§. 220. In these, and the like cases, when the government is dissolved, the
people are at liberty to provide for themselves by erecting a new legislative
differing from the other by the change of persons, or form, or both, as they
shall find it most for their safety and good. For the society can never, by the
fault of another, lose the native and original right it has to preserve itself,
which can only be done by a settled legislative and a fair and impartial
execution of the laws made by it. But the state of mankind is not so miserable
that they are not capable of using this remedy till it be too late to look for
any. To tell people they may provide for themselves by erecting a new
legislative, when, by oppression, artifice, or being delivered over to a
foreign power, their old 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 free men. 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.
