Sect. 211HE that will with any clearness speak of the dissolution of
government, ought in the first place to distinguish between the
dissolution of the society and the dissolution of the government. That
which makes the community, and brings men out of the loose state of
nature, into one politic society, is the agreement which every one has
with the rest to incorporate, and act as one body, and so be one
distinct common- wealth. The usual, and almost only way whereby this
union is dissolved, is the inroad of foreign force mak ing a conquest
upon them: for in that case, (not being able to maintain and support
themselves, as one intire and independent body) the union belonging to
that body which consisted therein, must necessarily cease, and so every
one return to the state he was in before, with a liberty to shift for
himself, and provide for his own safety, as he thinks fit, in some other
society. Whenever the society is dissolved, it is certain the government
of that society cannot remain. Thus conquerors swords often cut up
governments by the roots, and mangle societies to pieces, separating the
subdued or scattered multitude from the protection of, and dependence
on, that society which ought to have preserved them from violence. The
world is too well instructed in, and too forward to allow of, this way
of dissolving of governments, to need any more to be said of it; and
there wants not much argument to prove, that where the society is
dissolved, the government cannot remain; that being as impossible, as
for the frame of an house to subsist when the materials of it are
scattered and dissipated by a whirl-wind, or jumbled into a confused
heap by an earthquake.
Sect. 212Besides this over-turning from without, governments are
dissolved from within, First, When the legislative is altered. Civil
society being a state of peace, amongst those who are of it, from whom
the state of war is excluded by the umpirage, which they have provided
in their legislative, for the ending all differences that may arise
amongst any of them, it is in their legislative, that the members of a
commonwealth are united, and combined together into one coherent living
body. This is the soul that gives form, life, and unity to the
common-wealth: from hence the several members have their mutual
influence, sympathy, and connexion: and therefore, when the legislative
is broken, or dissolved, dissolution and death follows: for the essence
and union of the society consisting in having one will, the
legislative, when once established by the majority, has the declaring,
and as it were keeping of that will. The constitution of the legislative
is the first and fundamental act of society, whereby provision is made
for the continuation of their union, under the direction of persons, and
bonds of laws, made by persons authorized thereunto, by the consent and
appointment of the people, without which no one man, or number of men,
amongst them, can have authority of making laws that shall be binding to
the rest. When any one, or more, shall take upon them to make laws, whom
the people have not appointed so to do, they make laws without
authority, which the people are not therefore bound to obey; by which
means they come again to be out of subjection, and may constitute to
themselves a new legislative, as they think best, being in full liberty
to resist the force of those, who without authority would impose any
thing upon them. Every one is at the disposure of his own will, when
those who had, by the delegation of the society, the declaring of the
public will, are excluded from it, and others usurp the place, who have
no such authority or delegation.
Sect. 213This being usually brought about by such in the commonwealth
who misuse the power they have; it is hard to consider it aright, and
know at whose door to lay it, without knowing the form of government in
which it happens. Let us suppose then the legislative placed in the
concurrence of three distinct persons. - A single hereditary person,
having the constant, supreme, executive power, and with it the power of
convoking and dissolving the other two within certain periods of time.
- An assembly of hereditary nobility.
- An assembly of representatives
chosen, pro tempore, by the people.
Such a form of government supposed,
it is evident,
Sect. 214First, That when such a single person, or prince, sets up his
own arbitrary will in place of the laws, which are the will of the
society, declarad by the legislative, then the legislative is changed:
for that being in effect the legislative, whose rules and laws are put
in execution, and required to be obeyed; when other laws are set up, and
other rules pretended, and inforced than what the legislative,
constituted by the society, have enacted, it is plain that the
legislative is changed. Whoever introduces new laws, not being thereunto
authorized by the fundamental appointment of the society, or subverts
the old disowns and overturns the power by which they were made, and so
sets up a new legislative
Sect. 215Secondly, When the prince hinders the legislative from
assembling in its due time, or from acting freely, pursuant to those
ends for which it was constituted, the legislative is altered: for it is
not a certain number of men, no, nor their meeting, unless they have
also freedom of debating, and leisure of perfecting, what is for the
good of the society, wherein the legislative consists: when these are
taken away or altered, so as to deprive the society of the due exercise
of their power, the legislative is truly altered; for it is not names
that constitute governments, but the use and exercise of those powers
that were intended to accompany them; so that he, who takes away the
freedom, or hinders the acting of the legislative in its due seasons, in
effect takes away the legislative, and puts an end to the government.
Sect. 216Thirdly, When, by the arbitrary power of the prince, the
electors, or ways of election, are altered, without the consent, and
contrary to the common interest of the people, there also the
legislative is altered: for, if others than those whom the society hath
authorized thereunto, do chuse, or in another way than what the society
hath prescribed, those chosen are not the legislative appointed by the
people.
Sect. 217Fourthly, The delivery also of the people into the subjection
of a foreign power, either by the prince, or by the legislative, is
certainly a change of the legislative, and so a dissolution of the
government: for the end why people entered into society being to be
preserved one intire, free, independent society, to be governed by its
own laws; this is lost, whenever they are given up into the power of
another.
Sect. 218Why, in such a constitution as this, the dissolution of the
government in these cases is to be imputed to the prince, is evident;
because he, having the force, treasure and offices of the state to
employ, and often persuading himself, or being flattered by others, that
as supreme magistrate he is uncapable of controul; he alone is in a
condition to make great advances toward such changes, under pretence of
lawful authority, and has it in his hands to terrify or suppress
opposers, as factious, seditious, and enemies to the government: whereas
no other part of the legislative, or people, is capable by themselves to
attempt any alteration of the legislative, without open and visible
rebellion, apt enough to be taken notice of, which, when it prevails,
produces effects very little different from foreign conquest. Besides,
the prince in such a form of government, having the power of dissolving
the other parts of the legislative, and thereby rendering them private
persons, they can never in opposition to him, or without his
concurrence, alter the legislative by a law, his consent being necessary
to give any of their decrees that sanction. But yet so far as the other
parts of the Legislative any way contribute to any attempt upon the
Government, and do either promote, or not, what lies in them, hinder
such designs, they are guilty, and partake in this, which is certainly
the greatest Crime Men can be guilty of one towards another.
Sect. 219There is one way more whereby such a government may be
dissolved, and that is, when he who has the Supream Executive power,
neglects and abandons that charge, so that the laws already made can no
longer be put in execution. This is demonstratively to reduce all to
anarchy, and so effectually to dissolve the government: for laws not
being made for themselves, but to be, by their execution, the bonds of
the society, to keep every part of the body politic in its due place and
function; when that totally ceases, the government visibly ceases, and
the people become a confused multitude, without order or connexion.
Where there is no longer the administration of justice, for the securing
of men’s rights, nor any remaining power within the community to direct
the force, or provide for the necessities of the public, there certainly
is no government left. Where the laws cannot be executed, it is all one
as if there were no laws; and a government without laws is, I suppose, a
mystery in politics, unconceivable to human capacity, and inconsistent
with human society.
Sect. 220In these and the like cases, when the
government is dissolved, the people are at liberty to provide for
themselves, by erecting a new legislative, differing from the other, by
the change of persons, or form, or both, as they shall find it most for
their safety and good: for the society can never, by the fault of
another, lose the native and original right it has to preserve itself,
which can only be done by a settled legislative, and a fair and
impartial execution of the laws made by it. But the state of mankind is
not so miserable that they are not capable of using this remedy, till it
be too late to look for any. To tell people they may provide for
themselves, by erecting a new legislative, when by oppression, artifice,
or being delivered over to a foreign power, their old one is gone, is
only to tell them, they may expect relief when it is too late, and the
evil is past cure. This is in effect no more than to bid them first be
slaves, and then to take care of their liberty; and when their chains
are on, tell them, they may act like freemen. This, if barely so, is
rather mockery than relief; and men can never be secure from tyranny, if
there be no means to escape it till they are perfectly under it: and
therefore it is, that they have not only a right to get out of it, but
to prevent it.
Sect. 221There is therefore, secondly, another way whereby governments
are dissolved, and that is, when the legislative, or the prince, either
of them, act contrary to their trust. First, The legislative acts
against the trust reposed in them, when they endeavour to invade the
property of the subject, and to make themselves, or any part of the
community, masters, or arbitrary disposers of the lives, liberties, or
fortunes of the people
Sect. 222The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of
their property; and the end why they chuse and authorize a legislative,
is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to
the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the power,
and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society: for
since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society, that the
legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs
to secure, by entering into society, and for which the people submitted
themselves to legislators of their own making; whenever the legislators
endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to
reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a
state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any
farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath
provided for all men, against force and violence. Whensoever therefore
the
legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and
either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp
themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over
the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust
they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite
contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who. have a right to
resume their original liberty, and, by the establishment of a new
legislative, (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own safety
and security, which is the end for which they are in society. What I
have said here, concerning the legislative in general, holds true also
concerning the supreme executor, who having a double trust put in him,
both to have a part in the legislative, and the supreme execution of the
law, acts against both, when he goes about to set up his own arbitrary
will as the law of the society. He acts also contrary to his trust, when
he either employs the force, treasure, and offices of the society, to
corrupt the representatives, and gain them to his purposes; or openly
preengages the electors, and prescribes to their choice, such, whom he
has, by solicitations, threats, promises, or otherwise, won to his
designs; and employs them to bring in such, who have promised
before-hand what to vote, and what to enact. Thus to regulate candidates
and electors, and new-model the ways of election, what is it but to cut
up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain of public
security? for the people having reserved to themselves the choice of
their representatives, as the fence to their properties, could do it for
no other end, but that they might always be freely chosen, and so
chosen, freely act, and advise, as the necessity of the common-wealth,
and the public good should, upon examination, and mature debate, be
judged to require. This, those who give their votes before they hear the
debate, and have weighed the reasons on all sides, are not capable of
doing. To prepare such an assembly as this, and endeavour to set up the
declared abettors of his own will, for the true representatives of the
people, and the law-makers of the society, is certainly as great a
breach of trust, and as perfect a declaration of a design to subvert the
government, as is possible to be met with. To which, if one shall add
rewards and punishments visibly employed to the same end, and all the
arts of perverted law made use of, to take off and destroy all that
stand in the way of such a design, and will not comply and consent to
betray the liberties of their country, it will be past doubt what is
doing. What power they ought to have in the society, who thus employ it
contrary to the trust went along with it in its first institution, is
easy to determine; and one cannot but see, that he, who has once
attempted any such thing as this, cannot any longer be trusted.
Sect. 223To this perhaps it will be said, that the people being
ignorant, and always discontented, to lay the foundation of government
in the unsteady opinion and uncertain humour of the people, is to expose
it to certain ruin; and no government will be able long to subsist, if
the people may set up a new legislative, whenever they take offence at
the old one. To this I answer, Quite the contrary. People are not so
easily got out of their old forms, as some are apt to suggest. They are
hardly to beprevailed with to amend the acknowledged faults in the frame
they have been accustomed to. And if there be any original defects, or
adventitious ones introduced by time, or corruption; it is not an easy
thing to get them changed, even when all the world sees there is an
opportunity for it. This slowness and aversion in the people to quit
their old constitutions, has, in the many revolutions which have been
seen in this kingdom, in this and former ages, still kept us to, or,
after some interval of fruitless attempts, still brought us back again
to our old legislative of king, lords and commons: and whatever
provocations have made the crown be taken from some of our princes
heads, they never carried the people so far as to place it in another
line.
Sect. 224But it will be said, this hypothesis lays a ferment for
frequent rebellion. To which I answer, First, No more than any other
hypothesis: for when the people are made miserable, and find themselves
exposed to the ill usage of arbitrary power, cry up their governors, as
much as you will, for sons of Jupiter; let them be sacred and divine,
descended, or authorized from heaven; give them out for whom or what you
please, the same will happen. The people generally ill treated, and
contrary to right, will be ready upon any occasion to ease themselves of
a burden that sits heavy upon them. They will wish, and seek for the
opportunity, which in the change, weakness and accidents of human
affairs, seldom delays long to offer itself. He must have lived but a
little while in the world, who has not seen examples of this in his
time; and he must have read very little, who cannot produce examples of
it in all sorts of governments in the world.
Sect. 225Secondly, I answer, such revolutions happen not upon every
little mismanagement in public affairs. Great mistakes in the ruling
part, many wrong and inconvenient laws, and all the slips of human
frailty, will be born by the people without mutiny or murmur. But if a
long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same
way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel
what they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be
wondered, that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put
the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which
government was at first erected; and without which, ancient names, and
specious forms, are so far from being better, that they are much worse,
than the state of nature, or pure anarchy; the inconveniencies being all
as great and as near, but the remedy farther off and more difficult.
Sect. 226Thirdly, I answer, that this doctrine of a power in the
people of providing for their safety a-new, by a new legislative, when
their legislators have acted contrary to their trust, by invading their
property, is the best fence against rebellion, and the probablest means
to hinder it: for rebellion being an opposition, not to persons, but
authority, which is founded only in the constitutions and laws of the
government; those, whoever they be, who by force break through, and by
force justify their violation of them, are truly and properly rebels:
for when men, by entering into society and civil-government, have
excluded force, and introduced laws for the preservation of property,
peace, and unity amongst themselves, those who set up force again in
opposition to the laws, do rebellare, that is, bring back again the
state of war, and are properly rebels: which they who are in power, (by
the pretence they have to authority, the temptation of force they have
in their hands, and the flatteryof those about them) being likeliest to
do; the properest way to prevent the evil, is to shew them the danger
and injustice of it, who are under the greatest temptation to run into
it.
Sect. 227In both the fore-mentioned cases, when either the legislative
is changed, or the legislators act contrary to the end for which they
were constituted; those who are guilty are guilty of rebellion: for if
any one by force takes away the established legislative of any society,
and the laws by them made, pursuant to their trust, he thereby takes
away the umpirage, which every one had consented to, for a peaceable
decision of all their controversies, and a bar to the state of war
amongst them. They, who remove, or change the legislative, take away
this decisive power, which no body can have, but by the appointment and
consent of the people; and so destroying the authority which the people
did, and no body else can set up, and introducing a power which the
people hath not authorized, they actually introduce a state of war,
which is that of force without authority: and thus, by removing the
legislative established by the society, (in whose decisions the people
acquiesced and united, as to that of their own will) they untie the
knot, and expose the people anew to the state of war, And if those, who
by force take away the legislative, are rebels, the legislators
themselves, as has been shewn, can be no less esteemed so; when they,
who were set up for the protection, and preservation of the people,
their liberties and properties, shall by force invade and endeavour to
take them away; and so they putting themselves into a state of war with
those who made them the protectors and guardians of their peace, are
properly, and with the greatest aggravation, rebellantes, rebels.
Sect. 228But if they, who say it lays a foundation for rebellion, mean
that it may occasion civil wars, or intestine broils, to tell the people
they are absolved from obedience when illegal attempts are made upon
their liberties or properties, and may oppose the unlawful violence of
those who were their magistrates, when they invade their properties
contrary to the trust put in them; and that therefore this doctrine is
not to be allowed, being so destructive to the peace of the world: they
may as well say, upon the same ground, that honest men may not oppose
robbers or pirates, because this may occasion disorder or bloodshed. If
any mischief come in such cases, it is not to be charged upon him who
defends his own right, but on him that invades his neighbours. If the
innocent honest man must quietly quit all he has, for peace sake, to him
who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered, what
a kind of peace there will be in the world, which consists only in
violence and rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit
of robbers and oppressors. VVho would not think it an admirable peace
betwixt the mighty and the mean, when the lamb, without resistance,
yielded his throat to be torn by the imperious wolf? Polyphemus’s den
gives us a perfect pattern of such a peace, and such a government,
wherein Ulysses and his companions had nothing to do, but quietly to
suffer themselves to be devoured. And no doubt Ulysses, who was a
prudent man, preached up passive obedience, and exhorted them to a quiet
submission, by representing to them of what concernment peace was to
mankind; and by shewing the inconveniences might happen, if they should
offer to resist Polyphemus, who had now the power over them.
Sect. 229The end of government is the good of mankind; and which is
best for mankind, that the people should be always exposed to the
boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes liable
to be opposed, when they grow exorbitant in the use of their power, and
employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation of the
properties of their people?
Sect. 230Nor let any one say, that mischief can arise from hence, as
often as it shall please a busy head, or turbulent spirit, to desire the
alteration of the government. It is true, such men may stir, whenever
they please; but it will be only to their own just ruin and perdition:
for till the mischief be grown general, and the ill designs of the
rulers become visible, or their attempts sensible to the greater part,
the people, who are more disposed to suffer than right themselves by
resistance, are not apt to stir.The examples of particular injustice, or
oppression of here and there an unfortunate man, moves them not. But if
they universally have a persuation, grounded upon manifest evidence,
that designs are carrying on against their liberties, and the general
course and tendency of things cannot but give them strong suspicions of
the evil intention of their governors, who is to be blamed for it? Who
can help it, if they, who might avoid it, bring themselves into this
suspicion? Are the people to be blamed, if they have the sense of
rational creatures, and can think of things no otherwise than as they
find and feel them? And is it not rather their fault, who put things
into such a posture, that they would not have them thought to be as they
are? I grant, that the pride, ambition, and turbulency of private men
have sometimes caused great disorders in commonwealths, and factions
have been fatal to states and kingdoms. But whether the mischief hath
oftener begun in the peoples wantonness, and a desire to cast off the
lawful authority of their rulers, or in the rulers insolence, and
endeavours to get and exercise an arbitrary power over their people;
whether oppression, or disobedience, gave the first rise to the
disorder, I leave it to impartial history to determine. This I am sure,
whoever, either ruler or subject, by force goes about to invade the
rights of either prince or people, and lays the foundation for
overturning the constitution and frame of any just government, is highly
guilty of the greatest crime, I think, a man is capable of, being to
answer for all those mischiefs of blood, rapine, and desolation, which
the breaking to pieces of governments bring on a country. And he who
does it, is justly to be esteemed the common enemy and pest of mankind,
and is to be treated accordingly.
Sect. 231That subjects or foreigners, attempting by force on the
properties of any people, may be resisted with force, is agreed on all
hands. But that magistrates, doing the same thing, may be resisted, hath
of late been denied: as if those who had the greatest privileges and
advantages by the law, had thereby a power to break those laws, by which
alone they were set in a better place than their brethren: whereas their
offence is thereby the greater, both as being ungrateful for the greater
share they have by the law, and breaking also that trust, which is put
into their hands by their brethren.
Sect. 232Whosoever uses force without right, as every one does in
society, who does it without law, puts himself into a state of war with
those against whom he so uses it; and in that state all former ties are
cancelled, all other rights cease, and every one has a right to defend
himself, and to resist the aggressor. This is so evident, that Barclay
himself, that great assertor of the power and sacredness of kings, is
forced to confess, That it is lawful for the people, in some cases, to
resist the ring; and that too in a chapter, wherein he pretends to
shew, that the divine law shuts up the people from all manner of
rebellion. Whereby it is evident, even by his own doctrine, that, since
they may in some cases resist, all resisting of princes is not
rebellion. His words are these. Quod siquis dicat, Ergone populus
tyrannicae crudelitati & furori jugulum semper praebebit? Ergone
multitude civitates suas fame, ferro, & flamma vastari, seque, conjuges,
& liberos fortunae ludibrio & tyranni libidini exponi, inque omnia vitae
pericula omnesque miserias & molestias a rege deduci patientur? Num
illis quod omni animantium generi est a natura tributum, denegari debet,
ut sc. vim vi repellant, seseq; ab injuria, tueantur? Huic breviter
responsum sit, Populo universo negari defensionem, quae juris naturalis
est, neque ultionem quae praeter naturam est adversus regem concedi
debere. Quapropter si rex non in singulares tantum personas aliquot
privatum odium exerceat, sed corpus etiam reipublicae, cujus ipse caput
est, i.e. totum populum, vel insignem aliquam ejus partem immani &
intoleranda saevitia seu tyrannide divexet; populo, quidem hoc casu
resistendi ac tuendi se ab injuria potestas competit, sed tuendi se
tantum, non enim in principem invadendi: & restituendae injuriae
illatae, non recedendi a debita reverentia propter acceptam injuriam.
Praesentem denique impetum propulsandi non vim praeteritam ulciscenti
jus habet. Horum enim alterum a natura est, ut vitam scilicet corpusque
tueamur. Alterum vero contra naturam, ut inferior de superiori
supplicium sumat. Quod itaque populus malum, antequam factum sit,
impedire potest, ne fiat, id postquam factum est, in regem authorem
sceleris vindicare non potest: populus igitur hoc amplius quam privatus
quispiam habet: quod huic, vel ipsis adversariis judicibus, excepto
Buchanano, nullum nisi in patientia remedium superest. Cum ille si
intolerabilis tyrannus est (modicum enim ferre omnino debet) resistere
cum reverential possit, Barclay contra Monarchom. 1. iii. c. 8. In
English thus:
Sect. 233But if any one should ask, Must the people then always lay
themselves open to the cruelty and rage of tyranny? Must they see their
cities pillaged, and laid in ashes, their wives and children exposed to
the tyrant’s lust and fury, and themselves and families reduced by their
king to ruin, and all the miseries of want and oppression, and yet sit
still? Must men alone be debarred the common privilege of opposing force
with force, which nature allows so freely to all other creatures for
their preservation from injury? I answer: Self-defence is a part of the
law of nature; nor can it be denied the community, even against the king
himself: but to revenge themselves upon him, must by no means be allowed
them; it being not agreeable to that law. Wherefore if the king shall
shew an hatred, not only to some particular persons, but sets himself
against the body of the common-wealth, whereof he is the head, and
shall, with intolerable ill usage, cruelly tyrannize over the u7hole, or
a considerable part of the people, in this case the people have a right
to resist and defend themselves from injury: but it must be with this
caution, that they only defend themselves, but do not attack their
prince: they may repair the damages received, but must not for any
provocation exceed the bounds of due reverence and respect. They may
repulse the present attempt, but must not revenge past violences: for it
is natural for us to defend life and limb, but that an inferior should
punish a superior, is against nature. The mischief which is designed
them, the people may prevent before it be done; but when it is done,
they must not revenge it on the king, though author of the villany. This
therefore is the privilege of the people in general, above what any
private person hath; that particular men are allowed by our adversaries
themselves (Buchanan only excepted) to have no other remedy but
patience; but the body of the people may with respect resist intolerable
tyranny; for when it is but moderate, they ought to endure it.
Sect. 234Thus far that great advocate of monarchical power allows of
resistance.
Sect. 235It is true, he has annexed two limitations to it, to no
purpose: First, He says, it must be with reverence. Secondly, It must be
without retribution, or punishment; and the reason he gives is, because
an inferior cannot punish a superior. First, How to resist force without
striking again, or how to strike with reverence, will need some skill to
make intelligible. He that shall oppose an assault only with a shield to
receive the blows, or in any more respectful posture, without a sword in
his hand, to abate the confidence and force of the assailant, will
quickly be at an end of his resistance, and will find such a defence
serve only to draw on himself the worse usage. This is as ridiculous a
way of resisting, as Juvenal thought it of fighting; ubi tu pulsas, ego
vapulo tantum. And the success of the combat will be unavoidably the
same he there describes it: ----- Libertas pauperis haec est: Pulsatus
rogat, & pugnis concisus, adorat, Ut liceat paucis cum dentibus inde
reverti.* This will always be the event of such an imaginary resistance,
where men may not strike again. He therefore who may resist, must be
allowed to strike. And then let our author, or any body else, join a
knock on the head, or a cut on the face, with as much reverence and
respect as he thinks fit. He that can reconcile blows and reverence,
may, for aught I know, desire for his pains, a civil, respectful
cudgeling where-ever he can meet with it. Secondly, As to his second, An
inferior cannot punish a superior; that is true, generally speaking,
whilst he is his superior. But to resist force with force, being the
state of war that levels the parties, cancels all former relation of
reverence, respect, and superiority: and then the odds that remains, is,
that he, who opposes the unjust agressor, has this superiority over him,
that he has a right, when he prevails, to punish the offender, both for
the breach of the peace, and all the evils that followed upon it.
Barclay therefore, in another place, more coherently to himself, denies
it to be lawful to resist a king in any case. But he there assigns two
cases, whereby a king may un-king himself. His words are, Quid ergo,
nulline casus incidere possunt quibus populo sese erigere atque in regem
impotentius dominantem arma capere & invadere jure suo suaque
authoritate liceat? Nulli certe quamdiu rex manet. Semper enim ex
divinis id obstat, Regem honorificato; & qui potestati resistit, Dei
ordinationi resisit: non alias igitur in eum populo potestas est quam si
id committat propter quod ipso jure rex esse desinat. Tunc enim se ipse
principatu exuit atque in privatis constituit liber: hoc modo populus &
superior efficitur, reverso ad eum sc. jure illo quod ante regem
inauguratum in interregno habuit. At sunt paucorum generum commissa
ejusmodi quae hunc effectum pariunt. At ego cum plurima animo
perlustrem, duo tantum invenio, duos, inquam, casus quibus rex ipso
facto ex rege non regem se facit & omni honore & dignitate regali atque
in subditos potestate destituit; quorum etiam meminit Winzerus. Horum
unus est, Si regnum disperdat, quemadmodum de Nerone fertur, quod is
nempe senatum populumque Romanum, atque
adeo urbem ipsam ferro flammaque vastare, ac novas sibi sedes quaerere
decrevisset. Et de Caligula, quod palam denunciarit se neque civem neque
principem senatui amplius fore, inque animo habuerit interempto
utriusque ordinis electissimo quoque Alexandriam commigrare, ac ut
populum uno ictu interimeret, unam ei cervicem optavit. Talia cum rex
aliquis meditator & molitur serio, omnem regnandi curam & animum ilico
abjicit, ac proinde imperium in subditos amittit, ut dominus servi pro
derelicto habiti dominium. (*Translation: “I writhe with the blows you
put upon me... This is a poor man’s freedom; the more he is beaten, the
more he implores, and he prostrates himself as he goes down in the
struggle, so that he may come back a little with his teeth.”)
Sect. 236Alter casus est, Si rex in alicujus clientelam se contulit,
ac regnum quod liberum a majoribus & populo traditum accepit, alienae
ditioni mancipavit. Nam tunc quamvis forte non ea mente id agit populo
plane ut incommodet: tamen quia quod praecipuum est regiae dignitatis
amifit, ut summus scilicet in regno secundum Deum sit, & solo Deo
inferior, atque populum etiam totum ignorantem vel invitum, cujus
libertatem sartam & tectam conservare debuit, in alterius gentis
ditionem & potestatem dedidit; hac velut quadam regni ab alienatione
effecit, ut nec quod ipse in regno imperium habuit retineat, nec in eum
cui collatum voluit, juris quicquam transferat; atque ita eo facto
liberum jam & suae potestatis populum relinquit, cujus rei exemplum unum
annales Scotici suppeditant. Barclay contra Monarchom. 1. iii. c. 16.
Which in English runs thus:
Sect. 237What then, can there no case happen wherein the people may of
right, and by their own authority, help themselves, take arms, and set
upon their king, imperiously domineering over them? None at all, whilst
he remains a king. Honour the king, and he that resists the power,
resists the ordinance of God; are divine oracles that will never permit
it, The people therefore can never come by a power over him, unless he
does something that makes him cease to be a king: for then he divests
himself of his crown and dignity, and returns to the state of a private
man, and the people become free and superior, the power which they had
in the interregnum, before they crowned him king, devolving to them
again. But there are but few miscarriages which bring the matter to this
state. After considering it well on all sides, I can find but two. Two
cases there are, I say, whereby a king, ipso facto, becomes no king, and
loses all power and regal authority over his people; which are also
taken notice of by Winzerus. The first is, If he endeavour to overturn
the government, that is, if he have a purpose and design to ruin the
kingdom and commonwealth, as it is recorded of Nero, that he resolved to
cut off the senate and people of Rome, lay the city waste with fire and
sword, and then remove to some other place. And of Caligula, that he
openly declared, that he would be no longer a head to the people or
senate, and that he had it in his thoughts to cut off the worthiest men
of both ranks, and then retire to Alexandria: and he wisht that the
people had but one neck, that he might dispatch them all at a blow, Such
designs as these, when any king harbours in his thoughts, and seriously
promotes, he immediately gives up all care and thought of the
common-wealth; and consequently forfeits the power of governing his
subjects, as a master does the dominion over his slaves whom he hath
abandoned
Sect. 238The other case is, When a king makes himself the dependent of
another, and subjects his kingdom which his ancestors left him, and the
people put free into his hands, to the dominion of another: for however
perhaps it may not be his intention to prejudice the people; yet because
he has hereby lost the principal part of regal dignity, viz. to be next
and immediately under God, supreme in his kingdom; and also because he
betrayed or forced his people, whose liberty he ought to have carefully
preserved, into the power and dominion of a foreign nation. By this, as.
it were, alienation of his kingdom, he himself loses the power he had in
it before, without transferring any the least right to those on whom he
would have bestowed it; and so by this act sets the people free, and
leaves them at their own disposal. One example of this is to be found in
the Scotch Annals.
Sect. 239In these cases Barclay, the great champion of absolute
monarchy, is forced to allow, that a king may be resisted, and ceases to
be a king. That is, in short, not to multiply cases, in whatsoever he
has no authority, there he is no king, and may be resisted: for
wheresoever the authority ceases, the king ceases too, and becomes like
other men who have no authority. And these two cases he instances in,
differ little from those above mentioned, to be destructive to
governments, only that he has omitted the principle from which his
doctrine flows: and that is, the breach of trust, in not preserving the
form of government agreed on, and in not intending the end of government
itself, which is the public good and preservation of property. When a
king has dethroned himself, and put himself in a state of war with his
people, what shall hinder them from prosecuting him who is no king, as
they would any other man, who has put himself into a state of war with
them, Barclay, and those of his opinion, would do well to tell us. This
farther I desire may be taken notice of out of Barclay, that he says,
The mischief that is designed them, the people may prevent before it be
done: whereby he allows resistance when tyranny is but in design. Such
designs as these (says he) when any king harbours in his thoughts and
seriously promotes, he immediately gives up all care and thought of the
common-wealth; so that, according to him, the neglect of the public good
is to be taken as an evidence of such design, or at least for a
sufficient cause of resistance. And the reason of all, he gives in these
words, Because he betrayed or forced his people, whose liberty he ought
carefully to have preserved. What he adds, into the power and dominion
of a foreign nation, signifies nothing, the fault and forfeiture lying
in the loss of their liberty, which he ought to have preserved, and not
in any distinction of the persons to whose dominion they were subjected.
The peoples right is equally invaded, and their liberty lost, whether
they are made slaves to any of their own, or a foreign nation; and in
this lies the injury, and against this only have they the right of
defence. And there are instances to be found in all countries, which
shew, that it is not the change of nations in the persons of their
governors, but the change of government, that gives the offence. Bilson,
a bishop of our church, and a great stickler for the power and
prerogative of princes, does, if I mistake not, in his treatise of
Christian subjection, acknowledge, that princes may forfeit their power,
and their title to the obedience of their subjects; and if there needed
authority in a case where reason is so plain, I could send my reader to
Bracton, Fortescue, and the author of the Mirrour, and others, writers
that cannot be suspected to be ignorant of our government, or enemies to
it. But I thought Hooker alone might be enough to satisfy those men, who
relying on him for their ecclesiastical polity, are by a strange fate
carried to deny those principles upon which he builds it. Whether they
are herein made the tools of cunninger workmen, to pull down their own
fabric, they were best look. This I am sure, their civil policy is so
new, so dangerous, and so destructive to both rulers and people, that as
former ages never could bear the broaching of it; so it may be hoped,
those to come, redeemed from the impositions of these Egyptian
under-taskmasters, will abhor the memory of such servile flatterers,
who, whilst it seemed to serve their turn, resolved all government into
absolute tyranny, and would have all men born to, what their mea souls
fitted them for, slavery.
Sect. 240Here, it is like, the common question will be made, Who shall
be judge, whether the prince or legislative act contrary to their trust?
This, perhaps, ill-affected and factious men may spread amongst the
people, when the prince only makes use of his due prerogative. To this I
reply, The people shall be judge; for who shall be judge whether his
trustee or deputy acts well, and according to the trust reposed in him,
but he who deputes him, and must, by having deputed him, have still a
power to discard him, when he fails in his trust? If this be reasonable
in particular cases of private men, why should it be otherwise in that
of the greatest moment, where the welfare of millions is concerned, and
also where the evil, if not prevented, is greater, and the redress very
difficult, dear, and dangerous?
Sect. 241But farther, this question, (Who shall be judge?) cannot
mean, that there is no judge at all: for where there is no judicature on
earth, to decide controversies amongst men, God in heaven is judge. He
alone, it is true, is judge of the right. But every man is judge for
himself, as in all other cases, so in this, whether another hath put
himself into a state of war with him, and whether he should appeal to
the Supreme Judge, as Jeptha did.
Sect. 242If a controversy arise betwixt a prince and some of the
people, in a matter where the law is silent, or doubtful, and the thing
be of great consequence, I should think the proper umpire, in such a
case, should be the body of the people: for in cases where the prince
hath a trust reposed in him, and is dispensed from the common ordinary
rules of the law; there, if any men find themselves aggrieved, and think
the prince acts contrary to, or beyond that trust, who so proper to
judge as the body of the people, (who, at first, lodged that trust in
him) how far they meant it should extend? But if the prince, or whoever
they be in the administration, decline that way of determination, the
appeal then lies no where but to heaven; force between either persons,
who have no known superior on earth, or which permits no appeal to a
judge on earth, being properly a state of war, wherein the appeal lies
only to heaven; and in that state the injured party must judge for
himself, when he will think fit to make use of that appeal, and put
himself upon it.
Sect. 243To conclude, The power that every individual gave the
society, when he entered into it, can never revert to the individuals
again, as long as the society lasts, but will always remain in the
community; because without this there can be no community, no
common-wealth, which is contrary to the original agreement: so also when
the society hath placed the legislative in any assembly of men, to
continue in them and their successors, with direction and authority for
providing such successors, the legislative can never revert to the
people whilst that government lasts; because having provided a
legislative with power to continue for ever, they have given up their
political power to the legislative, and cannot resume it. But if they
have set limits to the duration of their legislative, and made this
supreme power in any person, or assembly, only temporary; or else, when
by the miscarriages of those in authority, it is forfeited; upon the
forfeiture, or at the determination of the time set, it reverts to the
society, and the people have a right to act as supreme, and continue the
legislative in themselves; or erect a new form, or under the old form
place it in new hands, as they think good.
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