Sovereignty of

power neceifary for the prefer

vation of the fociety.

the first and fundamental natural law, which is to govern even the legiflative itself, is the prefervation of the fociety, and (as far as will confift with the public good) of every person in it, This legislative is not only the fupreme power of the commonwealth, but facred and unalterable in the hands where the community have once placed it; nor can any edict of any body else, in what form foever conceived, or by what power foever backed, have the force and obligation of a law, which has not its fanction from that legislative, which the public has chofen and appointed. For without this, the law could not have that, which is abfolutely neceffary to its being a law, confent of the fociety, over whom nobody 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 moft folemn ties, any one can be obliged to pay, ultimately terminates in this fupreme power and is directed by thofe laws, which it enacts; nor can any oaths to any foreign power whatsoever, or any domeftic fubordinate power discharge any member of the fociety from his obedience to the legislative, acting pursuant to their truft, nor oblige him to any obedience contrary to the laws fo enacted, or farther than they do allow; it being

ridiculous

ridiculous to imagine one can be tied ultimately to obey any power in the fociety, which is not the fupreme."

Inattention to what, in fact, conftitutes the fupreme power in the fociety, has been the fatal cause of all rebellions, that have ever been raised against lawful governments. The cry of the rights of the people is the hackneyed warhoop, by which both ancient and modern traitors have excited and fomented difturbances in all states. * "A term (the people) which they are far from accurately defining, but by which, from many circumstances, 'tis plain enough they mean their own faction, if they fhould grow by early arming, by treachery or violence, into the prevailing force." The rights of the people are the most sacred rights, that can be claimed, and ought to be the most religiously preferved; but they are alfo liable to the moft ferious and alarming abuses, corruptio optimi peffima. Our own history fatally superabounds with tragical abuses of these most precious rights; and the frequent abuses of them have forced from one of the greateft ornaments of the age, an opinion, perhaps more loyal in its tendency, than

• Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, p. 56, 57.

Inattention to

what is the fu

preme power rebellion.

ufual cause of

Inftance of true tenable upon principle.

principles being

mifapprebended.

Greater degree

of power to

alter an old than

to form a new government,

*«Thefe doctrines concerning the people tend, in my opinion, to the utter fubverfion, not only of all government, in all modes, and to all stable securities to rational freedom, but to all the rules and principles of morality itfelf." The first of thefe doctrines, upon which this opinion is hazarded, refts on this pofition: "That the fovereignty, whether exercifed by one or many, did not only originate from the people, but that in the people the fame fovereignty constantly and unalienably refides." Though this doctrine has been fometimes abused to the groffeft purposes, yet it certainly forms the firft, and confequently the true, principle of political and civil government, which the high authorities I have adduced, and the reasoning I have formed upon them, have, I truft, fatisfactorily established.

In matters of fuch immenfe importance, I do not hold myself warrantable in paffing lightly from one fubject to another, without fubmitting to my readers what my judgment fuggefts to me as conclufive upon the whole. It requires, in fact, a greater degree of power, or fovereignty, to change, alter, and new

Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, p. 57. + lbidem, p. 56.

model

model an.old government, than to fettle and establish a new one; for in the change and alteration of every old government, it becomes neceffary to exchange, curtail, or annihilate many privileges, advantages, and rights, which had been poffeffed, enjoyed, and exercifed by individuals, as well as to imagine, conftitute, and difpofe of new privileges, advantages, and rights, which alone is the cafe in the formation of every new political establishment. When, therefore, it is faid, that fociety and government are of nature, it is meant, that God has fo formed and conftituted men, that they cannot phyfically exift without fociety, nor fociety continue to fubfift without government; and, therefore, neceffarily, fociety and government must be of equal duration with human nature itfelf. And when it is afferted, that particular forms of government are by the right of nations, fingulæ fpecies regiminis funt de jure gentium, it is not meant nor fuppofed, that we are annexing to focieties a mere theoretical quality, which can never be reduced to action, nor even that we are giving to focieties a power, which, by its actual execution, like the charge of a mufquet, goes off in an explosion, and evaporates into a nonentity; but we are attributing to a community or voluntary collection of free agents,

E 4

Examples of the communi

ty's changing the government.

agents, that fundamental principle and essential quality, without which they muft neceffarily lose the attributes of focialnefs and freedom, and to whom the continuance of the right to exercise the power is as neceffary to preferve them focial and free, as was the first inveftiture of the power to make them fo. *« Cujus eft inftituere, ejus eft abrogare. We fay in general, he that inftitutes may also abrogate, most especially when the inftitution is not only by, but for himself. If the multitude, therefore, do institute, the multitude may abrogate; and they themselves, or thofe, who fucceed in the fame right, can only be fit judges of the performance of the ends of the inftitution."

+ "And this might be proved alfo by infinite other examples, both of times paft and prefent, and in all nations and countries, both Christian and otherwise, which have not had only different fashions of governments the one from the other, but even among themfelves, at one time, one form of government, and another at other times.

"England alfo was first a monarchy under Britons; and then a province under the Ro

Algernoon Sydney's Difcourfes concerning Government, p. 15.

↑ Dolman's Conference touching Succeffion, p. 8, 9.

mans