Harvard Law Review Volume 13 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ...government, where he has made no expressions of it at all. And to this I say, that every man, that hath any possessions, or enjoyment of any part of the dominion: of any government, doth thereby give his tacit monarchy, or an oligarchy, as it is with a republic.1 The point that Locke makes, is, that kings do not have an imprescriptible right to their thrones, but that all government rests ultimately upon the will of the people, and that they, for adequate cause, when they so choose, can change it, or do away with it altogether. That is to say, there is somewhere an ultimate right of revolution.2 This postulate it was, and this principally, wherewith the Declaration had to deal, and not the institution of government. What form that was to take, the Congress had not the authority to de consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of that government, during such enjoyment, as any one under it, whether this his possession be of land, to him and his heirs for ever, or a lodging only for a week; or whether it be barely travelling freely on the highway; and, in effect, it reaches as far as the very beingof any one within the territories of that government." Second Treatise, II9. I " The majority having, as has been showed, upon men's first uniting into society, the whole power of the community naturally in them, may employ all that power in making laws for the community from time to time, and executing those laws by officers of their own appointing; and then the form of the government is a perfect democracy: or else may put the power of making laws into the hands of a few select men, and their heirs or successors; and then it is an oligarchy: or else into the hands of one man, and then it is a monarchy: if to...