 John Locke’s central concern was to justify a limited (rights-respecting) constitutional government, and, like Grotius and Pufendorf, he appeals to consent. Locke’s argument proceeds by first defending the idea of natural rights to property, which he grounded in the fundamental importance of private holdings to the exercise of liberty, i.e., to the ability of persons to engage in individual or collective projects. He argued that individuals can acquire property in land and other external material objects by ‘mixing their labor’ with it and thereby improving it (Locke ST: V,27). He then argues that the difficulties that would be attendant on such an arrangement could only be solved by creating a jurisdictional authority to govern such people and protect their rights. Individuals in the state of nature, or loosely associated persons (e.g., families), many of whom have property in land, would, Locke argued, combine together to form a state to protect their rights. They would consent to majority rule, to obedience to and support for law (within the limits of natural law) and, importantly, consent to incorporate one’s rightful landholdings into the territory over which the government has jurisdiction. Locke connects the creation of authority over persons and authority over territory in this way: