Medieval & Early Modern
John Locke
1632–1704 · Natural rights
Life, liberty and property, held by right and not by favor.
In their words
“Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.”
Locke's Two Treatises argued that people are naturally free and equal, that government exists only by consent and only to protect rights we already own, and that a ruler who becomes a tyrant may be resisted. His case for toleration, and against the property in persons that slavery claimed, made him the most quoted authority of the American Revolution and the foundation for the liberal century that followed.
Why it matters for freedom
He made consent the only root of legitimate power, the premise on which the whole freedom argument stands.
Who they stood against
the divine right of kings and every claim of authority without consent