§. 189. I say this concerns not their children who are in their minority. For
since a father hath not, in himself, a power over the life or liberty of his
child, no act of his can possibly forfeit it; so that the children, whatever
may have happened to the fathers, are free men, and the absolute power of the
conqueror reaches no farther than the persons of the men that were subdued by
him, and dies with them; and should he govern them as slaves, subjected to his
absolute, arbitrary power, he has no such right of dominion over their
children. He can have no power over them but by their own consent, whatever he
may drive them to say or do, and he has no lawful authority, whilst force, and
not choice, compels them to submission.
