the ratification of its Constitution as a substitute for the Articles of Confederation, some of the opponents of ratification argued that the Constitutional Convention did not have the legal authority to frame and propose this Constitution.  They made two arguments.  First, in February of 1787, the Congress of the United States under the Articles of Confederation had recommended a Convention that would propose alterations in the Articles.  But then the Convention in Philadelphia proposed a Constitution that consisted not of alterations in the Articles but a total substitution for the Articles, which went beyond the authorization of the Congress.  Secondly, while under the Articles of Confederation (Article XIII), any "alteration" of the Articles would have to be ratified by the legislatures of all thirteen of the states, the Constitutional Convention proposed that the new Constitution should be submitted to a convention of delegates "chosen in each State by the People thereof," and that the Constitution would come into effect as soon as the conventions of nine states had ratified it.  Far from being a mere alteration or revision of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution of 1787 looked like a revolutionary overthrow of the Articles, with an appeal to the authority of the People in a state of nature to establish a new government to better secure their natural rights.

In The Federalist, James Madison responded to this objection by in effect admitting that the Constitution Convention was proposing a Second American Revolution based on the principles that justified the First American Revolution.  He did this in two ways.  First, he invoked the revolutionary language of the Declaration of Independence.  He claimed to speak for those at the Convention:

"They must have reflected, that in all great changes of established governments, forms ought to give way to substance; that a rigid adherence in such cases to the former, would render nominal and nugatory, the transcendent and precious right of the people to 'abolish or alter their governments as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness;' since it is impossible for the people spontaneously and universally, to move in concert towards their object; and it is therefore essential, that such changes be instituted by some informal and unauthorised propositions, made by some patriotic and respectable number of citizens" (no. 40).

In doing this, the Framers of the Constitution were "recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed" (no. 43).

Second, Madison says that the Framers of the Constitution must have understood that what they were doing in 1787 was similar to what was done by the American Revolutionaries in 1774 to 1776:

"They must have recollected that it was by this irregular and assumed privilege of proposing to the people plans for their safety and happiness, that the States were first united against the danger with which they were threatened by their antient government; that Committees and Congresses, were formed for concentrating their efforts, and defending their rights; and that Conventions were elected in the several States, for establishing the constitutions under which they are now governed; nor could it have been forgotten that no little ill-timed scruples, no zeal for adhering to ordinary forms, were any where seen, except in those who wished to indulge under these masks, their secret enmity to the substance contended for" (no 40).

Notice that without using the term state of nature, Madison implicitly affirms that the Framers of the Constitution had entered a state of nature in which the People had the natural right to dissolve the Articles of Confederation and establish a new national government through the Constitution that would better secure their rights.

And if we see the Constitution as the Second American Revolution, should we also see the Civil War and the Civil War Amendments (13-15) as the Third American Revolution.  Because didn't America need that Third Revolution to fulfill the original promise of the First Revolution to secure equality of rights for all men and women, which required the Civil War as an "appeal to Heaven" and new amendments overturning the constitutional protections for slavery and establishing the "equal protection of the laws"?

5.  INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AS A STATE OF NATURE

The Declaration of Independence concludes with the Continental Congress declaring "that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do."

Just as in the state of nature, all individuals are free and independent, and so any social order is based on the mutual consent of those individuals, likewise in the international state of nature, all states are free and independent, and so any international order is based on the mutual consent of states.  So here we see how for Locke, and other theorists of the state of nature, international relations are a fifth way in which human beings can be in a state of nature.

In their thinking through this idea, the American Revolutionaries were much influenced by their reading of Emer de Vattel's The Law of Nations, or Principles of the Law of Nature Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns (1758).  Vattel's fundamental principle was that the law of nations was the law of nature of individuals in the state of nature applied to states.

Much of the modern theorizing about international relations and international law has turned on this idea of international politics as a state of nature.

CONCLUSION

In the American Revolution, we can see the five ways in which the Lockean state of nature appears--in the original human condition of hunter-gatherers, in human emigration from an established government, in individual and collective self-defense against attacks, as a consequence of the dissolution of government, and in international relations.

We can also see here that the American Revolution was a historical experiment that confirmed Locke's account of the state of nature as superior to Hobbes's.  For Hobbes, the state of nature must always be a state of war; and therefore it must be avoided at all costs.  For Hobbes, any government is better than none, because peace is always better than war.  

But for Locke, the dissolution of government does not necessarily lead to the dissolution of society and the state of war.  Although there is always the risk that it will collapse into a state of war, a state of nature can be a state of peaceful cooperation as people organize themselves into a social order without any formal government.  And therefore, even though the state of nature is risky, there are circumstances in which it can become a sanctuary from a condition that is even worse--the loss of liberty under the rule of an oppressive government.  For Locke, people consent to government with the trust that it will secure their natural rights.  When a government has violated that trust, the government can be dissolved, and the people can regroup as a society in the state of nature and establish a new government.  The American people did that in the American Revolution.