In Two Treatises on Government, Locke explains that personal liberties and personal liberties can coexist with the State. He explains that the State exists only because the citizens allow it, and this is the basis of the American Constitution. In his writings Locke (1690) considers government to be a social contract formed by the people and operates only as a representation. The role of government is to let people live freely (as long as they do not harm each other), protect them from members of government through natural rights, and respond to people through representation (Locke 1690). This is most evident in the US government. An example of this is found in former President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (1863): “We here strongly resolve that these dead have not died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, will not perish