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the laws of it; and if one of those laws be, that all things fhould be determined by the plurality of voices, his affent is afterwards comprehended in all the refolutions of that plurality. In the like manner, when a number of men met together to build Rome, any man who had difliked the defign, might justly have refused to join in it; but when he had entered into the fociety, he could not by his vote invalidate the acts of the whole, nor destroy the rights of Romulus, Numa, and the others, who by the fenate and people were made kings; nor thofe of the other magiftrates, who, after their expulfion, were legally created.

"This is as much, as is required to establish the natural liberty of mankind in its utmost extent; for till the commonwealth be eftablished, no multitude can be feditious, because they are not fubject to any human law; and fedition implies an unjust and diforderly oppofition of that power, which is legally established; which cannot be when there is none, nor by him who is not a member of the fociety, that makes it; and when it is made, such as entered into it are obliged to the laws of it."

The true and real bafis then of the civil or political power or fovereignty, which ex

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ifts in each state, is the original agreement, compact, or contract of the fociety or com munity, which forms that state, to depute and delegate the rights, which were in them individually in the ftate of nature, to thofe, whose duty it should become, to rule, protect, and preserve the community. For in this confifts the whole duty both of the fupreme and fubordinate magiftracy. It would be nugatory to question the reality of this original contract, because the particular time and place, when and where it was entered into, cannot be named, nor the written charter or document, in which it is expreffed, be produced for the fatisfaction and benefit of all future generations. "The chief queftion is not, whether there was ever fuch a contract formally and actually made; but whether mankind had not a right to make it: for if they had, civil government, in the ordinary course of things, could be rightfully founded upon nothing else, but this, or what is equivalent to it, a tacit confent of the governed. And fince the latter must be of the fame effect with the other, this may be fufficient for our prefent purpose, unless perfons

Vid Hoadley's Defence of Hooker's Judgment, p. 158. & feq.

+ Idem. p. 168.

think fit to call alfo for the original draught of a tacit confent." The actual affemblage of the multitude forming themselves into a particular fociety, was the formal ratification of this original contract, though it were done by tacit confent; and by this each individual of our ancestors became bounden to the power of the whole community, or, in other words, to the fovereignty of the ftate. The free continuance of each of their fucceffors in the community is the bond, by which they become more folemnly and firmly obligated to the contract, by grounding their tacit confent upon the valuable confiderations and daily encreasing advantages, of the experience and improvements of their predeceffors. This is a multiplying principle, that acquires vigour from every incident of human life; as each revolving day brings with it fresh reasons and motives, why the living members of the community fhould ratify and confirm the original contract entered into by their deceafed ancestors. The perpetuation therefore of the community, is the unceasing renovation and confirmation of the original contract, in which it was founded.

modern duc

The thorough confideration, and proper ap- Futility of fome plication of this principle, will demonftrate trines. the folly and falfity of fome newly broached

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doctrines, which modern fophifts pretend to eftablish as the neceffary confequences of the true principles of government, which are denied by none.

* "There never did, there never will, and there never can exift a parliament, or any defcription of men, or any generation of men, in any country, poffeffed of the right or the power of binding and controuling pofterity to the end of time, or of commanding for ever how the world fhall be governed, or who fhall govern it; and therefore all fuch claufes, acts, or declarations, by which the makers of them attempt to do, what they have neither the right nor the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and void.

"When man céafes to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing, who fhall be its governors, or how its government fhall be organized, or how administered.

"Thofe, who have quitted the world, and thofe, who are not yet arrived at it, are as remote from each other, as the utmost stretch of mortal imagination can conceive; what

Payne's Rights of Man, p. 9, 10, 11.

poffible

poffible obligation, then, can exist between them, what rule or principle can be laid down, that two nonentities, the one out of existence, and the other not in, and who never can meet in this world, that the one should controyl the other to the end of time."

Who does not fee, at the very first view of fuch doctrines, that, in order to give them effect, a new legislation must be provided for the birth of each individual, if the former legiflation ceases by the deaths of the legiflating individuals, who framed it? For if we confider the real phyfical state of mankind, we shall find that the fame hour, which terminates the existence of one, gives birth to another individual; there confequently cannot be one given inftant of time, in which government can be faid to ceafe by the demise of one, and revive by the birth of another. I fhall hereafter have occafion to go deeply into this doctrine, by confidering the effects, which the laws, enacted many hun

more

dred

nue to

day.

years ago by our ancestors, ftill conti

produce upon their posterity to this

In attempting to establish the full force and

energy

of the power and authority of magiftrates in the ftate of fotiety, I by no means derogate thereby from the perfection of true

F 2

liberty

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