 Book 2 Chapter 13 of 2 Treatises of a Civil Government. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ashwin Jain. 2 Treatises of Civil Government by John Locke. Book 2 Chapter 13 of the Subordination of the Powers of the Common Wealth. Though in a constituted common wealth 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 give 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 the legislators where 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 anyone 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 is dissolved. In all cases, which the government subsists, the legislative is a supreme power for what can give loss to another must needs be superior to him and since the legislative is no otherwise legislative society but by the right it has to make laws for all the parts and for every member of the society prescribing rules for 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. In some common wells 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 self all supreme power which is that of lawmaking but because he has in him the supreme execution from whom all inferior magistrates derive all the 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 be is properly enough in the sense supreme but yet it is to be observed that though oaths of allegiance and fail day are taken to him it is not to him as supreme legislator but as 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 common wealth 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 degrades himself and is but a single private person without power and without will that has any right to obedience the members owing no obedience but to the public will of society the executive power placed anywhere but in a person that has also a share in the legislative is visibly subordinate in account table to it and maybe 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 father 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 common wealth we need not speak, they being so multiplied with infinite variety in a different customs and constitutions of distinct common wealth that it is impossible to give a particular account of blame 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 all of them accountable to some other power in the common wealth it is not necessary nor so much as convenient 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 has 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 showed in a constituted common wealth 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 the legislature at the times that either their original constitution or their own adjournment appoints or when they please if neither of these has appointed any time or there would 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 the place unless by their original constitution they are limited to certain seasons or by an act of the supreme power they have adjourned to a certain time and when that time comes they have a right to assemble and act again if the legislative or any part of it be made up of representatives chosen for that time by the people which afterwards return into the ordinary state of subjects and have no share in the legislature 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 the assembling and acting at certain intervals and then the executive power does nothing but ministerially issue directions for the electing and assembling according to due forms or else it is left to his providence 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 inconveniences that lie on or threaten the people it may be demanded here what if the executive power being possessed of the force of the common wealth shall make use of that force to hint at 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 arrived 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 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 that true remedy of force without authority is to oppose force to it the use of force without authority always puts him in that uses it into a state of war as the aggressor and renders him liable to be treated accordingly 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 be a steady fixed truth what is 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 perfect 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 to this prudence of one who was always to be present and whose business it was to watch over 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 most necessarily in time reduce more dangerous inconveniences and yet the quick turn off affairs might be sometimes such as to need the present help and delay of the convening might endanger the public and sometimes to 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 eminent hazard on one side or the other by fixed intervals and periods said 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 obvious to have exercised only for the public feel 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 perhaps a mixture of both had the least inconvenience attending it it is not my business here to inquire but only to shoo that though the executive power may have the prerogative of convoking in dissolving such conventions of the legislative yet it is not thereby superior to it things of this world are in so constant a flux that nothing remains long in the same state thus people, riches, greed, power change their stations flourishing mighty cities come to ruin and prove in times neglected the solid corners which other infrequent 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 seized it often comes to pass that in governments where part of the legislative consists of representatives chosen by the people that in drag 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 sheep coat or more inhabitants than a shepherd is to be found since as many representatives to the grand assembly of lawmakers as a whole county numerous in people and powerful in riches the strangers that amuse that and everyone must confess needs a remedy the most thing it had to find one because the constitution of legislative being the original and supreme act of society antecedent to all positive laws in it and depending wholly on the people no inferior power can alter it and therefore the people when the legislative is once constituted having in such a government as we have been speaking of no power to act as long as the government stands inconvenience is taught incapable of a remedy Salupabili supreme Alex is certainly so just and fundamental a rule that he who sincerely follows it cannot dangerously earn if therefore the executive who has the power of convoking the legislative observing rather the true proportion than fashion of presentation 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 with succession of time and 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 the head is an undoubted friend to an establishment 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 whatsoever shall be done manifestly for the good of the people and establishing the government upon its true foundations is and always will be just prerogative 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 places 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 intrude upon the government by the tendency of it to injure or press 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 society and people in general upon just and lasting measures will always when done justify itself and wherever the people shall choose the 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 we ever permitted or caused them so to do End of Chapter 13 Recording by Ashwin Jain Book 2, Chapter 14 of two treatises of civil government This is a LibriVox recording or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Ashwin Jain Two treatises of civil government by John Locke Book 2, Chapter 14 of prerogative where the legislative and executive powers are in distinct hands as they are in all moderated monarchies and well-framed governments There the good of the society requires that several things should be left to the discretion of him that has the executive power for the legislators not being able to foresee and provide by laws for all that may be useful to the community the executor of the laws having the power in his hands as by the common law of nature a right to make use of it for the good of the society in many cases where the municipal law has given no direction till the legislative can conveniently be assembled to provide for it Many things there are which the law can by no means provide for and those must necessarily be left to the discretion of him that has the executive power in his hands to be ordered by him as a public good and this shall require nay it is fit that the laws themselves should be in some cases give way to the executive power or rather to this fundamental law of nature and government with that as much as may be all the members of the society are to be preserved for since many accidents may happen when a strict and rigid observation of the laws may do harm as not to pull down an innocent man's house to stop the fire when the next to it is burning and a man may come sometimes within the reach of the law which makes no distinction of persons by an action that may deserve reward and pardon it is fit the ruler should have a power in many cases to mitigate the severity of the law and pardon some offenders for the end of government being the preservation of all and as much as may be even the guilty are to be spared when it can prove no prejudice to the innocent this power to act according to discretion for the public good without the prescription of the law and sometimes even against it is that which is called prerogative for since in some governments the law making power is not always in being and is usually too numerous and so to slow for the dispatch requisite to execution and because also it is impossible to foresee and so by laws to provide for all accidents and necessities that may concern the public or to make such laws as will do no harm if they are executed with an inflexible rigor on all occasions and upon all persons that may come in their way therefore there is a latitude left to the executive power to do many things of choice which the laws do not prescribe this power which is employed for the benefit of the community and suitably to the trust and ends of the government is undoubtedly prerogative and never is questioned for the people are very seldom or never scrupulous or nice in the point they are far from examining prerogative whilst it is in any tolerable degree employed for the use it was meant that is for the good of the people and not manifestly against it but if there comes to be a question between the executive power and the people about a thing claimed as a prerogative the tendency of the exercise of such prerogative to the good or hurt of the people will easily decide that question it is easy to conceive that in the infancy of governments when commonwealths differed little from families in number of people they differed from them too but little in number of laws and the governors being as fathers of them watching over them for their good the government was almost all prerogative a few established laws served to turn and the discretion and care of the ruler supplied the rest but when mistake or flattery prevailed with weak princes to make use of this power for private ends of their own and not for the public good the people were fined by express laws to get prerogative determined in those points wherein they found disadvantage from it and thus declared limitations of prerogative were by the people found necessary in cases which they and their ancestors had left in the utmost latitude to the wisdom of those princes who made no other but a right use of it that is for the good of their people and therefore they have a very wrong notion of comment who say the people have encroached upon the prerogative when they have got any part of it to be defined by positive laws for in so doing they have not pulled from the prince anything that of right belong to him but only declared that that power which they indefinitely left in his or his ancestors hands to be exercised for their good was not a thing which they intended him when he used it otherwise for the end of government being the good of the community whatsoever alterations are made in it tending to that end cannot be an encroachment upon anybody since nobody in government can have a right tending to any other end and those only encroachments which prejudice or hinder the public good those who say otherwise speak as if the prince had a distinct and separate interest from the good of the community and was not made for it the root and source from which sprang almost all those evils and disorders which happened in kingly governments and indeed if that be so the people under his government are not a society of rational creatures entered into a community for their mutual good they are not such as have such rulers over themselves to guard and promote that good but are to be looked on as an herd of inferior creatures under the dominion of a master who keeps them and works them for his own pleasure or profit if men were so wide of reason and brutish as to enter into society upon such terms prerogative might indeed be what some men would have it an arbitrary power to do things hurtful to the people but since a rational creature cannot be supposed when free to put himself into subjection to another for his own harm though where he finds a good and wise ruler he may not perhaps think it either necessary or useful to set precise bounds to his power in all things prerogative can be nothing but the people's permitting their rulers to do several things of their own free choice where the law was silent and sometimes too against the direct letter of the law for the public good and they are acquiescing in it when so done for as a good prince who is mindful of the trust put into his hands and careful of the good of his people cannot have too much prerogative that is power to do good so a weak and ill prince who would claim that power which his predecessors exercised without the direction of the law as a prerogative belonging to him by right of his office he may exercise at his pleasure to make or promote an interest distinct from that of the public gives the people an occasion to claim their right and limit that power which whilst it was exercised for their good they were content should be tacitly allowed and therefore he that will look into the history of England will find that prerogative was always largest in the hands of our wisest and best princes because the people observing the whole tendency of their actions to be the public good contested not what was done without law to that end or if any human frailty or mistake for princes are but men made as others appeared in some small declinations from that end yet was visible the main of their conduct tended to nothing but the care of the public the people therefore finding reason to be satisfied with these princes whenever they acted without or contrary to the letter of the law acquiesced in what they did and without the least complaint let them enlarge their prerogative as they pleased judging rightly that they did nothing herein to their prejudice of their laws since they acted confirmable to the foundation and end of all laws the public good such godlike princes indeed had some title to arbitrary power by that argument that would prove absolute monarchy the best comment that which God himself covers the universe by because such kings partake of his wisdom and goodness upon this is founded that saying that the reins of good princes have been always most dangerous to the liberties of the people for when their successors managing the government with different thoughts would draw the actions of those good rulers into precedent and make them the standard of the prerogative as if what had been done only for the good of the people was a right in them to do for the harm of the people if they so pleased it has often occasioned contest and sometimes public disorders before the people could recover their original right and get that to be declared not to be prerogative which truly was never so since it is impossible that anybody in the society should ever have a right to do the people harm though it be very possible and reasonable that the people should not go about to set any bounds to the prerogative of those kings or rulers who themselves transgressed not the bounds of the public good for prerogative is nothing but the power of doing public good without a rule the power of calling parliaments in England as to precise time place and duration is certainly a prerogative of the king but still with this trust that it shall be made use of for the good of the nation as the exigencies of the times in variety of occasions shall require for it being impossible to foresee which should always be the fittest place for them to assemble in and what the best season the choice of these was left with the executive power as might be most subservient to the public good and best suit the ends of parliaments the old question will be asked in this matter of prerogative but who shall be the judge when this power is made a right use of I answer between an executive power in being with such a prerogative and a legislative that depends upon his will for their convening there can be no judge on earth as there can be none between the legislative and the people should either the executive or the legislative when they have got the power in their hands design or go about to enslave or destroy them the people have no other remedy in this as in all cases where they have no judge on earth but to appeal to heaven for the rulers in such attempts exercising a power that people never put into their hands who can never be supposed to consent any body should rule over them for their harm do that which they have not a right to do and where the body of the people or any single man is deprived of their right or is under the exercise of a power without right they have no appeal on earth then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven whenever they judge the cause of sufficient movement and therefore though the people cannot be judge so as to have by the constitution of that society any superior power to determine and give effective sentence in the case yet they have by law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of men reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind where there lies no appeal on earth to judge whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven and this judgment they cannot fight with it being out of a man's power so to submit himself to another as to give him a liberty to destroy him God and nature never allowing a man so to abandon himself as to neglect his own preservation and since he cannot take away his own life neither can he give another power to take it nor let anyone think this lays a perpetual foundation for this order for this operates not till the inconvenience is so great the majority feel it and are wary of it and find a necessity to have it amended but this the executive power or vice princes never need come in the danger of and it is the thing of all others they have most need to avoid as of all others the most perilous End of Chapter 14 Recording Maya Shringan Book 2 Chapter 15 of Two Treatises of Civil Government This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Two Treatises of Civil Government by John Locke Book 2 Chapter 15 of Paternal, Political and Despotical Power Considered Together Though I have had occasion to speak of these separately before yet the great mistakes of late about government having as I suppose arisen from confounding these distinct powers one with another it may not perhaps be amiss to consider them here together First then, paternal or parental power is nothing but that which parents have over their children to govern them for the children's good till they come to the use of reason or a state of knowledge wherein they may be supposed capable to understand that rule whether it be the law of nature or the municipal law of their country they are to govern themselves by capable I say to know it as well as several others who live as freemen under that law The affection and tenderness which God has planted in the breast of parents towards their children makes it evident that this is not intended to be a severe arbitrary government but only for the help, instruction and preservation of their offspring but happen as it will there is as I have proved no reason why it should be thought to extend to life and death at any time over their children more than over anybody else neither can there be any pretense why this parental power should keep the child when grown to a man in subjection to the will of his parents any farther than having received life and education from his parents obliges him to respect, honour, gratitude, assistance and support all his life to both father and mother and thus to his true the paternal is a natural government but not at all extending itself to the ends and jurisdictions of that which is political the power of the father doth not reach at all to the property of the child which is only in his own disposing secondly political power is that power which every man having in the state of nature has given up into the hands of the society and therein to the governors whom the society hath set over itself with this express or tacit trust that it shall be employed for their good and the preservation of their property now this power which every man has in the state of nature and which he parts with to the society in all cases where the society can secure him is to use such means for the preserving of his own property as he thinks good and nature allows him and to punish the breach of the law of nature in others so as according to the best of his reason may most conduce to the preservation of himself and the rest of mankind so that the end and measure of this power in every man's hands in the state of nature being the preservation of all his society that is, all mankind in general it can have no other end or measure when in the hands of the magistrate but to preserve the members of that society in their lives, liberties and possessions and so cannot be absolute arbitrary power over their lives and fortunes which are as much as possible to be preserved but a power to make laws and annex such penalties to them as may tend to the preservation of the whole by cutting off those parts and those only which are so corrupt that they threaten the sound and healthy without which no severity is lawful and this power has its original only from compact an agreement and the mutual consent of those who make up the community third, despotical power is an absolute arbitrary power one man has over another to take away his life whenever he pleases this is a power which neither nature gives for it has made no such distinction between one man and another nor compact can convey for man not having such an arbitrary power over his own life cannot give another man such a power over it but it is the effect only of forfeiture which the aggressor makes of his own life when he puts himself into the state of war with another for having quitted reason which God hath given to be the rule between man and man and the common bond whereby humankind is united into one fellowship in society and having renounced the way of peace which that teaches and made use of the force of war to compass his unjust ends upon another where he has no right and so revolting from his own kind to that of beast by making force which is theirs to be his rule of right he renders himself liable to be destroyed by the injured person and the rest of mankind that will join with him in the execution of justice as any other wild beast or noxious brute with whom mankind can have neither society nor security and thus captives taken in a just and lawful war and such only are subject to a despotical power which as it arises not from compact so neither is it capable of any but is the state of war continued for what compact can be made with a man who is not master of his own life what condition can he perform and if he be once allowed to be master of his own life the despotical arbitrary power of his master ceases he is that master of himself and his own life and has a right to to the means of preserving it so that as soon as compact enters slavery ceases and he so far quits his absolute power and puts an end to the state of war who enters into conditions with his captive nature gives the first of these viz paternal power to parents for the benefit of their children during their minority to supply their want of ability and understanding how to manage their property by property I must be understood here as in other places to mean that property which men have in their persons as well as goods voluntary agreement gives the second viz political power to governors for the benefit of their subjects to secure them in the possession and use of their properties and forfeiture gives the third despotical power to lords for their own benefit over those who are stripped of all property he that shall consider the distinct rise and extent and the different ends of these several powers will plainly see that paternal power comes as far short of that of the magistrate as despotical exceeds it and that absolute dominion however placed is so far from being one kind of civil society that it is inconsistent with it as slavery is with property paternal power is only where minority makes the child incapable to manage his property political where men have property in their own disposal and despotical over such as have no property at all end of book 2 chapter 15 book 2 chapter 16 of two treatises of civil government this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org two treatises of civil government by John Locke book 2 chapter 16 of conquest though governments can originally have no other rise than that before mentioned nor politics be founded on anything but the consent of the people yet such have been the disorders ambition has filled the world with that in the noise of war which makes so great a part of the history of mankind this consent is little taken notice of and therefore many have mistaken the force of arms for the consent of the people and reckon conquest is one of the originals of government but conquest is as far from setting up any government as demolishing analysis from building a new one in the place indeed it often makes way for a new frame of a commonwealth by destroying the former but without the consent of the people can never erect a new one that the aggressor who puts himself into the state of war with another and unjustly invades another man's right can by such an unjust war never come to have a right over the conquered will be easily agreed by all men who will not think that robbers and pirates have a right of empire over whomever they have forced enough to master or that men are bound by promises which unlawful force extorts from them should a robber break into my house and with a dagger at my throat make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him would this give him any title just such a title by his sword has an unjust conqueror who forces me into submission the injury and the crime is equal whether committed by the wearer of a crown or some petty villain the title of the offender and the number of his followers make no difference in the offense unless it be to aggravate it the only difference is great robbers punish little ones to keep them in their obedience but the great ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs because they are too big for the weak hands of justice in this world and have the power in their own possession which should punish offenders what is my remedy against a robber that so broke into my house appeal to the law for justice but perhaps justice is denied or I am crippled and cannot stir robbed and have not the means to do it if God has taken away all means of seeking remedy there is nothing left but patience but my son when able may seek relief of the law which I am denied he or his son may renew his appeal till he recover his right but the conquered or their children have no court no arbitrator on earth to appeal to then they may appeal as Jeffda did to heaven and repeat their appeal till they have recovered their native right of their ancestors which was to have such a legislative over them as the majority should approve and freely acquiesce in if it be objected this would cause endless trouble I answer no more than justice does where she lies open to all that appeal to her he that troubles his neighbor without a cause is punished for it by the justice of the court he appeals to and he that appeals to heaven must be sure he has right on his side and a right too that is worth the trouble and cost of the appeal as he will answer at a tribunal that cannot be deceived and will be sure to retribute to everyone according to the mischiefs he hath created to his fellow subjects that is any part of mankind from once it is plain that he that conquers in an unjust war can thereby have no title to the subjection and obedience of the conquered but supposing victory favors the right side let us consider a conqueror in a lawful war and see what power he gets and over whom first it is plain he gets no power by his conquest over those that conquered with him that they fought on his side cannot suffer by the conquest but must at least be as much free men as they were before and most commonly they serve upon terms and on condition to share with their leader and enjoy a part of the spoil and other advantages that attend the conquering sword or at least have a part of the subdued country bestowed upon them and the conquering people are not I hope to be slaves by conquest and wear their laurels only to show they are sacrifices to their leader's triumph they that found absolute monarchy upon the title of the sword can make their heroes who are the founders of such monarchies errant draw-consers and forget they had any officers and soldiers that fought on their side in the battles they won or assisted them in the subduing or shared in possessing the countries they mastered we are told by some that the English monarchy is founded in the Norman conquest and that our princes have thereby a title to absolute dominion which if it were true, as by the history it appears otherwise and that William had a right to make war on this island yet his dominion by conquest could reach no farther than to the Saxons and Britons that were the inhabitants of this country the Normans that came with him and helped to conquer and all descended from them are free men and no subjects by conquest let that give what dominion it will and if I or anybody else shall claim freedom as derived from them it would be very hard to prove the contrary and it is plain the law that has made no distinction between the one and the other intends not that there should be any difference in their freedoms or privileges but supposing which seldom happens that the conquerors and conquerors never incorporated into one people under the same laws and freedom let us see next what power a lawful conqueror has over the subdued and that I say is purely despotical there is an absolute power over the lives of those who by an unjust war have forfeited them but not over the lives or fortunes of those who engaged not in the war nor over the possessions even of those who were actually engaged in it secondly I say the conqueror gets no power but only over those who have actually assisted, concurred or consented to that unjust force that is used against him for the people having given nothing to their governors no power to do an unjust thing such as is to make an unjust war for they never had such a power in themselves they ought not to be charged as guilty of the violence and unjustice that is committed in an unjust war any farther than they actually abetted no more than they are to be thought guilty of any violence or oppression their governors should use upon the people themselves or any part of their fellow subjects they have empowered them no more to the one than to the other conquerors it is true seldom trouble themselves to make the distinction but they willingly permit the confusion of war to sweep all together but yet this alters not the right for the conquerors power over the lives of the conquered being only because they have used force to do or maintain an injustice he can have that power only over those who have concurred in that force all the rest are innocent and he has no more title over the people of that country who have done him no injury and so have made no forfeiture of their lives than he has over any other who without injuries or provocations have lived upon fair terms with him thirdly the power a conqueror gets over those he overcomes in a just war is perfectly despotical he has an absolute power over the lives of those who by putting themselves in a state of war have forfeited them but he has not thereby arrived entitled to their possessions this I doubt not but at first sight will seem a strange doctrine it being so quite contrary to the practice of the world there being nothing more familiar in speaking of the dominions of countries than to say such a one conquered it as if conquest without any more ado conveyed a right of possession but when we consider that the practice of the strong and powerful how universal so ever it may be is seldom the right of rule whether it be one part of the subjection of the conquered not to argue against the conditions cut out to them by the conquering sword though in all war there be usually a complication of force and damage and the aggressor seldom fails to harm the estate when he uses force against the persons of those he makes war upon yet it is the use of force only that puts a man into the state of war for whether by force he begins the injury or else having quietly and by fraud done the injury he refuses to make reparation and by force maintains it which is the same thing as at first to have done it by force it is the unjust use of force that makes the war for he that breaks open my house and violently turns me out of doors or having peaceably got in by force keeps me out does in effect the same thing supposing we are in such a state that we have no common judge on earth whom I may appeal to and to whom we are both obliged to submit for of such I am now speaking it is the unjust use of force then that puts a man into the state of war with another and thereby he that is guilty of it makes a forfeiture of his life for quitting reason which is the rule given between man and man and using force the way of beasts he becomes liable to be destroyed by him he uses force against as any savage ravenous beast that is dangerous to his being but because the miscarriages of the father are no faults of the children and they may be rational and peaceable not withstanding the brutishness and injustice of the father the father by his miscarriages and violence can forfeit but his own life but involves not his children in his guilt or destruction his goods which nature that willeth the preservation of all mankind as much as is possible hath made to belong to the children to keep them from perishing do still continue to belong to his children for supposing them not to have joined in the war either through infancy absence or choice they have done nothing to forfeit them nor has the conqueror any right to take them away by the bare title of having subdued him that by force attempted his destruction though perhaps he may have some right to them to repair the damages he has sustained by the war and the defense of his own right which how far it reaches to the possessions of the conquered we shall see by and by so that he that by conquest has a right over a man's person to destroy him if he pleases has not thereby a right over his estate to possess and enjoy it for it is the brutal force the aggressor has used that gives his adversary a right to take away his life and destroy him if he pleases as a noxious creature but it is damage sustained that alone gives him title to another man's goods for though I may kill a thief that sets on me in the highway yet I may not which seems less take away his money and let him go this would be robbery on my side his force and the state of war he put himself in made him forfeit his life but gave me no title to his goods the right then of conquest extends only to the lives of those who joined in the war not to their estates but only in order to make reparation for the damages received and the charges of the war and that too with the reservation of the right of the innocent wife and children let the conqueror have as much justice on his side as could be supposed he has no right to seize more than the vanquished could forfeit his life is at the victor's mercy and his service and goods he may appropriate to make himself reparation but he cannot take the goods of his wife and children they too had a title to the goods he enjoyed and their shares in the estate he possessed for example I in the state of nature and all commonwealths are in the state of nature one with another have injured another man and refusing to give satisfaction it comes to a state of war wherein my defending by force that would I have gotten unjustly makes me the aggressor I am conquered my life is true forfeit is at mercy but not my wife's and children's they made not the war nor assisted in it I could not forfeit their lives they were not mine to forfeit my wife had a share in my estate that neither could I forfeit and my children also being born of me had a right to be maintained out of my labor or substance here then is the case the conqueror has a title to reparation for damages received and the children have a title to their father's estate for their subsistence for as to the wife's share neither her own labor or compact gave her a title to it it is plain her husband could not forfeit what was hers what must be done in the case and I answer the fundamental law of nature being that all as much as may be should be preserved it follows that if there be not enough fully to satisfy both viz for the conqueror's losses and children's maintenance he that hath and to spare must remit something of his full satisfaction and give way to the pressing and preferable title of those who are in danger to perish without it but supposing the charge and damages of the war are to be made up to the conqueror not most farthing and that the children of the vanquished spoiled of all their father's goods are to be left to starve and perish yet the satisfying of what shall on this score be due to the conqueror will scarce give him a title to any country shall be conquered for the damages of war can scarce amount to the value of any considerable tract of land in any part of the world where all land is possessed and none lies waste and if I have not taken away the conqueror's land which being vanquished it is impossible I should scarce any other spoil I have done him can amount to the value of mine supposing it equally cultivated and of an extent any way coming near what I had overrun of his the destruction of a year's product or two for it seldom reaches four or five is the utmost spoil that usually can be done for as to money and such riches and treasure taken away these are none of nature's goods they have but a fantastical imaginary value nature has put no such upon them they are of no more account by her standard than the wampum poke of the Americans to a European Prince or the silver money of Europe would have been formally to an American and five years product is not worth the perpetual inheritance of land where all is possessed and none remains waste to be taken up by him that is deceased which will be easily granted if one do but take away the imaginary value of money the disproportion being more than between five and five hundred though at the same time half a year's product is more worth than the inheritance where there being more land than the inhabitants possess and make use of anyone has liberty to make use of the waste but their conquerors take little care to possess themselves of the lands of the vanquished no damage therefore that men in the state of nature as all princes and governments are in reference to one another suffer from another can give a conqueror power to dispossess the posterity of the vanquished and turned them out of that inheritance which ought to be the possession of them and their descendants to all generations the conqueror indeed will be apt to think himself master and it is the very condition of the subdued not to be able to dispute their right but if that be all it gives no other title than what bare force gives to the stronger over the weaker and by this reason he that is strongest will have a right to whatever he pleases to seize on over those then that joined with him in the war and over those of the subdued country that opposed him not and the posterity even of those that did the conqueror even in a just war hath by his conquest no right of dominion they are free from any subjection to him and if their former government be dissolved they are at liberty to begin and erect another to themselves the conqueror it is true usually by the force he has over them compels them with a sword at their breast to stoop to his conditions and submit to such a government as he pleases to afford them but the inquiry is what right hath he to do so if it be said they submit by their own consent then this allows their consent to be necessary to give the conqueror a title to rule over them it remains only to be considered whether promises extorted by force without right can be thought consent and how far they bind to which I shall say they bind not at all because whatsoever another gets from me by force I shall retain the right of and he is obliged presently to restore he that forces my horse from me ought presently to restore him and I have still a right to retake him by the same reason he that forced a promise from me ought presently to restore it i.e. quit me of the obligation of it or I may resume it myself i.e. choose whether I will perform it for the law of nature laying an obligation on me only by the rules they prescribes cannot oblige me by the violation of her rules such is the extorting anything from me by force nor does it at all alter the case to say I gave my promise no more than it excuses the force and passes the right when I put my hand in my pocket and deliver my purse myself to a thief who demands it with a pistol at my breast from all which it follows that the government of a conqueror imposed by force on the subdued against whom he had no right of war or who joined not in the war against him where he had right has no obligation upon them but let us suppose that all the men of that community being all members of the same body politic may be taken to have joined in that unjust war wherein they are subdued and so their lives are at the mercy of the conqueror I say this concerns not their children who are in their minority for since a father hath not in himself a power over the life or liberty of his child no act of his can possibly forfeit it so that the children whatever may have happened to the fathers are free men and the absolute power of the conqueror reaches no farther than the persons of the men that were subdued by him and dies with them and should he govern them as slaves subjected to his absolute arbitrary power he has no such right of dominion over their children he can have no power over them but by their own consent whatever he may drive them to say or do and he has no lawful authority whilst force and not choice compels them to submission every man is born with a double right first a right of freedom to his person which no other man has a power over but the free disposal of it lies in himself secondly a right before any other man to inherit with his brethren his father's goods by the first of these a man is naturally free from subjection to any government though he be born in a place under its jurisdiction but if he disclaim the lawful government of the country he was born in he must also quit the right that belonged to him by the laws of it and the possessions they are descending to him from his ancestors if it were a government made by their consent by the second the inhabitants of any country who are descended and derive a title to their estates from those who are subdued and had a government forced upon them against their free contents retain a right to the possession of their ancestors though they consent not freely to the government whose hard conditions were by force imposed on the possessors of that country for the first conqueror never having had title to the land of that country the people who are the descendants of or claim under those who were forced to submit to the yoke of a government by constraint have always a right to shake it off and free themselves from the usurpation or tyranny which the sword hath brought in upon them till their rulers put them under such a frame of government as they willingly and of choice consent to who doubts but that the Grecian Christians descendants of the ancient possessors of that country may justly cast off the Turkish yoke which they have so long grown under whenever they have an opportunity to do it for no government can have a right to obedience from a people who have not freely consented to it which they can never be supposed to do till either they are put in a full state of liberty to choose their government and governors or at least till they have such standing laws to which they have by themselves or their representatives given their free consent and also till they are allowed their due property which is to be the proprietors of what they have that nobody can take away any part of it without their own consent to which men under any government are not in the state of free men but are direct slaves under the force of war by granting that the conqueror in a just war has a right to the estates as well as power over the persons of the conquered which it is plain he hath not nothing of absolute power will follow from hence in the continuance of the government because the descendants of these being all free men if he grants them estates and possessions to inhabit his country without which it would be worth nothing whatsoever he grants them they have so far as it is granted property in the nature whereof is that without a man's own consent it cannot be taken from him their persons are free by a native right and their properties be they more or less are their own and at their own dispose and not at his or else it is no property supposing the conqueror gives to one man a thousand acres to him and his heirs forever to another he lets a thousand acres for his life under the rent of fifty pounds or five hundred pounds per annum has not the right of one of these a right to his thousand acres forever and the other during his life paying the said rent and hath not the tenant for life a property in all that he gets over and above his rent by his labor and industry during the said term supposing it be double the rent can anyone say the king or conqueror after his grant may by his power of conqueror take all away or part of the land from the heirs of one or from the other during his life he paying the rent or can he take away from either the goods or money they have got upon the said land at his pleasure if he can then all free involuntary contracts cease and are void in the world there needs nothing to dissolve them at any time but power enough and all the grants and promises of men in power are but mockery and collusion for can there be anything more ridiculous than to say I give you and yours this forever and that in the surest and most solemn way of conveyance can be devised and yet it is to be understood that I have right if I please to take it away from you again tomorrow I will not dispute now whether princes are exempt from the laws of their country but this I am sure they owe subjection to the laws of God in nature nobody no power can exempt them from the obligations of that external law those are so great and so strong in the case of promises that omnipotency itself can be tied by them grants promises and oaths are bonds that hold the Almighty whatever some flatterers say to princes of the world who all together with all their people joined to them are in comparison of the great God but as a drop of the bucket or a dust on the balance inconsiderable nothing the short of the case in conquest is this the conqueror if he have a just cause has a despotical right over the persons of all that actually aided and concurred in the war against him and a right to make up his damage and cost out of their labor and estates so that he injure not the right of any other over the rest of the people if there were any that consented not to the war and over the children of the captives themselves or the possessions of either he has no power and so can have by virtue of conquest no lawful title himself to dominion over them or derive it to his posterity but is an aggressor if he attempts upon their properties and thereby puts himself in a state of war against them and has no better a right of principality he nor any of his successors than Hingar or Haba the Danes had here in England or Spartacus had he conquered Italy would have had which is to have their yoke cast off as soon as God shall give those under their subjection courage and opportunity to do it thus not withstanding whatever title the kings of Assyria had over Judah by the sword God assisted Hezekiah to throw off the dominion of that conquering empire and the Lord was with Hezekiah and he prospered wherefore he went forth and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and served him not 2 Kings 187 once it is plain that shaking off a power which force and not right had set over anyone though it hath the name of rebellion yet is no offence before God but is that which he allows and countenances though even promises and covenants when obtained by force have intervened for it is very probable to anyone that reads the story of Ahaz and Hezekiah attentively that the Assyrians subdued Ahaz and deposed him and made Hezekiah king in his father's lifetime and that Hezekiah by agreement had done him homage and paid him tribute all this time End of Book 2 Chapter 16 Book 2 Chapter 17 of two treatises of civil government this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org two treatises of civil government by John Locke Book 2 Chapter 17 of Usurpation as conquest may be called a foreign usurpation so usurpation is a kind of domestic conquest with this difference that a usurper can never have right on his side it being no usurpation but where one is got into the possession of what another has a right to this so far as it is usurpation is a change only of persons but not of the forms and rules of the government for if the usurper extend his power beyond what of right belong to the lawful princes or governors of the commonwealth it is tyranny added to usurpation in all lawful governments the designation of the persons who are to bear rule as is natural and necessary apart as the form of the government itself and is that which had its establishment originally from the people the anarchy being much alike to have no form of government at all or to agree that it shall be monarchical but to appoint no way to design the person that shall have the power and be the monarch hence all commonwealths with the form of government established have rules also of appointing those who are to have any share in the public authority and settled methods of conveying the right to them for the anarchy is much alike to have no form of government at all or to agree that it shall be monarchical but to appoint no way to know or design the person that shall have the power and be the monarch whoever gets into the exercise of any part of the power by other ways than what the laws of the community have prescribed have no right to be obeyed though the form of the commonwealth be still preserved since he is not the person the laws have appointed and consequently not the person the people have consented to nor can such an usurper or any deriving from him ever have a title till the people are both at liberty to consent and have actually consented to allow and confirm in him the power he hath till then usurped two treatises of civil government by John Locke book two chapter eighteen of tyranny as usurpation is the exercise of power which another hath a right to so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right which nobody 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 entitled 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 if one can doubt this to be truth or reason because it comes from the obscure hand of a subject I hope the authority of a king will make it pass with him King James the first in his speech to the parliament sixteen oh three tells them thus I will ever prefer the wheel of the public and of the whole commonwealth in making of good laws and constitutions to any particular and private ends of mine thinking ever the wealth and the wheel of the commonwealth to be my greatest wheel and worldly felicity a point wherein a lawful king doth directly differ from a tyrant for I do acknowledge that the special and greatest point of difference that is between a rightful king and a usurping tyrant is this that whereas the proud and ambitious tyrant doth think his kingdom and people are only ordained for the satisfaction of his desires and unreasonable appetites the righteous and just king doth by the contrary acknowledge himself to be ordained for the procuring of the wealth and property of his people and again in his speech to the parliament sixteen oh nine he had these words the king binds himself by a double oath to the observation of the fundamental laws of his kingdom tacitly as by being a king and so bound to protect as well the people as the laws of his kingdom and expressly by his oath at his coronation so as every just king in a settled kingdom is bound to observe that faction made to his people by his laws in framing his government agreeable thereon too according to that faction which God made with Noah after the deluge hereafter see time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and night and day shall not cease while the earth remaineth and therefore a king governing in a settled kingdom leaves to be king and degenerates into a tyrant as soon as he leaves off to rule according to his laws and a little after therefore all kings that are not tyrants or perjured will be glad to bound themselves within the limit of their laws and they that persuade them the contrary are vipers and pests both against them and the commonwealth thus that learned king who well understood the notion of things makes the difference between a king and a tyrant to consist only in this that one makes the laws the bounds of his power and the good of the public the end of his government the other makes all give way to his own will and appetite it is a mistake to think this fault is proper only to monarchies other forms of government are liable to it as well as that for wherever the power that is put in any hands for the government of the people and the preservation of their properties is applied to other ends and made use of to impoverish, harass or subdue them of the arbitrary and irregular commands of those that have it there it presently becomes tyranny whether those that thus use it are one or many thus we read of the thirty tyrants at Athens as well as one at Syracuse and the intolerable dominion of the December at Rome was nothing better wherever law ends tyranny begins if the law be transgressed to another's harm and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law the most use of the force that he has under his command to compass that upon the subject which the law allows not ceases in that to be a magistrate and acting without authority may be opposed as any other man who by force invades the right of another this is acknowledged in subordinate magistrates he that hath authority to seize my person in the street may be opposed as a thief and a robber if he endeavors to break into my house to execute a writ notwithstanding that I know he has such a warrant and such a legal authority as will empower him to arrest me abroad and why this should not hold in the highest as well as in the most inferior magistrate I would gladly be informed is it reasonable that the eldest brother because he has the greatest part of his father's estate should thereby have a right to take away any of his younger brother's portions or that a rich man who possessed a whole country should from thence have a right to seize when he pleased the cottage and garden of his poor neighbor the being rightfully possessed of great power and riches exceedingly beyond the greatest part of the sons of Adam is so far from being an excuse much lesser reason for a rapine and oppression which the endamaging another without authority is that it is a great aggravation of it for the exceeding the bounds of authority is no more a right in a great than in a petty officer no more justifiable in a king than a constable but is so much the worse in him that he has put more trust in him has already a much greater share than the rest of his brethren and is supposed from the advantages of his education employment and counselors to be more knowing in the measures of right and wrong may the commands then of a prince be opposed may he be resisted as often as anyone shall find himself aggrieved and but imagine he has not right done him this will unhinge and overturn all politics and instead of government and order leave nothing but anarchy and confusion to answer this that force is to be opposed to nothing but to unjust and unlawful force whoever makes any opposition any other case draws on himself a just condemnation both from God and man and so no danger or confusion will follow as is often suggested for first as in some countries the person of the prince by the law is sacred and so whatever he commands or does his person is still free from all question or violence not liable to force or any judicial censure or condemnation but yet opposition may be made to the illegal acts of any inferior officer or other commissioned by him unless he will by actually putting himself into a state of war with his people dissolve the government and leave them to that defense which belongs to everyone in the state of nature for of such things who can tell what the end will be and a neighbor kingdom has showed the world an odd example in all other cases the sacredness of the person exempts him from all inconveniences whereby he is secure whilst the government stands from all violence and harm whatsoever then which there cannot be a wiser constitution for the harm he can do in his own person not being likely to happen often nor to extend itself far nor being able by his single strength to subvert the laws nor oppress the body of the people should any prince have so much weakness and ill nature as to be willing to do it the inconvenience of some particular mischiefs that may happen sometimes when a heady prince comes to the throne are well recompensed by the peace of the public and security of the government in the person of the chief magistrate thus set out of the reach of danger it being safer for the body that some few private men should sometimes be in danger to suffer than that the head of the republic should be easily and upon slight occasions exposed secondly but this privilege belonging only to the king's person hinders not but they may be questioned opposed and resisted who use unjust force though they pretend a commission from him which the law authorizes not as is plain in the case of him that has the king's writ to arrest a man which is a full commission from the king and yet he that has it cannot break open a man's house to do it nor execute this command of the king upon certain days nor in certain places though this commission have no such exception in it but they are the limitations of the law which if anyone transgress the king's commission excuses him not for the king's authority being given him only by the law he cannot empower anyone to act against the law or justify him by his commission in so doing the commission or command of any magistrate where he has no authority as being void and insignificant being as void and insignificant as that of any private man the difference between the one and the other being that the magistrate has some authority so far and to such ends and the private man has none at all for it is not the commission but the authority that gives the right of acting and against the laws there can be no authority but not withstanding such resistance the king's person and authority are still both secured and so no danger to governor or government thirdly supposing a government wherein the person of the chief magistrate is not thus sacred yet this doctrine of the lawfulness of resisting all unlawful exercises of his power will not upon every slight occasion endanger him or embroil the government for where the injured party may be relieved and his damages repaired by an appeal to the law there can be no pretense for force which is only to be used where a man is intercepted from appealing to the law for nothing is to be accounted hostile force but where it leaves not the remedy of such an appeal and if it is such force alone that puts him to use it in a state of war and makes it lawful to resist him a man with a sword in his hand demands my purse in the highway when perhaps I have not twelve pence in my pocket this man I may lawfully kill to another I deliver one hundred pounds to hold only whilst I light which he refuses to restore to me when I am got up again but draws his sword to defend the possession of it by force if I endeavor to retake it the mischief this man does me is a hundred or possibly a thousand times more than the other perhaps intended me whom I killed before he really dead me any and yet I might lawfully kill the one and cannot so much as hurt the other lawfully the reason where I was plain because the one using force which threatened my life I could not have time to appeal to the law to secure it and when it was gone it was too late to appeal the law could not restore life to my dead carcass the loss was irreparable which to prevent the law of nature gave me a right to destroy him who had put himself into a state of war with me and threatened my destruction but in the other case my life not being in danger I may have the benefit of appealing to the law and have a reparation for my one hundred pounds that way fourthly but if the unlawful acts done by the magistrate be maintained by the power he has got and the remedy which is due by law be by the same power obstructed yet the right of resisting even in such manifest acts of tyranny that suddenly or on slight occasions disturb the government for if it reached no farther than some private men's cases though they have a right to defend themselves and to recover by force what unlawful force has taken from them yet the right to do so will not easily engage them in a contest wherein they are sure to perish it being impossible for one or a few oppressed men to disturb the government where the body of the people do not think themselves concerned in it as for a raving madman or heady malcontent to overturn a well settled state the people being as little apt to follow the one as the other but if either these illegal acts have extended to the majority of the people or if the mischief and oppression has lighted only on some few but in such cases as the precedent and consequences seem to threaten all and they are persuaded in their consciences that their laws and with them their estates liberties and lives are in danger and perhaps their religion too how they will be hindered from resisting illegal force and used against them I cannot tell this is an inconvenience I confess that attends all governments whatsoever when the governors have brought it to this pass to be generally suspected of their people the most dangerous state which they can possibly put themselves in wherein they are the less to be pitied because it is so easily to be avoided it being as impossible for a governor if he really means the good of his people and the preservation of them not to make them see and feel it as it is for the father of a family not to let his children see he loves and takes care of them but if all the world shall observe pretenses of one kind and actions of another arts used to allude the law and the trust of prerogative which is an arbitrary power in some things left in the prince's hand to do good not harm to the people employed contrary for the end for which it was given if the people shall find the ministers chosen suitable to such ends and favored or laid by proportionally as they promote or oppose them if they see several experiments made of arbitrary power and that religion underhand favored though publicly proclaimed against which is readiness to introduce it and the operators in it supported as much as may be and when that cannot be done yet approved still and liked the better if a long train of actions so the council's all tending that way how can a man any more hinder himself from being persuaded in his own mind which way things are going or from casting about how to save himself that he could from believing the captain of the ship he was in was carrying him and the rest of the company to Algiers when he found him always steering that course though crosswinds, leaks in his ships and wanted men in provisions did often force him to turn his course another way for some time which he steadily returned to again as soon as the wind, weather, and other circumstances would let him end of chapter 18