§. 198. In all lawful governments the designation of the persons who are to
bear rule being as natural and necessary a part as the form of the government
itself, and that which had its establishment originally from the people —
the anarchy being much alike, to have no form of government at all, or to agree
that it shall be monarchical, yet appoint no way to design the person that
shall have the power and be the monarch — all commonwealths, therefore,
with the form of government established, have rules also of appointing and
conveying the right to those who are to have any share in the public authority;
and whoever gets into the exercise of any part of the power by other ways than
what the laws of the community have prescribed hath no right to be obeyed,
though the form of the commonwealth be still preserved, since he is not the
person the laws have appointed, and, consequently, not the person the people
have consented to. Nor can such an usurper, or any deriving from him, ever have
a title till the people are both at liberty to consent, and have actually
consented, to allow and confirm in him the power he hath till then usurped.
