§. 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.