227. In both the forementioned cases, when either the legislative is
changed, or the legislators act contrary to the end for which they
were constituted, those who are guilty are guilty of rebellion. For if
any one by force takes away the established legislative of any
society, and the laws by them made, pursuant to their trust, he
thereby takes away the umpirage which every one had consented to for a
peaceable decision of all their controversies, and a bar to the
state of war amongst them. They who remove or change the legislative
take away this decisive power, which nobody can have but by the
appointment and consent of the people, and so destroying the authority
which the people did, and nobody else can, set up, and introducing a
power which the people hath not authorised, actually introduce a state
of war, which is that of force without authority; and thus by removing
the legislative established by the society, in whose decisions the
people acquiesced and united as to that of their own will, they
untie the knot, and expose the people anew to the state of war. And if
those, who by force take away the legislative, are rebels, the
legislators themselves, as has been shown, can be no less esteemed so,
when they who were set up for the protection and preservation of the
people, their liberties and properties shall by force invade and
endeavour to take them away; and so they putting themselves into a
state of war with those who made them the protectors and guardians
of their peace, are properly, and with the greatest aggravation,
rebellantes, rebels.
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