Second Treatise Of Civil Government, III - IV

III (Of the State of War) - When one is in a declared or open state of war with another, that other automatically has, through the natural right of self-preservation, the right to kill the first.  It is known that he who is at war with me desires to capture or enslave (literally or otherwise) me.  With that knowledge and expectation, I can do nothing else but try to prevent that from happening.

IV (Of Slavery) - Liberty in society consists in the freedom to act within the rules and laws established a legislative system that has the consent of the governed.  Liberty is not the ability act according to one's own raw desires.

Man cannot enslave himself to another, for the same reason that he cannot give up his own life.  [Because it's contrary to man's drive to self-preservation?]  The most that can be done is that a man, legitimately punishable by death for a crime, could instead be enslaved by the injured party.  Even in this scenario, the "slave" could despise this state and seek the death he deserves instead.  Other situations that approach slavery should be viewed instead as labor compacts-- and the difference is, the "master" does not have absolute power at any time, and couldn't legitimately, say, kill him or otherwise interfere with his natural freedom at all.  In fact, doing so would instantly break the compact.

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Tons of stuff in here.  Right off the bat, there's a response to extreme libertarianism.  Freedom really is bounded by legitimate legislative authority.   We'll see what the limits of that authority are though-- how do we preserve property rights, and curtail abortion right, through the same civil authority?  (One answer: we elect lawmakers who follow through on such a plan.  It's a huge problem that the courts interfere with legitimate lawmaking ability.  Maybe.  Hmm.) 

Interesting anwer to advocates of assisted suicide here.  According to Locke's view of our fundamental self-preserving nature, we don't have the authority to seek our own deaths.  To do so violates our fundamental nature, without which... none of the other individual rights hold up, because there's nothing fundamental within ourselves that we would have to respect in any other.  Even the sick owe it to the rest of society not to open that door.  (It is not a fundamental part of our nature to be free from pain.  But it is, naturally, a part of our nature to try to flee pain.  Hmm.)

Completely unexpected discussion of the problems of slavery.  From this brief chapter, it seems the violations of justice present in the American system of slavery were: a) the capture of African men and women from their homeland, and b) the claim of slaveowners of absolute power over their "property", which is impossible.  The labor itself wasn't inherently an injustice (?).  Hmm.