121. But since the government has a direct jurisdiction only over
the land and reaches the possessor of it (before he has actually
incorporated himself in the society) only as he dwells upon and enjoys
that, the obligation any one is under by virtue of such enjoyment to
submit to the government begins and ends with the enjoyment; so that
whenever the owner, who has given nothing but such a tacit consent
to the government will, by donation, sale or otherwise, quit the
said possession, he is at liberty to go and incorporate himself into
any other commonwealth, or agree with others to begin a new one in
vacuis locis, in any part of the world they can find free and
unpossessed; whereas he that has once, by actual agreement and any
express declaration, given his consent to be of any commonweal, is
perpetually and indispensably obliged to be, and remain unalterably
a subject to it, and can never be again in the liberty of the state of
Nature, unless by any calamity the government he was under comes to be
dissolved.
122. But submitting to the laws of any country, living quietly and
enjoying privileges and protection under them, makes not a man a
member of that society; it is only a local protection and homage due
to and from all those who, not being in a state of war, come within
the territories belonging to any government, to all parts whereof
the force of its law extends.
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