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Article: WHAT DID LOCKE REALLY THINK ABOUT SLAVERY?(Perspective)
- Article from:
- Albany Times Union (Albany, NY)
- Article date:
- October 6, 1991
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 Albany Times Union. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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John Caher asserted, in an article Sept. 15, that "Locke thought slavery untenable." This is not true. In the passage printed below, taken from Locke's "Second Treatise of Government," Locke states his views on slavery:
"But there is another sort of Servants, which by a peculiar Name we call Slaves, who being Captives taken in a just War, are by the Right of Nature subjected to the Absolute Dominion and Arbitrary Power of their Masters. These Men having, as I say, forfeited their Lives, and with it their Liberties, and lost their Estates; and being in the State of Slavery, not capable of any Property, cannot in that state be considered as any part of Civil ...