When any one, or more, shall take upon them to make
laws, whom the people have not appointed so to do, they make laws
without authority, which the people are not therefore bound to
obey; by which means they come again to be out of subjection, and
may constitute to themselves a new legislative, as they think
best, being in full liberty to resist the force of those, who
without authority would impose any thing upon them. Every one is
at the disposure of his own will, when those who had, by the
delegation of the society, the declaring of the public will, are
excluded from it, and others usurp the place, who have no such
authority or delegation.
Sec. 213. This being usually brought about by such in the
commonwealth who misuse the power they have; it is hard to
consider it aright, and know at whose door to lay it, without
knowing the form of government in which it happens. Let us
suppose then the legislative placed in the concurrence of three
distinct persons.
1. A single hereditary person, having the constant,
supreme, executive power, and with it the power of convoking and
dissolving the other two within certain periods of time.
2. An assembly of hereditary nobility.
3. An assembly of representatives chosen, pro tempore, by
the people. Such a form of government supposed, it is evident,
Sec.
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