government theory

Chapter 40 On the Origin of Political Society (3)
112．From this it follows that men who are born free may, according to their own will, submit to the government of their fathers, or form a government by the association of different families, which generally place the government in the hands of one man, and are voluntarily subject to that Regulating, thinking that power would be quite safe in his honest and shrewd hands, did not restrict or control that man on definite terms, though they never thought of the divine right of kings, which had not yet been Men had never heard of it before it was proposed by modern theologians; nor had they ever allowed patriarchy to have a right of dominion or to be the foundation of all government.It can be seen that there is a lot of evidence to prove that, from the perspective of history, we have reason to conclude that all peaceful origins of the regime are based on the will of the people.I say peace because I shall speak later of conquest, which is considered by some to be a means of creating a government.Another objection to the origin of government as I have stated it seems to me to be this:
113．Since all are born under this or that government, it is impossible for any to unite freely and at will to create a new government, or to be in a position to establish a legitimate government.

If this argument is true, how can there be so many legitimate monarchies in the world?For if anyone can prove to me on this hypothesis that there is any one man who, at any age in the world, was free to create a legitimate Freely united to create a monarchy, or any other form of new government; and it is evident that if a man who is born to be governed by another can be so free as to have the right to establish another new kingdom to rule over others, Every man, then, who is born to be governed by another, is equally free to be either the ruler or the subject of another government.Therefore, in terms of their own principle, or that people are free regardless of their birth, or that there is but one legitimate monarch and one legitimate government in the whole world.Then, without further ado, they have only to tell us which of the two is right and which is not; and when they point it out, I am sure that all mankind will agree to obey him without hesitation. .

114．While this is sufficient to disprove their argument, and to show that it puts them in the same predicament as those against whom they themselves have argued, I shall endeavor to reveal further its inadequacies.

They said: "All men are born under government, and therefore they cannot create a new government at will. Every man is born a subject of his father or prince, and therefore he is forever in subjection and obedience. It is evident that human beings have never acknowledged or contemplated this natural state of subjection in which they are born, that makes them subject to this or that without their consent, subject to these and other their heirs.

115．For there is no more frequent instance, in official or informal history, of men withdrawing from the family or society in which they were born to govern and brought up, and disobeying, and elsewhere Create a new government.From this circumstance there were innumerable small states at the beginning of history, and as long as there was enough space there were always increasing states, until the stronger or luckier states swallowed up the weaker states, and the great states Divided into many small countries.All this is a counter-evidence to patriarchy, and clearly proves that it was not the paternal succession of natural rights which constituted the first government, since there could not have been so many small kingdoms on this argument.If men had not then at will broken away from their families and governments of whatever nature, and established various states and other governments in such forms as they thought fit, there must have been but one principality which ruled the whole world.

116．This is an instance of the world from ancient times to the present.The liberty of man is now less to those who were born in the old organized states, with established laws and fixed forms of government, than those who were born in the forest among the unrestrained savages. more restrictions.For those who would have us believe that we are born under any government, and are therefore naturally its subjects, having no longer any right or pretense to liberty in the state of nature, can give no other reason (we have Apart from the grounds of patriarchy which have been answered), it is only the argument that our fathers or ancestors had renounced their natural liberty, and thus made themselves and their posterity perpetually subject to the government to which they were subject.It is true that every man is bound to perform any covenant or promise he himself makes, but he cannot bind his children or posterity by any contract.This is because, when the son comes of age, he is exactly as free as his father, and no act of the father can take away the freedom of the son, any more than it can take away the freedom of any other man.He may, it is true, attach certain conditions to the lands which he enjoys as a subject of any country, and thereby compel his son to be a subject of that country, if he wishes to enjoy his father's property, since that estate It is the father's property, and the father has the power to deal with it as he pleases or to attach conditions to it.

117．This usually leads to a misunderstanding of the matter: since the state will not permit any part of its territory to be divided or enjoyed by anyone other than its own people, the son is only a member of the society under the same conditions as his father. a member of his father's property, he rightfully enjoys his father's property; and thus, like any other subject of that country, he at once subordinates himself to that established government.Free men, therefore, who are born under the government, are members of the state by the assent which they express individually, and not collectively, when they reach the age of majority, so that no attention is paid to the This fact, and thinking that this assent was never expressed or required, they are as naturally subjects as they are men.

118．But it is clear that the government itself does not understand this issue in this way.Governments do not claim power over sons because they have power over fathers; nor do they regard sons and daughters as subjects because fathers are their subjects.If a subject of England bears a child in France by an English woman, whose subject is the child?He is not a subject of the King of England, because he must obtain permission to acquire the rights of being an English subject; nor is he a subject of the King of France, because if he were, his father could not take him away and raise him at will.

Can anyone, if he leaves a country, or fights against it, be condemned as a rebel or a fugitive simply because he was born in that country because his parents were foreigners?It is evident that a child is not born a subject of some state or government, either on the basis of the government itself or on the laws of just reason.Until he comes of age, he is under his father's education and authority, and then he is a free man, free to decide what government he will be under, and what country he will join.For if the son of an Englishman born in France is at liberty to do so, it is evident that his father's being a subject of England does not bind him, nor is he bound by any contract made by his ancestors. constraint.Why, then, should his son not have the same liberty on the same grounds, even if he had been born anywhere else?For the father has a natural power over his children, wherever they be born, and natural obligations are not limited by the boundaries of kingdoms and states.

119．Since, as has been said above, every man is by nature free, and nothing can subject him to any earthly power except his own consent, we may imagine what constitutes a man's consent to be subject to any government. full expression of the law.There are usually two distinctions between open consent and tacit consent, which are closely related to the issues we are studying.It cannot be doubted that nothing but express consent to join a society makes a man a full member of that society, a subject of that government.The point is what constitutes a tacit assent and how binding it is—that is, how can a person who has not expressed anything at all be considered to have consented to be subject to some government.For this matter, we may regard it as such that whenever a person possesses land or enjoys any part of the dominion of a government, he expresses his tacit assent, and thereby enjoys the same land as others belonging to that government. During this period, he must obey the laws of that government.It doesn't matter whether he occupies land that belongs to him and his descendants, or just a week's residence, or just travels freely on the road; the default.

120．To understand this better, let us suppose that each individual, when he first enters into a country, incorporates into the community at the same time all that he has or will acquire, which has not belonged to any other government.The reason is that, since people join society with others to secure and establish property rights, they think that their property rights should be determined by the laws of the society, and they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the government which is their subjects. It is a pair of direct contradictions.Whoever, therefore, adds to any state what is liberty himself, and at the same time adds to it the property which is liberty, remains under the domination and control of him and his property as long as the state lasts. dominate.Therefore, any person hereafter who enjoys any part of this land belonging to and under the jurisdiction of that country by inheritance, purchase, license or other means must accept the conditions of possession of the land in order to take possession of it, that is, submit to the land. The government of that country has jurisdiction, as does any of its subjects.

121．But since the government has direct jurisdiction over the land only, and can only bind its possessor (who, in fact, has brought himself into the society) while he inhabits it and uses it, then since The obligation to be subject to the government for such use is with respect to any person consistent with such use.Therefore, when the proprietor of land, who has given only tacit consent to the government, leaves the said land by gift, sale, or other means, he is free to join any other country or agree to an agreement with others, in the "empty place", that is, Create a new nation in any part of an empty, unoccupied world they can find.But to the man who expresses by express assent and express declaration his consent to belong to any state, he must always and necessarily be, and always will be, a subject of that state, and can never return to liberty in the state of nature unless the government to which he belongs is dissolved by some catastrophe, or some public act prevents him from continuing to be a member of this country.

122．But simply obeying the laws of a country, living quietly under them, enjoying the rights and protections afforded by the country, is not enough to make a person a member of that society.This is only for those who are not in a state of war. When they come to the territory belonging to the government and the range of its legal effect, they should be protected by the place, and they should also The government respects that.But this does not make him a member of that society, a permanent subject of that country, although while he remains there he must obey the laws and obey the government there, just as a man who borrows another house for convenience In the family of a person, it cannot be regarded as belonging to that person.So we see that those aliens who have lived all their lives under another government, and enjoyed the rights and protections it affords, though obeying this government in deeds, are obliged even in conscience to obey its laws as well as any of its citizens. administration, but they do not thereby become subjects or members of the State.No one can be made a subject or member of a nation in any other way than by actual admission into it, by express agreement, and by formal promises and deeds.Such, it seems to me, is the origin of political society, and the agreement which makes a man a member of a state.

(End of this chapter)