Freedom and Tyranny

While I did not have the opportunity to enter into a discussion with Locke himself, I instead focused on finding points in the text which seemed rather self evident now, but wouldn't have been. First was the concept of freedom he presented, specifically that if someone hindered ones freedom in any way, they would by necessity be be planning on taking everything else to. It struck me as opposing previous views, and prevailing logic at the time that slaves could and should be content with their lot as it was where they belonged, and not be in "a state of war continued" against their master. He does say that a contract between the two would nullify the slavery aspect and turn it into drudgery. The question is then, would the slave no longer be considered a slave by Locke if (s)he did anything that the master asked that didn't directly let them live longer? How implicit or explicit would the contract have to be according to Locke?

Significant is that Locke uses many words and phrases in the same manner we would now use them commonly, and different from how they have been in the past. Specifically tyrant, for example, which he lays out is a ruler(s) who is not governed by the laws of the land and steps beyond the role given to him by the public. It will be interesting to see if this way of viewing tyranny continues to change in the literature or that it has remained relatively fixed since this time period. At this point I feel its more likely that this is the definition we use because of how often Locke was cited in the beginning of our country's history, and not because his definition became prevailing throughout future literature.