119. Every man being, as has been showed, naturally free, and
nothing being able to put him into subjection to any earthly power,
but only his own consent, it is to be considered what shall be
understood to be a sufficient declaration of a man's consent to make
him subject to the laws of any government. There is a common
distinction of an express and a tacit consent, which will concern
our present case. Nobody doubts but an express consent of any man,
entering into any society, makes him a perfect member of that society,
a subject of that government. The difficulty is, what ought to be
looked upon as a tacit consent, and how far it binds- i.e., how far
any one shall be looked on to have consented, and thereby submitted to
any government, where he has made no expressions of it at all. And
to this I say, that every man that hath any possession or enjoyment of
any part of the dominions of any government doth hereby give his tacit
consent, and is as far forth obliged to obedience to the laws of
that government, during such enjoyment, as any one under it, whether
this his possession be of land to him and his heirs for ever, or a
lodging only for a week; or whether it be barely travelling freely
on the highway; and, in effect, it reaches as far as the very being of
any one within the territories of that government.
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