§. 227. In both the forementioned cases, when either the legislative is
changed, or the legislators act contrary to the end for which they were
constituted, those who are guilty are guilty of rebellion. For if any one by
force takes away the established legislative of any society, and the laws by
them made, pursuant to their trust, he thereby takes away the umpirage which
every one had consented to for a peaceable decision of all their controversies,
and a bar to the state of war amongst them. They who remove or change the
legislative take away this decisive power, which nobody can have but by the
appointment and consent of the people, and so destroying the authority which
the people did, and nobody else can, set up, and introducing a power which the
people hath not authorised, actually introduce a state of war, which is that of
force without authority; and thus by removing the legislative established by
the society, in whose decisions the people acquiesced and united as to that of
their own will, they untie the knot, and expose the people anew to the state of
war. And if those, who by force take away the legislative, are rebels, the
legislators themselves, as has been shown, can be no less esteemed so, when
they who were set up for the protection and preservation of the people, their
liberties and properties shall by force invade and endeavour to take them away;
and so they putting themselves into a state of war with those who made them the
protectors and guardians of their peace, are properly, and with the greatest
aggravation, rebellantes, rebels.
