But the state of mankind is not so miserable
that they are not capable of using this remedy, till it be too
late to look for any. To tell people they may provide for
themselves, by erecting a new legislative, when by oppression,
artifice, or being delivered over to a foreign power, their old
one is gone, is only to tell them, they may expect relief when it
is too late, and the evil is past cure. This is in effect no
more than to bid them first be slaves, and then to take care of
their liberty; and when their chains are on, tell them, they may
act like freemen. This, if barely so, is rather mockery than
relief; and men can never be secure from tyranny, if there be no
means to escape it till they are perfectly under it: and
therefore it is, that they have not only a right to get out of
it, but to prevent it.
Sec. 221. There is therefore, secondly, another way whereby
governments are dissolved, and that is, when the legislative, or
the prince, either of them, act contrary to their trust.
First, The legislative acts against the trust reposed in them,
when they endeavour to invade the property of the subject, and to
make themselves, or any part of the community, masters, or
arbitrary disposers of the lives, liberties, or fortunes of the
people.
Sec. 222. The reason why men enter into society, is the
preservation of their property; and the end why they chuse and
authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and
rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the
members of the society, to limit the power, and moderate the
dominion, of every part and member of the society: for since it
can never be supposed to be the will of the society, that the
legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one
designs to secure, by entering into society, and for which the
people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making;
whenever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the
property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under
arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the
people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience,
and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for
all men, against force and violence.
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