Source/Freedom of Association

History

John Locke’s “A Letter Concerning Toleration” (1689) primarily concerns religious associations, but he extends certain arguments to associations in general. The text in the next paragraph is Boyd’s summarization (241), where sections in quotes come directly from “A Letter.” As Boyd notes, though Locke defends policies that allow freer association, he does so because of their practical benefits, not because it is a fundamental right (241).

“Suppose this Business of Religion were let alone,” Locke hypothesizes, “and that there were some other Distinction made between men and men, upon account of their different Complexions, Shapes, and Features.” Under conditions of differential treatment, such persons, “united together by one common persecution,” would become just as dangerous and disruptive. Conversely, if the state eliminated special privileges, on the one hand, or disproportionate burdens, on the other, then supposedly intractable religious or ethnic affiliations would become matters of complete indifference, no more or less contentious than other private decisions about how to spend one’s money, manage one’s estates, or marry off one’s daughter.

In 1776, Richard Price, a British writer who supported the American revolution published Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America. Unlike other commentaries on civil rights, he includes discussion on free assembly. He describes a prohibition on “associating for any purposes, except when leave should be given us by a Lord Lieutenant or Viceroy” as being part of a “state of oppression which no country can endure.” Though he does not phrase it as a fundamental right, the fact that Price deems draconian restrictions on association oppressive implies a belief in at least a limited freedom of association.

Though Enlightenment commentators like Locke argued for and against greater freedom to associate. However, the first to mention it as an absolute right was John Stuart Mill, who argues in On Liberty that“from this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived” (16).