McQueen, drawing from Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651) and other works, provocatively makes the case that Hobbes not only blurred the line between internal and external threats to the state, but also redefined treason in a way that posed significant theoretical and political challenges. This move allowed him to frame dissent, specifically treason, not merely as a violation of civil law, but as a fundamental breach of the natural law that underpins the very possibility of a peaceful society.

McQueen began her lecture by connecting the topic to contemporary events, referencing President Donald Trump’s tendency to label political opponents as “traitors” and call for military tribunals—language that revives an ancient association between treason and personal disloyalty to a leader. She argued that Hobbes, writing in the wake of the English Civil War and the execution of King Charles I, developed a radical framework for understanding loyalty, betrayal, and sovereignty that continues to resonate today.

Continuing, McQueen then gave a short précis of Hobbes’ political philosophy. Hobbes believed that, in the absence of political authority—the “state of nature”—human life would be governed by fear and violence. To escape this condition, rational individuals would surrender their rights to a sovereign in exchange for peace and order. This social contract, Hobbes maintained, was irrevocable: once individuals had authorized the sovereign’s rule, they were bound to it permanently. Surprisingly, however, Hobbes did not treat traitors as failed citizens who had violated the civil law. Instead, he argued that traitors, by their own actions, had renounced the social contract and thereby ceased to be subjects at all. Treason, Hobbes claimed, was a violation not merely of civil law but of natural law—the foundational principle of keeping agreements. Because of this, traitors were not to be judged as criminals but pursued as enemies, much like foreign invaders or rebels who never entered into the contract to begin with.

McQueen emphasized the novelty and danger of Hobbes’ position. She explored how legal authorities in England, such as Edward Coke (1552-1634) and Matthew Hale (1609-1676), had maintained a clear distinction between traitors (those who owed allegiance to the crown and betrayed it) and enemies (those who owed no allegiance at all). Hobbes rejected this view, collapsing the two categories and thereby allowing for an expanded justification of state violence.

Critics of Hobbes, notably the Bishop of Peterborough, Richard Cumberland (1631-1718), took issue with this logic. Cumberland feared that Hobbes’ framework gave traitors not just the status of enemies, but the rights of enemies—including the right to kill the sovereign. This, McQueen argued, exposed a serious inconsistency in Hobbes’ otherwise tightly bound theory of obligation. If the social contract could not be broken, then how could treason transform a subject into a rights-bearing enemy? Hobbes appeared to claim both that the contract was binding and that traitors could, by their own will, exit it—an unresolved tension in his thought.

McQueen offers one solution to this quandary, arguing that Hobbes’ conflation of traitors and enemies served a practical, political function (and could not be explained by the internal logic of his typically consistent philosophical theorizing). By treating treason as a violation of natural law rather than civil law, Hobbes freed the sovereign from the constraints of legal process and allowed treason to be punished with the logic of war. This, McQueen argued, opened the door to punishing not just actions but intentions—treating disloyal thoughts as a form of rebellion. 

Indeed, Hobbes, like many of his contemporaries, acknowledged that treason could consist of internal designs or thoughts. However, he also believed that civil law should primarily govern actions, not inward beliefs. By redefining treason as a violation of natural law and the traitor as an enemy, Hobbes provided a justification for the sovereign to pursue individuals not just for outward rebellious acts, but for disloyal thoughts and intentions that threatened the peace of the Commonwealth. This allowed the sovereign to bypass the limitations he himself placed on the state’s power over belief by treating internal dissent as an act of enmity against the fundamental order. 

McQueen concluded the lecture by warning that Hobbes’ ideas remain relevant, especially as political leaders continue blurring the lines between opposition and treason. Even for the American founders, who had carefully limited the definition of treason in the Constitution, such ambiguity was precisely what they sought to avoid. Even if one does not adhere strictly to constitutional originalism, however, the distinction between traitors and enemies, McQueen argues, is “a line worth holding on the merits.” McQueen thus urged the audience to resist collapsing the distinction between traitors and enemies, arguing that doing so risked turning treason from a legal category into a dangerous political weapon.