Chapter XIII
        Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Commonwealth

  149. THOUGH in a constituted commonwealth standing upon its own
basis and acting according to its own nature- that is, acting for
the preservation of the community, there can be but one supreme power,
which is the legislative, to which all the rest are and must be
subordinate, yet the legislative being only a fiduciary power to act
for certain ends, there remains still in the people a supreme power to
remove or alter the legislative, when they find the legislative act
contrary to the trust reposed in them. For all power given with
trust for the attaining an end being limited by that end, whenever
that end is manifestly neglected or opposed, the trust must
necessarily be forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of
those that gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think
best for their safety and security. And thus the community perpetually
retains a supreme power of saving themselves from the attempts and
designs of anybody, even of their legislators, whenever they shall
be so foolish or so wicked as to lay and carry on designs against
the liberties and properties of the subject. For no man or society
of men having a power to deliver up their preservation, or
consequently the means of it, to the absolute will and arbitrary
dominion of another, whenever any one shall go about to bring them
into such a slavish condition, they will always have a right to
preserve what they have not a power to part with, and to rid
themselves of those who invade this fundamental, sacred, and
unalterable law of self-preservation for which they entered into
society. And thus the community may be said in this respect to be
always the supreme power, but not as considered under any form of
government, because this power of the people can never take place till
the government be dissolved.
  150. In all cases whilst the government subsists, the legislative is
the supreme power. For what can give laws to another must needs be
superior to him, and since the legislative is no otherwise legislative
of the society but by the right it has to make laws for all the parts,
and every member of the society prescribing rules to their actions,
they are transgressed, the legislative must needs be the supreme,
and all other powers in any members or parts of the society derived
from and subordinate to it.
  151. In some commonwealths where the legislative is not always in
being, and the executive is vested in a single person who has also a
share in the legislative, there that single person, in a very
tolerable sense, may also be called supreme; not that he has in
himself all the supreme power, which is that of law-making, but
because he has in him the supreme execution from whom all inferior
magistrates derive all their several subordinate powers, or, at least,
the greatest part of them; having also no legislative superior to him,
there being no law to be made without his consent, which cannot be
expected should ever subject him to the other part of the legislative,
he is properly enough in this sense supreme. But yet it is to be
observed that though oaths of allegiance and fealty are taken to
him, it is not to him as supreme legislator, but as supreme executor
of the law made by a joint power of him with others, allegiance
being nothing but an obedience according to law, which, when he
violates, he has no right to obedience, nor can claim it otherwise
than as the public person vested with the power of the law, and so
is to be considered as the image, phantom, or representative of the
commonwealth, acted by the will of the society declared in its laws,
and thus he has no will, no power, but that of the law. But when he
quits this representation, this public will, and acts by his own
private will, he degrades himself, and is but a single private
person without power and without will; the members owing no
obedience but to the public will of the society.
  152. The executive power placed anywhere but in a person that has
also a share in the legislative is visibly subordinate and accountable
to it, and may be at pleasure changed and displaced; so that it is not
the supreme executive power that is exempt from subordination, but the
supreme executive power vested in one, who having a share in the
legislative, has no distinct superior legislative to be subordinate
and accountable to, farther than he himself shall join and consent, so
that he is no more subordinate than he himself shall think fit,
which one may certainly conclude will be but very little. Of other
ministerial and subordinate powers in a commonwealth we need not
speak, they being so multiplied with infinite variety in the different
customs and constitutions of distinct commonwealths, that it is
impossible to give a particular account of them all. Only thus much
which is necessary to our present purpose we may take notice of
concerning them, that they have no manner of authority, any of them,
beyond what is by positive grant and commission delegated to them, and
are all of them accountable to some other power in the commonwealth.
  153. It is not necessary- no, nor so much as convenient- that the
legislative should be always in being; but absolutely necessary that
the executive power should, because there is not always need of new
laws to be made, but always need of execution of the laws that are
made. When the legislative hath put the execution of the laws they
make into other hands, they have a power still to resume it out of
those hands when they find cause, and to punish for any
mal-administration against the laws. The same holds also in regard
of the federative power, that and the executive being both ministerial
and subordinate to the legislative, which, as has been shown, in a
constituted commonwealth is the supreme, the legislative also in
this case being supposed to consist of several persons; for if it be a
single person it cannot but be always in being, and so will, as
supreme, naturally have the supreme executive power, together with the
legislative, may assemble and exercise their legislative at the
times that either their original constitution or their own adjournment
appoints, or when they please, if neither of these hath appointed
any time, or there be no other way prescribed to convoke them. For the
supreme power being placed in them by the people, it is always in
them, and they may exercise it when they please, unless by their
original constitution they are limited to certain seasons, or by an
act of their supreme power they have adjourned to a certain time,
and when that time comes they have a right to assemble and act again.
  154. If the legislative, or any part of it, be of representatives,
chosen for that time by the people, which afterwards return into the
ordinary state of subjects, and have no share in the legislative but
upon a new choice, this power of choosing must also be exercised by
the people, either at certain appointed seasons, or else when they are
summoned to it; and, in this latter case, the power of convoking the
legislative is ordinarily placed in the executive, and has one of
these two limitations in respect of time:- that either the original
constitution requires their assembling and acting at certain
intervals; and then the executive power does nothing but ministerially
issue directions for their electing and assembling according to due
forms; or else it is left to his prudence to call them by new
elections when the occasions or exigencies of the public require the
amendment of old or making of new laws, or the redress or prevention
of any inconveniencies that lie on or threaten the people.
  155. It may be demanded here, what if the executive power, being
possessed of the force of the commonwealth, shall make use of that
force to hinder the meeting and acting of the legislative, when the
original constitution or the public exigencies require it? I say,
using force upon the people, without authority, and contrary to the
trust put in him that does so, is a state of war with the people,
who have a right to reinstate their legislative in the exercise of
their power. For having erected a legislative with an intent they
should exercise the power of making laws, either at certain set times,
or when there is need of it, when they are hindered by any force
from what is so necessary to the society, and wherein the safety and
preservation of the people consists, the people have a right to remove
it by force. In all states and conditions the true remedy of force
without authority is to oppose force to it. The use of force without
authority always puts him that uses it into a state of war as the
aggressor, and renders him liable to be treated accordingly.
  156. The power of assembling and dismissing the legislative,
placed in the executive, gives not the executive a superiority over
it, but is a fiduciary trust placed in him for the safety of the
people in a case where the uncertainty and variableness of human
affairs could not bear a steady fixed rule. For it not being
possible that the first framers of the government should by any
foresight be so much masters of future events as to be able to
prefix so just periods of return and duration to the assemblies of the
legislative, in all times to come, that might exactly answer all the
exigencies of the commonwealth, the best remedy could be found for
this defect was to trust this to the prudence of one who was always to
be present, and whose business it was to watch over the public good.
Constant, frequent meetings of the legislative, and long continuations
of their assemblies, without necessary occasion, could not but be
burdensome to the people, and must necessarily in time produce more
dangerous inconveniencies, and yet the quick turn of affairs might
be sometimes such as to need their present help; any delay of their
convening might endanger the public; and sometimes, too, their
business might be so great that the limited time of their sitting
might be too short for their work, and rob the public of that
benefit which could be had only from their mature deliberation.
What, then, could be done in this case to prevent the community from
being exposed some time or other to imminent hazard on one side or the
other, by fixed intervals and periods set to the meeting and acting of
the legislative, but to entrust it to the prudence of some who,
being present and acquainted with the state of public affairs, might
make use of this prerogative for the public good? And where else could
this be so well placed as in his hands who was entrusted with the
execution of the laws for the same end? Thus, supposing the regulation
of times for the assembling and sitting of the legislative not settled
by the original constitution, it naturally fell into the hands of
the executive; not as an arbitrary power depending on his good
pleasure, but with this trust always to have it exercised only for the
public weal, as the occurrences of times and change of affairs might
require. Whether settled periods of their convening, or a liberty left
to the prince for convoking the legislative, or perhaps a mixture of
both, hath the least inconvenience attending it, it is not my business
here to inquire, but only to show that, though the executive power may
have the prerogative of convoking and dissolving such conventions of
the legislative, yet it is not thereby superior to it.
  157. Things of this world are in so constant a flux that nothing
remains long in the same state. Thus people, riches, trade, power,
change their stations; flourishing mighty cities come to ruin, and
prove in time neglected desolate corners, whilst other unfrequented
places grow into populous countries filled with wealth and
inhabitants. But things not always changing equally, and private
interest often keeping up customs and privileges when the reasons of
them are ceased, it often comes to pass that in governments where part
of the legislative consists of representatives chosen by the people,
that in tract of time this representation becomes very unequal and
disproportionate to the reasons it was at first established upon. To
what gross absurdities the following of custom when reason has left it
may lead, we may be satisfied when we see the bare name of a town,
of which there remains not so much as the ruins, where scarce so
much housing as a sheepcote, or more inhabitants than a shepherd is to
be found, send as many representatives to the grand assembly of
law-makers as a whole county numerous in people and powerful in
riches. This strangers stand amazed at, and every one must confess
needs a remedy; though most think it hard to find one, because the
constitution of the legislative being the original and supreme act
of the society, antecedent to all positive laws in it, and depending
wholly on the people, no inferior power can alter it. And,
therefore, the people when the legislative is once constituted, having
in such a government as we have been speaking of no power to act as
long as the government stands, this inconvenience is thought incapable
of a remedy.
  158. Salus populi suprema lex is certainly so just and fundamental a
rule, that he who sincerely follows it cannot dangerously err. If,
therefore, the executive who has the power of convoking the
legislative, observing rather the true proportion than fashion of
representation, regulates not by old custom, but true reason, the
number of members in all places, that have a right to be distinctly
represented, which no part of the people, however incorporated, can
pretend to, but in proportion to the assistance which it affords to
the public, it cannot be judged to have set up a new legislative,
but to have restored the old and true one, and to have rectified the
disorders which succession of time had insensibly as well as
inevitably introduced; for it being the interest as well as
intention of the people to have a fair and equal representative,
whoever brings it nearest to that is an undoubted friend to and
establisher of the government, and cannot miss the consent and
approbation of the community; prerogative being nothing but a power in
the hands of the prince to provide for the public good in such cases
which, depending upon unforeseen and uncertain occurrences, certain
and unalterable laws could not safely direct. Whatsoever shall be done
manifestly for the good of the people, and establishing the government
upon its true foundations is, and always will be, just prerogative.
The power of erecting new corporations, and therewith new
representatives, carries with it a supposition that in time the
measures of representation might vary, and those have a just right
to be represented which before had none; and by the same reason, those
cease to have a right, and be too inconsiderable for such a privilege,
which before had it. It is not a change from the present state
which, perhaps, corruption or decay has introduced, that makes an
inroad upon the government, but the tendency of it to injure or
oppress the people, and to set up one part or party with a distinction
from and an unequal subjection of the rest. Whatsoever cannot but be
acknowledged to be of advantage to the society and people in
general, upon just and lasting measures, will always, when done,
justify itself; and whenever the people shall choose their
representatives upon just and undeniably equal measures, suitable to
the original frame of the government, it cannot be doubted to be the
will and act of the society, whoever permitted or proposed to them
so to do.