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"One of John Locke's manuscripts has only now been discovered—in the Annapolis, Md., library of St. John’s College. This month it was published for the first time, in the Cambridge Historical Journal." https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-locke-breaks-his-silence-11567201444
"The American Founders took Locke’s views to heart. They banned the establishment of a national church, though that was the norm in Europe. They drew heavily on Locke’s 'Second Treatise of Government,' which Jefferson paraphrased at length in the Declaration of Independence."
"Yet today Locke seems to be falling out of fashion. Progressives have lost much of their interest in the Western canon; for some of them, the most significant thing about Locke is that he had a financial interest in the slave trade."
"Conservatives are also turning against Locke. Two acclaimed 2018 books—'Why Liberalism Failed' by Patrick Deneen and 'The Virtue of Nationalism' by Yoram Hazony —assail Locke at length for being too disconnected from tradition and too focused on individual autonomy."
"It’s an indicator of how far Locke has faded from view that the discovery of an original Locke manuscript has so far gone without mention in the major press. Imagine if you had the standard edition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and then we found a lost act to the play.”
"One reason for the quiet reception is that the free-market right that embraced Locke in the 20th century is beleaguered, and the leftward drift of mainstream culture has made critiques of Western society more prestigious than efforts to understand its foundations."
"John Locke was a giant of American liberal democracy standing against totalitarian rivals. Today he is metaphorically in exile. His literal exile from England lasted only six years."
