Francis Locke Sr.
Francis Locke was born in 1722 in Ireland. He was the son of John and Elizabeth Locke. When he was still young, the family emigrated to Lancaster, Pennsylvania Colony, where Locke grew up. After his father died in 1744, his mother married John Brandon, who eventually moved the family to Anson County, North Carolina Colony. That area of the county was later split off as Rowan County, North Carolina.
Two Treatises of Government
Jerome Huyler and Michael. P. Zuckert approach Locke in the broader context of his oeuvre and historical influence. Locke is situated within changing religious, philosophical, scientific, and political dimensions of 17th century England. Objecting to the use of the contemporary concept of economic man to describe Locke’s view of human nature, Huyler emphases the “virtue of industriousness” of Locke’s Protestant England. Productive work is man’s earthly function or calling, ordained by God and required by self-preservation. The government’s protection of property rights insures that the results of industry, i.e. “fruits of one’s labor,” are secure. Locke’s prohibition of ill-gotten gains, whether for well-connected gentry or the profligate, is not a lack of Locke’s foresight to the problems in the latter stages of liberalism but an application of equal protection of the law to every individual.