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Locke, John

"Second Treatise Of Government"

Who doubts but the Grecian Christians, descendants
of the ancient possessors of that country, may justly cast off
the Turkish yoke, which they have so long groaned 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 chuse 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 so to be proprietors of what they have, that
no body can take away any part of it without their own consent,
without which, men under any government are not in the state of
freemen, but are direct slaves under the force of war.
Sec. 193. But 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 freemen,
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.


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