149. Though in a constituted commonwealth standing upon its own basis and acting according to
its own nature -- that is, acting for the preservation of the community, there can be but one
supreme power, which is the legislative, to which all the rest are and must be subordinate, yet the
legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people a
supreme power to remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act contrary to the
trust reposed in them. For all power given with trust for the attaining an end being limited by that
end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited,
and the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it, who may place it anew where they
shall think best for their safety and security. And thus the community perpetually retains a
supreme power of saving themselves from the attempts and designs of anybody, even of their
legislators, whenever they shall be so foolish or so wicked as to lay and carry on designs against
the liberties and properties of the subject. For no man or society of men having a power to deliver
up their preservation, or consequently the means of it, to the absolute will and arbitrary dominion
of another, whenever any one shall go about to bring them into such a slavish condition, they will
always have a right to preserve what they have not a power to part with, and to rid themselves of
those who invade this fundamental, sacred, and unalterable law of self-preservation for which they
entered into society. And thus the community may be said in this respect to be always the supreme
power, but not as considered under any form of government, because this power of the people
can never take place till the government be dissolved.
150. In all cases whilst the government subsists, the legislative is the supreme power. For what
can give laws to another must needs be superior to him, and since the legislative is no otherwise
legislative of the society but by the right it has to make laws for all the parts, and every member of
the society prescribing rules to their actions, and giving power of execution where they are
transgressed, the legislative must needs be the supreme, and all other powers in any members or
parts of the society derived from and subordinate to it.
151. In some commonwealths where the legislative is not always in being, and the executive is
vested in a single person who has also a share in the legislative, there that single person, in a very
tolerable sense, may also be called supreme; not that he has in himself all the supreme power,
which is that of law-making, but because he has in him the supreme execution from whom all
inferior magistrates derive all their several subordinate powers, or, at least, the greatest part of
them; having also no legislative superior to him, there being no law to be made without his
consent, which cannot be expected should ever subject him to the other part of the legislative, he
is properly enough in this sense supreme. But yet it is to be observed that though oaths of
allegiance and fealty are taken to him, it is not to him as supreme legislator, but supreme executor
of the law made by a joint power of him with others, allegiance being nothing but an obedience
according to law, which, when he violates, he has no right to obedience, nor can claim it
otherwise than as the public person vested with the power of the law, and so is to be considered
as the image, phantom, or representative of the commonwealth, acted by the will of the society
declared in its laws, and thus he has no will, no power, but that of the law. But when he quits this
representation, this public will, and acts by his own private will, he degrades himself, and is but a
single private person without power and without will; the members owing no obedience but to the
public will of the society.
152. The executive power placed anywhere but in a person that has also a share in the legislative
is visibly subordinate and accountable to it, and may be at pleasure changed and displaced; so that
it is not the supreme executive power that is exempt from subordination, but the supreme
executive power vested in one, who having a share in the legislative, has no distinct superior
legislative to be subordinate and accountable to, farther than he himself shall join and consent, so
that he is no more subordinate than he himself shall think fit, which one may certainly conclude
will be but very little. Of other ministerial and subordinate powers in a commonwealth we need
not speak, they being so multiplied with infinite variety in the different customs and constitutions
of distinct commonwealths, that it is impossible to give a particular account of them all. Only thus
much which is necessary to our present purpose we may take notice of concerning them, that they
have no manner of authority, any of them, beyond what is by positive grant and commission
delegated to them, and are all of them accountable to some other power in the
commonwealth.
153. It is not necessary -- no, nor so much as convenient -- that the legislative should be always in
being; but absolutely necessary that the executive power should, because there is not always need
of new laws to be made, but always need of execution of the laws that are made. When the
legislative hath put the execution of the laws they make into other hands, they have a power still
to resume it out of those hands when they find cause, and to punish for any maladministration
against the laws. The same holds also in regard of the federative power, that and the executive
being both ministerial and subordinate to the legislative, which, as has been shown, in a
constituted commonwealth is the supreme, the legislative also in this case being supposed to
consist of several persons; for if it be a single person it cannot but be always in being, and so will,
as supreme, naturally have the supreme executive power, together with the legislative, may
assemble and exercise their legislative at the times that either their original constitution or their
own adjournment appoints, or when they please, if neither of these hath appointed any time, or
there be no other way prescribed to convoke them. For the supreme power being placed in them
by the people, it is always in them, and they may exercise it when they please, unless by their
original constitution they are limited to certain seasons, or by an act of their supreme power they
have adjourned to a certain time, and when that time comes they have a right to assemble and act
again.
154. If the legislative, or any part of it, be of representatives, chosen for that time by the people,
which afterwards return into the ordinary state of subjects, and have no share in the legislative but
upon a new choice, this power of choosing must also be exercised by the people, either at certain
appointed seasons, or else when they are summoned to it; and, in this latter case, the power of
convoking the legislative is ordinarily placed in the executive, and has one of these two limitations
in respect of time:--that either the original constitution requires their assembling and acting at
certain intervals; and then the executive power does nothing but ministerially issue directions for
their electing and assembling according to due forms; or else it is left to his prudence to call them
by new elections when the occasions or exigencies of the public require the amendment of old or
making of new laws, or the redress or prevention of any inconveniencies that lie on or threaten the
people.
155. It may be demanded here, what if the executive power, being possessed of the force of the
commonwealth, shall make use of that force to hinder the meeting and acting of the legislative,
when the original constitution or the public exigencies require it? I say, using force upon the
people, without authority, and contrary to the trust put in him that does so, is a state of war with
the people, who have a right to reinstate their legislative in the exercise of their power. For having
erected a legislative with an intent they should exercise the power of making laws, either at certain
set times, or when there is need of it, when they are hindered by any force from what is so
necessary to the society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists, the
people have a right to remove it by force. In all states and conditions the true remedy of force
without authority is to oppose force to it...
156. The power of assembling and dismissing the legislative, placed in the executive, gives not the
executive a superiority over it, but is a fiduciary trust placed in him for the safety of the people in
a case where the uncertainty and variableness of human affairs could not bear a steady fixed rule.
For it not being possible that the first framers of the government should by any foresight be so
much masters of future events as to be able to prefix so just periods of return and duration to the
assemblies of the legislative, in all times to come, that might exactly answer all the exigencies of
the commonwealth, the best remedy could be found for this defect was to trust this to the
prudence of one who was always to be present, and whose business it was to watch over the
public good. Constant, frequent meetings of the legislative, and long continuations of their
assemblies, without necessary occasion, could not but be burdensome to the people, and must
necessarily in time produce more dangerous inconveniencies, and yet the quick turn of affairs
might be sometimes such as to need their present help; any delay of their convening might
endanger the public; and sometimes, too, their business might be so great that the limited time of
their sitting might be too short for their work, and rob the public of that benefit which could be
had only from their mature deliberation. What, then, could be done in this case to prevent the
community from being exposed some time or other to imminent hazard on one side or the other,
by fixed intervals and periods set to the meeting and acting of the legislative, but to entrust it to
the prudence of some who, being present and acquainted with the state of public affairs, might
make use of this prerogative for the public good? And where else could this be so well placed as
in his hands who was entrusted with the execution of the laws for the same end? Thus, supposing
the regulation of times for the assembling and sitting of the legislative not settled by the original
constitution, it naturally fell into the hands of the executive; not as an arbitrary power depending
on his good pleasure, but with this trust always to have it exercised only for the public weal, as
the occurrences of times and change of affairs might require. Whether settled periods of their
convening, or a liberty left to the prince for convoking the legislative, or perhaps a mixture of
both, hath the least inconvenience attending it, it is not my business here to inquire, but only to
show that, though the executive power may have the prerogative of convoking and dissolving
such conventions of the legislative, yet it is not thereby superior to it.
157. Things of this world are in so constant a flux that nothing remains long in the same state.
Thus people, riches, trade, power, change their stations; flourishing mighty cities come to ruin,
and prove in time neglected desolate corners, whilst other unfrequented places grow into
populous countries filled with wealth and inhabitants. But things not always changing equally, and
private interest often keeping up customs and privileges when the reasons of them are ceased, it
often comes to pass that in governments where part of the legislative consists of representatives
chosen by the people, that in tract of time this representation becomes very unequal and
disproportionate to the reasons it was at first established upon. To what gross absurdities the
following of custom when reason has left it may lead, we may be satisfied when we see the bare
name of a town, of which there remains not so much as the ruins, where scarce so much housing
as a sheepcote, or more inhabitants than a shepherd is to be found, send as many representatives
to the grand assembly of law-makers as a whole county numerous in people and powerful in
riches. This strangers stand amazed at, and every one must confess needs a remedy; though most
think it hard to find one, because the constitution of the legislative being the original and supreme
act of the society, antecedent to all positive laws in it, and depending wholly on the people, no
inferior power can alter it...
158. ...If, therefore, the executive who has the power of convoking the legislative, observing
rather the true proportion than fashion of representation, regulates not by old custom, but true
reason, the number of members in all places, that have a right to be distinctly represented, which
no part of the people, however incorporated, can pretend to, but in proportion to the assistance
which it affords to the public, it cannot be judged to have set up a new legislative, but to have
restored the old and true one, and to have rectified the disorders which succession of time had
insensibly as well as inevitably introduced; for it being the interest as well as intention of the
people to have a fair and equal representative, whoever brings it nearest to that is an undoubted
friend to and establisher of the government, and cannot miss the consent and approbation of the
community; prerogative being nothing but a power in the hands of the prince to provide for the
public good in such cases which, depending upon unforeseen and uncertain occurrences, certain
and unalterable laws could not safely direct... The power of erecting new corporations, and
therewith new representatives, carries with it a supposition that in time the measures of
representation might vary, and those have a just right to be represented which before had none;
and by the same reason, those cease to have a right, and be too inconsiderable for such a
privilege, which before had it. It is not a change from the present state which, perhaps, corruption
or decay has introduced, that makes an inroad upon the government, but the tendency of it to
injure or oppress the people, and to set up one part or party with a distinction from and an
unequal subjection of the rest. Whatsoever cannot but be acknowledged to be of advantage to the
society and people in general, upon just and lasting measures, will always, when done, justify
itself; and whenever the people shall choose their representatives upon just and undeniably equal
measures, suitable to the original frame of the government, it cannot be doubted to be the will and
act of the society, whoever permitted or proposed to them so to do.
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