Topic: According to John Locke, what is political power and where does it come from? What are the just limits of the use of legislative power? How did this understanding influence the Constitution?
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1) According to John Locke, what is political power and where does it come from? What are the just limits of the use of legislative power? How did this understanding influence the Constitution?
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume
among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of
Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments
are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown,
that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right
themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long
train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design
to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off
such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has
been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which
constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the
present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all
having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the
public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained;
and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of
people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the
Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and
distant from the depository or their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing
them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly
firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be
elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to
the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to
all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose
obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to
encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of
Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws
for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices,
and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to
harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the Consent
of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil
power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of
pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which
they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province,
establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to
render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule
into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering
fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with
power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and
waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed
the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat
the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of
Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally
unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear
Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren,
or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring
on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of
warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every state of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most
humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is
unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have
warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an
unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of
our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and
magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to
disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and
correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of
consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our
Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace
Friends.
We, Therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General
Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude
of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these
Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right
ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance
to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of
Great Britain, is and ought to be totally disolved; and that as Free and Independent
States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances,
establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States
may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the
protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our
Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
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Second Treatise on Government by John Locke(1690)
Chapter I:
§.3. POLITICAL POWER, then, I take to be a RIGHT of making laws with penalties of
death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property,
and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such laws, and in the
defence of the common-wealth from foreign injury; and all this only for the public good.
Chapter II: Of the State Of Nature
§.4. To understand political power aright, and derive it from its original, we must
consider what estate all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to
order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons as they think fit, within
the bounds of the law of Nature, without asking leave or depending upon the will of any
other man.
A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one
having more than another, there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the
same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of Nature, and the
use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another, without
subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all should, by any
manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him, by an evident
and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion and sovereignty…
§.6. But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence; though man in that
state have an uncontrollable liberty to dispose of his person or possessions, yet he has not
liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any creature in his possession, but where some
nobler use than its bare preservation calls for it. The state of Nature has a law of Nature
to govern it, which obliges every one, and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind
who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm
another in his life, health, liberty or possessions; for men being all the workmanship of
one omnipotent and infinitely wise Maker; all the servants of one sovereign Master, sent
into the world by His order and about His business; they are His property, whose
workmanship they are made to last during His, not one another’s pleasure. And, being
furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of Nature, there cannot be
supposed any such subordination among us that may authorise us to destroy one another,
as if we were made for one another’s uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are for ours.
Every one as he is bound to preserve himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by
the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he as much
as he can to preserve the rest of mankind, and not unless it be to do justice on an
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offender, take away or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the
liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.
CHAP. IX: Of the Ends of Political Society and Government.
§. 123. IF man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of
his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he
part with his freedom? why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the
dominion and controul of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though
in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and
constantly exposed to the invasion of others: for all being kings as much as he, every man
his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of
the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to
quit a condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers: and it is not
without reason, that he seeks out, and is willing to join in society with others, who are
already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties
and estates, which I call by the general name, property.
§. 124. The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into common-wealths, and
putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property. To which in
the state of nature there are many things wanting.
First, There wants an established, settled, known law, received and allowed by common
consent to be the standard of right and wrong, and the common measure to decide all
controversies between them: for though the law of nature be plain and intelligible to all
rational creatures; yet men being biassed by their interest, as well as ignorant for want of
study of it, are not apt to allow of it as a law binding to them in the application of it to
their particular cases.
§. 125. Secondly, In the state of nature there wants a known and indifferent judge, with
authority to determine all differences according to the established law: for every one in
that state being both judge and executioner of the law of nature, men being partial to
themselves, passion and revenge is very apt to carry them too far, and with too much
heat, in their own cases; as well as negligence, and unconcernedness, to make them too
remiss in other men’s.
§. 126. Thirdly, In the state of nature there often wants power to back and support the
sentence when right, and to give it due execution. They who by any injustice offended,
will seldom fail, where they are able, by force to make good their injustice; such
resistance many times makes the punishment dangerous, and frequently destructive, to
those who attempt it.
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§. 127. Thus mankind, notwithstanding all the privileges of the state of nature, being but
in an ill condition, while they remain in it, are quickly driven into society. Hence it comes
to pass, that we seldom find any number of men live any time together in this state. The
inconveniencies that they are therein exposed to, by the irregular and uncertain exercise
of the power every man has of punishing the transgressions of others, make them take
sanctuary under the established laws of government, and therein seek the preservation of
their property. It is this makes them so willingly give up every one his single power of
punishing, to be exercised by such alone, as shall be appointed to it amongst them; and by
such rules as the community, or those authorized by them to that purpose, shall agree on.
And in this we have the original right and rise of both the legislative and executive
power, as well as of the governments and societies
themselves.
§. 128. For in the state of nature, to omit the liberty he has of innocent delights, a man has
two powers.
The first is to do whatsoever he thinks fit for the preservation of himself, and others
within the permission of the law of nature: by which law, common to them all, he and all
the rest of mankind are one community, make up one society, distinct from all other
creatures. And were it not for the corruption and vitiousness of degenerate men, there
would be no need of any other; no necessity that men should separate from this great and
natural community, and by positive agreements combine into smaller and divided
associations.
The other power a man has in the state of nature, is the power to punish the crimes
committed against that law. Both these he gives up, when he joins in a private, if I may so
call it, or particular politic society, and incorporates into any common-wealth, separate
from the rest of mankind.
§. 129. The first power, viz. of doing whatsoever be thought for the preservation of
himself, and the rest of mankind, he gives up to be regulated by laws made by the society,
so far forth as the preservation of himself, and the rest of that society shall require; which
laws of the society in many things confine the liberty he had by the law of nature.
§. 130. Secondly, The power of punishing he wholly gives up, and engages his natural
force, (which he might before employ in the execution of the law of nature, by his own
single authority, as he thought fit) to assist the executive power of the society, as the law
thereof shall require: for being now in a new state, wherein he is to enjoy many
conveniencies, from the labour, assistance, and society of others in the same community,
as well as protection from its whole strength; he is to part also with as much of his natural
liberty, in providing for himself, as the good, prosperity, and safety of the society shall
require; which is not only necessary, but just, since the other members of the society do
the like.
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§. 131. But though men, when they enter into society, give up the equality, liberty, and
executive power they had in the state of nature, into the hands of the society, to be so far
disposed of by the legislative, as the good of the society shall require; yet it being only
with an intention in every one the better to preserve himself, his liberty and property; (for
no rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with an intention to be
worse) the power of the society, or legislative constituted by them, can never be supposed
to extend farther, than the common good; but is obliged to secure every one’s property,
by providing against those three defects above mentioned, that made the state of nature so
unsafe and uneasy. And so whoever has the legislative or supreme power of any
common-wealth, is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated and
known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees; by indifferent and upright judges,
who are to decide controversies by those laws; and to employ the force of the community
at home, only in the execution of such laws, or abroad to prevent or redress foreign
injuries, and secure the community from inroads and invasion. And all this to be directed
to no other end, but the peace, safety, and public good
of the people.
CHAP. XI: Of the Extent of the Legislative Power.
§. 134. THE great end of men’s entering into society, being the enjoyment of their
properties in peace and safety, and the great instrument and means of that being the laws
established in that society; the first and fundamental positive law of all common-wealths
is the establishing of the legislative power; as the first and fundamental naturallaw, which
is to govern even the legislative itself, is the preservation of the society, and (as far as
will consist with the public good) of every person in it. This legislative is not only the
supreme power of the common-wealth, but sacred and unalterable in the hands where the
community have once placed it; nor can any edict of any body else, in what form soever
conceived, or by what power soever backed, have the force and obligation of a law,
which has not its sanction from that legislative which the public has chosen and
appointed: for without this the law could not have that, which is absolutely necessary to
its being a law,*the consent of the society, over whom no body can have a power to make
laws, but by their own consent, and by authority received from them; and therefore all the
obedience, which by the most solemn ties any one can be obliged to pay, ultimately
terminates in this supreme power, and is directed by those laws which it enacts: nor can
any oaths to any foreign power whatsoever, or any domestic subordinate power,
discharge any member of the society from his obedience to the legislative, acting
pursuant to their trust; nor oblige him to any obedience contrary to the laws so enacted, or
farther than they do allow; it being ridiculous to imagine one can be tied ultimately to
obey any power in the society, which is not the supreme.
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§. 135. Though the legislative, whether placed in one or more, whether it be always in
being, or only by intervals, though it be the supreme power in every common-wealth; yet,
First, It is not, nor can possibly be absolutely arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the
people: for it being but the joint power of every member of the society given up to that
person, or assembly, which is legislator; it can be no more than those persons had in a
state of nature before they entered into society, and gave up to the community: for no
body can transfer to another more power than he has in himself; and no body has an
absolute arbitrary power over himself, or over any other, to destroy his own life, or take
away the life or property of another. A man, as has been proved, cannot subject himself
to the arbitrary power of another; and having in the state of nature no arbitrary power
over the life, liberty, or possession of another, but only so much as the law of nature gave
him for the preservation of himself, and the rest of mankind; this is all he doth, or can
give up to the common-wealth, and by it to the legislative power, so that the legislative
can have no more than this. Their power, in the utmost bounds of it, is limited to the
public good of the society. It is a power, that hath no other end but preservation, and
therefore can never* have a right to destroy, enslave, or designedly to impoverish the
subjects. The obligations of the law of nature cease not in society, but only in many cases
are drawn closer, and have by human laws known penalties annexed to them, to inforce
their observation. Thus the law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as
well as others. The rules that they make for other men’s actions, must, as well as their
own and other men’s actions, be conformable to the law of nature, i. e. to the will of God,
of which that is a declaration, and the fundamental law of nature being the preservation of
mankind, no human sanction can be good, or valid against it.
§. 136. Secondly,* The legislative, or supreme authority, cannot assume to its self a
power to rule by extemporary arbitrary decrees, but is bound to dispense justice, and
decide the rights of the subject by promulgated standing laws, and known authorized
judges: for the law of nature being unwritten, and so no where to be found but in the
minds of men, they who through passion or interest shall miscite, or misapply it, cannot
so easily be convinced of their mistake where there is no established judge: and so it
serves not, as it ought, to determine the rights, and fence the properties of those that live
under it, especially where every one is judge, interpreter, and executioner of it too, and
that in his own case: and he that has right on his side, having ordinarily but his own
single strength, hath not force enough to defend himself from injuries, or to punish
delinquents. To avoid these inconveniencies, which disorder men’s properties in the state
of nature, men unite into societies, that they may have the united strength of the whole
society to secure and defend their properties, and may have standing rules to bound it, by
which every one may know what is his. To this end it is that men give up all their natural
power to the society which they enter into, and the community put the legislative power
into such hands as they think fit, with this trust, that they shall be governed by declared
laws, or else their peace, quiet, and property will still be at the same uncertainty, as it was
in the state of nature.
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§. 137. Absolute arbitrary power, or governing without settled standing laws, can neither
of them consist with the ends of society and government, which men would not quit the
freedom of the state of nature for, and tie themselves up under, were it not to preserve
their lives, liberties and fortunes, and by stated rules of right and property to secure their
peace and quiet. It cannot be supposed that they should intend, had they a power so to do,
to give to any one, or more, an absolute arbitrary power over their persons and estates,
and put a force into the magistrate’s hand to execute his unlimited will arbitrarily upon
them. This were to put themselves into a worse condition than the state of nature, wherein
they had a liberty to defend their right against the injuries of others, and were upon equal
terms of force to maintain it, whether invaded by a single man, or many in combination.
Whereas by supposing they have given up themselves to the absolute arbitrary power and
will of a legislator, they have disarmed themselves, and armed him, to make a prey of
them when he pleases; he being in a much worse condition, who is exposed to the
arbitrary power of one man, who has the command of 100,000, than he that is exposed to
the arbitrary power of 100,000 single men; no body being secure, that his will, who has
such a command, is better than that of other men, though his force be 100,000 times
stronger. And therefore, whatever form the commonwealth is under, the ruling power
ought to govern by declared and received laws, and nor by extemporary dictates and
undetermined resolutions: for then mankind will be in a far worse condition than in the
state of nature, if they shall have armed one, or a few men with the joint power of a
multitude, to force them to obey at pleasure the exorbitant and unlimited decrees of their
sudden thoughts, or unrestrained, and till that moment unknown wills, without having
any measures set down which may guide and justify their actions: for all the power the
government has, being only for the good of the society, as it ought not to be arbitrary and
at pleasure, so it ought to be exercised by established and promulgated laws; that both the
people may know their duty, and be safe and secure within the limits of the law; and the
rulers too kept within their bounds, and not be tempted, by the power they have in their
hands, to employ it to such purposes, and by such measures, as they would not have
known, and own not willingly.
§. 138. Thirdly, The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property
without his own consent: for the preservation of property being the end of government,
and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the
people should have property, without which they must be supposed to lose that, by
entering into society, which was the end for which they entered into it; too gross an
absurdity for any man to own. Men therefore in society having property, they have such a
right to the goods, which by the law of the community are their’s, that no body hath a
right to take their substance or any part of it from them, without their own consent:
without this they have no property at all; for I have truly no property in that, which
another can by right take from me, when he pleases, against my consent. Hence it is a
mistake to think, that the supreme or legislative power of any common-wealth, can do
what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subject arbitrarily, or take any part of them
at pleasure. This is not much to be feared in governments where the legislative consists,
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wholly or in part, in assemblies which are variable, whose members, upon the dissolution
of the assembly, are subjects under the common laws of their country, equally with the
rest. But in governments, where the legislative is in one lasting assembly always in being,
or in one man, as in absolute monarchies, there is danger still, that they will think
themselves to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community; and so will be apt
to increase their own riches and power, by taking what they think fit from the people: for
a man’s property is not at all secure, tho’ there be good and equitable laws to set the
bounds of it between him and his fellow subjects, if he who commands those subjects
have power to take from any private man, what part he pleases of his property, and use
and dispose of it as he thinks good.
§. 139. But government, into whatsoever hands it is put, being, as I have before shewed,
intrusted with this condition, and for this end, that men might have and secure their
properties; the prince, or senate, however it may have power to make laws, for the
regulating of property between the subjects one amongst another, yet can never have a
power to take to themselves the whole, or any part of the subjects property, without their
own consent: for this would be in effect to leave them no property at all. And to let us
see, that even absolute power, where it is necessary, is not arbitrary by being absolute,
but is still limited by that reason, and confined to those ends, which required it in some
cases to be absolute, we need look no farther than the common practice of martial
discipline: for the preservation of the army, and in it of the whole common-wealth,
requires an absolute obedience to the command of every superior officer, and it is justly
death to disobey or dispute the most dangerous or unreasonable of them; but yet we see,
that neither the serjeant, that could command a soldier to march up to the mouth of a
cannon, or stand in a breach, where he is almost sure to perish, can command that soldier
to give him one penny of his money; nor the general, that can condemn him to death for
deserting his post, or for not obeying the most desperate orders, can yet, with all his
absolute power of life and death, dispose of one farthing of that soldier’s estate, or seize
one jot of his goods; whom yet he can command any thing, and hang for the least
disobedience; because such a blind obedience is necessary to that end, for which the
commander has his power, viz. the preservation of the rest; but the disposing of his goods
has nothing to do with it.
§. 140. It is true, governments cannot be supported without great charge, and it is fit
every one who enjoys his share of the protection, should pay out of his estate his
proportion for the maintenance of it. But still it must be with his own consent, i. e. the
consent of the majority, giving it either by themselves, or their representatives chosen by
them: for if any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people, by his own
authority, and without such consent of the people, he thereby invades the fundamental
law of property, and subverts the end of government: for what property have I in that,
which another may by right take, when he pleases, to himself?
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§. 141.Fourthly, The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other
hands: for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it
over to others. The people alone can appoint the form of the common-wealth, which is by
constituting the legislative, and appointing in whose hands that shall be. And when the
people have said, We will submit to rules, and be governed by laws made by such men,
and in such forms, no body else can say other men shall make laws for them; nor can the
people be bound by any laws, but such as are enacted by those whom they have chosen,
and authorized to make laws for them. The power of the legislative, being derived from
the people by a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what that
positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and not to make legislators, the
legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in
other hands.
§. 142. These are the bounds which the trust, that is put in them by the society, and the
law of God and nature, have set to the legislative power of every common-wealth, in all
forms of government.
First, They are to govern by promulgated established laws, not to be varied in particular
cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favourite at court, and the country
man at plough.
Secondly, These laws also ought to be designed for no other end ultimately, but the good
of the people.
Thirdly, They must not raise taxes on the property of the people, without the consent of
the people, given by themselves, or their deputies. And this properly concerns only such
governments where the legislative is always in being, or at least where the people have
not reserved any part of the legislative to deputies, to be from time to time chosen by
themselves.
Fourthly, The legislative neither must nor can transfer the power of making laws to any
body else, or place it any where, but where the people have.
CHAP. XII.: Of the Legislative, Executive, and Federative Power of the Common-
wealth.
§. 143. THE legislative power is that, which has a right to direct how the force of the
common-wealth shall be employed for preserving the community and the members of it.
But because those laws which are constantly to be executed, and whose force is always to
continue, may be made in a little time; therefore there is no need, that the legislative
should be always in being, not having always business to do. And because it may be too
great a temptation to human frailty, apt to grasp at power, for the same persons, who have
the power of making laws, to have also in their hands the power to execute them,
9
whereby they may exempt themselves from obedience to the laws they make, and suit the
law, both in its making, and execution, to their own private advantage, and thereby come
to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community, contrary to the end of society
and government: therefore in well-ordered common-wealths, where the good of the
whole is so considered, as it ought, the legislative power is put into the hands of divers
persons, who duly assembled, have by themselves, or jointly with others, a power to
make laws, which when they have done, being separated again, they are themselves
subject to the laws they have made; which is a new and near tie upon them, to take care,
that they make them for the public good…
CHAP. XVIII.: Of TYRANNY.
§. 199. AS usurpation is the exercise of power, which another hath a right to; so tyranny
is the exercise of power beyond right, which no body can have a right to. And this is
making use of the power any one has in his hands, not for the good of those who are
under it, but for his own private separate advantage. When the governor, however
intitled, makes not the law, but his will, the rule; and his commands and actions are not
directed to the preservation of the properties of his people, but the satisfaction of his own
ambition, revenge, covetousness, or any other irregular passion…
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