They, therefore, who deny, that the people have such a right of resistance, gain very little advantage to their side of the question, by changing the words of it from civil power to supreme power. For the power of civil governors, even in the highest degree of it, is only human power, and is only civil power. They may call it supreme power, with a design of setting it clear of any constitutional limitations: but if it has no other limitations, it will at least be limited by the laws of nature and of God, and by the ends and purposes of civil union.

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XIII. In this state of the question,-Whether the Right of resist people have any right to resist the supreme power?-it ance does not imis usually urged, in contradiction to such a right, that ply supreme civil the people, if their power is inferior to the power of the power in the peocivil governors, must be obliged to submission; and, consequently, can have no right of resistance. But it is absurd to say, that the power of the people is equal or superior to the power of the civil governors, when those governors are supposed to be invested with supreme power: because, in saying this, we suppose a power in the people which is equal or superior to the supreme.

Two ways have been thought of for avoiding this supposed absurdity. One of these ways is, by maintaining, that all civil constitutions whatsoever, are ultimately perfect democracies; or that every where, without exception, the supreme civil power is vested in the people, and not in the constitutional civil governors. The other way is, by maintaining, that, in all civil constitutions whatsoever, there is a mutual subjection of the civil governors and of the people; that the former have the supreme civil power when they govern well; but that the latter have it, when they govern ill.

But I cannot make use of either of these opinions, after what I have 'said about them: if I have shown the falsehood of them, I cannot make use of them consistently with truth: and though I may have failed of doing this, yet I cannot make use of them consistently with myself. I must, therefore, endeavour to clear up this supposed absurdity, by some other means.

The right or liberty of resistance, which belongs to the people, is not properly a civil power, but a natural right: it is not an authority which civil union gives them; it is only what remains of natural liberty, exempted from the obligations of civil union. The constitutional civil governors are, by the supposition, invested with the supreme power. But this power, since it is only civil power, is limited in its own nature: it is limited by the ends and purposes of civil union. Beyond these limits, therefore, the natural rights, or natural liberties of the people still subsist; the civil governors have no power, and the people owe them no subjection. This right of the people may, perhaps, at first sight, appear to be a civil power; because it seems to arise out of the social compact, or at least to depend upon this compact. But it no otherwise depends upon the social compact, than as this compact does not extend to it. The social compact limits the civil power of the constitutional governors to the purposes of civil union: and this limitation is the foundation of the people's right to resist tyrannical power: not because it gives them any power, which nature had not given them,

*See Book II. Chap. IV. § XII.

but because it leaves them in possession of their natural liberty. They had naturally a right of resisting injuries by force. As far as the ends of civil union require this natural right to be given up or restrained, so far it is given up or restrained, either mediately or immediately, by civil union. But as far as these ends do not require this right to be given up, so far it still subsists in a state of civil society.

You will now, perhaps, see, that when you ask whether the people's right of forcibly resisting the tyranny of civil governors is superior, or inferior, or equal to the supreme power, with which we have supposed those governors to be invested, the question is an improper one. The right of the people, and the power of the governors differ from one another in sort; and, therefore, cannot be compared as to degree: neither of them can, with any propriety, be said to be superior, or inferior, or equal to the other. The supreme power of the governors is a civil power: the right which the people have to resist tyrannical oppression, is a natural right. The supreme power of the governors arose from civil union, and was vested in them by the law or compact, which formed the constitution: the right which the people have to resist tyrannical oppression, arose from nature, and subsists after civil union by means of the limits, which the ends of such union have fixed to all civil power.

If we were to maintain that the people's right of resistance is civil power, and were to suppose at the same time, that the constitutional governors have supreme civil power, we might easily be reduced either to the absurdity of supposing, that there is a civil power in the people, which is superior to the supreme, or else to the necessity of allowing, what we before denied, that in all constitutions of government the su preme civil power is vested in the people. But by looking into the origin of the people's right, to resist unsocial and tyrannical oppres sion, we find it to be a natural right, and not a civil power. All mankind, in a state of equality, had a natural right to resist injuries: and the right which they have in a state of society to resist unsocial and tyrannical oppression, is only so much of that natural right, as is not brought under civil subjection by the social compact. What we maintain, therefore, is, that the people have such a right of resistance as we have been speaking of; not because they have a civil power, which is either equal or superior to the supreme civil power of their constitutional governors; but because this supreme civil power, on the one part, and, consequently the civil subjection of the people on the other part, is limited by the ends and purposes of social union; so that beyond this limitation the natural right of resisting injuries still remains, even after mankind are united into civil societies, and have invested their constitutional governors with supreme civil power.

Opinion of Grotius XIV. The general question, says *Grotius, concernexplained. ing resistance is, whether the members of a civil society have a right to resist either the supreme civil governors of it, or inferior magistrates, who act by the authority and under the commission of such governors? It is acknowledged, indeed, by all who have any sense of duty, that, if the supreme governors enjoin any thing which is contrary to the law of nature, or to the commands of God, we

*Grot. Lib. I. Cap. IV. § I.

ought not to obey them. But if they do us any injury, either because we thus refuse to obey them; or because, upon any other account it is their will and pleasure; is this injury rather to be submitted to, than resisted by force? I have rendered this latter sentence interrogatively; though from the present manner of pointing it in all the editions of our author's work, that I have seen, we may collect, that it is commonly supposed to contain rather a full declaration of his opinion, than a question, what the true opinion is. But whoever will be at the trouble of considering the construction of the sentence itself, and of comparing it with what goes before, and with what follows it, will find reason to think, that our author only designed here to state the question, and not to determine it.

But be this as it will, when he comes to declare his own opinion, he plainly favours the doctrine of non-resistance, though not without some restrictions. At the same time, he cautions his readers to observe, that many acts of the people, which go under the name of resistance against their civil governors, do not come within his notion of unlawful resistance. It may be proper for us to consider, in the first place, what particular instances of resistance he allows of, and upon what principles he allows of them: because some of these principles, when they are fully explained, will help us to correct his opinion upon the general question.

First, *if an absolute monarch, or any other civil governors, who have been invested with supreme power, abdicate, or otherwise plainly relinquish this power, Grotius allows that the people have then a right of resisting them by force: because, whatever power they may have been invested with, an abdication or dereliction of it, brings them back into the condition of private persons.

He extends the right of resistance, upon this principle, farther than the case of a voluntary dereliction. For though he had observed, that where the supreme civil governors are chargeable with some instances of negligent administration, these neglects cannot reasonably be construed as an evidence of their intention to relinquish their supreme power; yet where they become open and declared enemies of the society, such hostile conduct is, in his opinion, an evidence that they have no intention to govern it, and, consequently, is a dereliction or forfeiture of that power. For the protection of the society, or the security and advancement of its general good, is included in the notion of civil government. An intention, therefore, to govern, and an intention to destroy, are inconsistent with one another. Grotius has left his readers to conjecture what acts of hostile conduct he would allow to be an evidence, that the supreme governors of a civil society are become enemies to it. He seems to have had in his mind such a high degree of oppression, as consists in nothing less than an endeavour to extirpate the society: for he declares in general, that no king, who governs only one society, can be supposed capable of such hostile conduct, as he means, unless he is out of his senses; and that even where a king governs two societies, his attachment to one of them can no otherwise lead him to such conduct, than with a view of making room in the territories of the other, to bring colonies thither from his favourite society.

* Grot. Lib. I. Cap. IV. § I.

But whatever high degrees of tyranny Grotius might here have in his mind, if the principle, from whence he argues, will prove that civil governors forfeit their supreme power by endeavouring to extirpate the society; the same principle will likewise prove, that they forfeit this power by exercising such lower degrees of oppression, as necessarily destroy the welfare of it; though, perhaps, they may not destroy the existence of it. The welfare of a society, as well as the preservation of its being, is included in the purpose of civil government; no person, therefore, can at the same time have a will to govern the people, and a will to hold such a conduct, as is plainly inconsistent with their social welfare.

Grotius, as we shall see presently, maintains, in the general question concerning the right of resistance, that the people have no right to resist civil governors, who are in actual possession of supreme power. But in the meantime, as he was disposed to provide, in some measure, if not for the welfare, yet at least for the existence of civil society, he maintains, that civil governors, with whatever power the constitution may have originally invested them, forfeit that power, when they become enemies to the public. Upon this principle, the right of the people to resist a tyrant, who has been invested with supreme power, does not imply a right to resist a civil governor, who is in actual possession of supreme power: because such a right of resistance, as this, does not begin, till the civil governor, by a forfeiture of his supreme power, is reduced to the condition of a private person.

But we may observe, by the way, that the supposition of a forfeiture of supreme power, is not necessary to prevent this power and the right of resistance from interfering with one another. When civil governors degenerate into tyrants; whether they forfeit their supreme power, or continue in possession of it; to resist them in the exercise of a tyrannical power, and to resist the supreme civil power, is not the same thing. Supremacy of civil power does not imply, that they, who are possessed of it, have a right to do whatever they please. The notion of supremacy implies, indeed, that their power is under no constitutional restraints from without. But still it is only civil power, and is, therefore, under a natural limitation from within: it is limited, in its own nature, to the ends and purposes of civil union. The people, therefore, by resisting a civil governor, who is possessed of supreme power, in such acts as are contrary to the ends and purposes of civil union, do not resist the supreme power: for such acts, since they exceed the natural limitations of all civil power, even in the highest deof it, are not acts of the supreme power.

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When we speak of supreme civil power in the abstract, we may easily prove, that the members of a civil society have no right to resist it. The notion of supreme civil power implies a right to direct and to compel; and as far as there is such a right on one side, there can be no right to disobey or to resist on the other side. From hence it will follow, that civil governors, who are in possession of this power, cannot lawfully be resisted in the exercise of it. But it will be no consequence, that they cannot lawfully be resisted, when they exceed the natural limitations of supreme civil power, by exercising such an unsocial power, as is not included in the notion of it, and as they were never invested with. The double sense of the words-supreme

power-has probably been the occasion of some mistakes in this question. Sometimes they signify this power in the abstract: and sometimes they signify a civil governor, who is invested with this power; that is, a supreme potentate. St. Paul, as we have observed, uses the words in this latter sense, when he commands christians to be subject to the higher or supreme powers. Now, since it is unlawful to resist the supreme power in one sense, we are apt to conclude, that it must, likewise, be unlawful to resist the supreme power in the other sense. But if, instead of speaking of civil governors under the abstract name of supreme powers, we would call them supreme potentates; we should find, that this conclusion is a mere fallacy, and has nothing to support it, besides the ambiguous sense of the words-supreme power.-However unlawful it may be to resist the supreme power, when this power is considered in the abstract, it will not follow from hence, that it must be equally unlawful to resist supreme potentates. The notion of supreme power, when we consider it in the abstract, includes its natural and due limitations: it is nothing else but the highest degree of civil power; that is, of a power to direct and to compel the several members of a civil society to act in such a manner, as the common benefit and general security requires: and since the several members have, by their civil union, agreed to form such a power, the same consent, by which they formed it, obliges them to pay obedience and submission to it. When this power is, by the constitution, lodged in the hands of certain persons; these persons become the supreme potentates of the society, and are usually called by the abstract name of supreme powers. As far as these supreme powers, or supreme potentates, exercise only the civil power, it is unlawful to resist them: for as the people are obliged to pay obedience and submission to the power, with which they are invested, it cannot be lawful to resist them in the exercise of this power. But supreme potentates have a natural strength in their hands, which may possibly be abused: though the supreme power is limited, in its own nature, to the purposes of civil union, it is possible, that they may be disposed to exercise this natural strength to contrary purposes. To resist them in this undue exercise of the natural strength, which is in their hands, can no otherwise be called resistance to the supreme power, than as these supreme potentates are, themselves, called by this abstract name. In the meantime, it is such a resistance, as cannot be shown to be unlawful. However the people may be obliged to obey them, and to submit to them, when they exercise the supreme civil power; it does not follow, that there is the like obligation, when they exercise any other power: and where there is no obligation to obey and to submit, the law of nature allows of resistance. From hence we may understand what it is, that puts the difference between rebellion, and such resistance as is lawful. It is rebellion to resist the supreme governors, whilst they keep within the natural limitations of supreme power, and only command or enforce what is necessary or conducive to the general welfare and security. Whereas the resistance, which is lawful, is a resistance to these governors, when they abuse the natural strength, which the supreme power has put into their hands, to the unsocial purposes of tyranny and oppression.

From hence, likewise, we may understand what answer is to be made, when we are asked, whether it is lawful to resist the supreme