Sec. 138. Thirdly, The supreme power cannot take from any
man any part of his property without his own consent: for the
preservation of property being the end of government, and that
for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and
requires, that the people should have property, without which
they must be supposed to lose that, by entering into society,
which was the end for which they entered into it; too gross an
absurdity for any man to own. Men therefore in society having
property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the law
of the community are their's, that no body hath a right to take
their substance or any part of it from them, without their own
consent: without this they have no property at all; for I have
truly no property in that, which another can by right take from
me, when he pleases, against my consent. Hence it is a mistake
to think, that the supreme or legislative power of any common-
wealth, can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the
subject arbitrarily, or take any part of them at pleasure. This
is not much to be feared in governments where the legislative
consists, wholly or in part, in assemblies which are variable,
whose members, upon the dissolution of the assembly, are subjects
under the common laws of their country, equally with the rest.
But in governments, where the legislative is in one lasting
assembly always in being, or in one man, as in absolute
monarchies, there is danger still, that they will think
themselves to have a distinct interest from the rest of the
community; and so will be apt to increase their own riches and
power, by taking what they think fit from the people: for a man's
property is not at all secure, tho' there be good and equitable
laws to set the bounds of it between him and his fellow subjects,
if he who commands those subjects have power to take from any
private man, what part he pleases of his property, and use and
dispose of it as he thinks good.
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