Sec. 212. Besides this over-turning from without,
governments are dissolved from within,
First, When the legislative is altered. Civil society being
a state of peace, amongst those who are of it, from whom the
state of war is excluded by the umpirage, which they have
provided in their legislative, for the ending all differences
that may arise amongst any of them, it is in their legislative,
that the members of a commonwealth are united, and combined
together into one coherent living body. This is the soul that
gives form, life, and unity, to the common-wealth: from hence the
several members have their mutual influence, sympathy, and
connexion: and therefore, when the legislative is broken, or
dissolved, dissolution and death follows: for the essence and
union of the society consisting in having one will, the
legislative, when once established by the majority, has the
declaring, and as it were keeping of that will. The constitution
of the legislative is the first and fundamental act of society,
whereby provision is made for the continuation of their union,
under the direction of persons, and bonds of laws, made by
persons authorized thereunto, by the consent and appointment of
the people, without which no one man, or number of men, amongst
them, can have authority of making laws that shall be binding to
the rest.
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