one is gone, is only to tell them, they may expect relief when it 
is too late, and the evil is past cure.  This is in effect no 
more than to bid them first be slaves, and then to take care of 
their liberty; and when their chains are on, tell them, they may 
act like freemen.  This, if barely so, is rather mockery than 
relief; and men can never be secure from tyranny, if there be no 
means to escape it till they are perfectly under it: and 
therefore it is, that they have not only a right to get out of 
it, but to prevent it.

     Sec. 221.  There is therefore, secondly, another way whereby 
governments are dissolved, and that is, when the legislative, or 
the prince, either of them, act contrary to their trust.    
First, The legislative acts against the trust reposed in them, 
when they endeavour to invade the property of the subject, and to 
make themselves, or any part of the community, masters, or 
arbitrary disposers of the lives, liberties, or fortunes of the 
people.

     Sec. 222.  The reason why men enter into society, is the 
preservation of their property; and the end why they chuse and 
authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and 
rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the 
members of the society, to limit the power, and moderate the 
dominion, of every part and member of the society: for since it 
can never be supposed to be the will of the society, that the 
legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one 
designs to secure, by entering into society, and for which the 
people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making; 
whenever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the 
property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under 
arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the 
people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, 
and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for 
all men, against force and violence.  Whensoever therefore the 
legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; 

and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to 
grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute 
power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by 
this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put 
into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the 
people, who.  have a right to resume their original liberty, and, 
by the establishment of a new legislative, (such as they shall 
think fit) provide for their own safety and security, which is 
the end for which they are in society.  What I have said here, 
concerning the legislative in general, holds true also concerning 
the supreme executor, who having a double trust put in him, both 
to have a part in the legislative, and the supreme execution of 
the law, acts against both, when he goes about to set up his own 
arbitrary will as the law of the society.  He acts also contrary 
to his trust, when he either employs the force, treasure, and 
offices of the society, to corrupt the representatives, and gain 
them to his purposes; or openly preengages the electors, and 
prescribes to their choice, such, whom he has, by sollicitations, 
threats, promises, or otherwise, won to his designs; and employs 
them to bring in such, who have promised before-hand what to 
vote, and what to enact.  Thus to regulate candidates and 
electors, and new-model the ways of election, what is it but to 
cut up the government by the roots, and poison the very fountain 
of public security? for the people having reserved to themselves 
the choice of their representatives, as the fence to their 
properties, could do it for no other end, but that they might 
always be freely chosen, and so chosen, freely act, and advise, 
as the necessity of the common-wealth, and the public good 
should, upon examination, and mature debate, be judged to 
require.  This, those who give their votes before they hear the 
debate, and have weighed the reasons on all sides, are not 
capable of doing.  To prepare such an assembly as this, and 
endeavour to set up the declared abettors of his own will, for 
the true representatives of the people, and the law-makers of the 
society, is certainly as great a breach of trust, and as perfect 
a declaration of a design to subvert the government, as is 
possible to be met with.  To which, if one shall add rewards and 
punishments visibly employed to the same end, and all the arts of 
perverted law made use of, to take off and destroy all that stand 
in the way of such a design, and will not comply and consent to 
betray the liberties of their country, it will be past doubt what 
is doing.  What power they ought to have in the society, who thus 
employ it contrary to the trust went along with it in its first 
institution, is easy to determine; and one cannot but see, that 
he, who has once attempted any such thing as this, cannot any 
longer be trusted.

     Sec. 223.  To this perhaps it will be said, that the people 
being ignorant, and always discontented, to lay the foundation of 
government in the unsteady opinion and uncertain humour of the 
people, is to expose it to certain ruin; and no government will 
be able long to subsist, if the people may set up a new 
legislative, whenever they take offence at the old one.  To this 
I answer, Quite the contrary.   People are not so easily got out 
of their old forms, as some are apt to suggest.  They are hardly 
to be prevailed with to amend the acknowledged faults in the 
frame they have been accustomed to.   And if there be any 
original defects, or adventitious ones introduced by time, or 
corruption; it is not an easy thing to get them changed, even 
when all the world sees there is an opportunity for it.  This 
slowness and aversion in the people to quit their old 
constitutions, has, in the many revolutions which have been seen 
in this kingdom, in this and former ages, still kept us to, or,