John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
CHAP. I.
Sec. 1. It having been shewn in the foregoing discourse,
1.
That Adam had not, either by natural right of fatherhood, or by positive donation
from God, any such authority over his children, or dominion over the world, as
is pretended:
2.
That if he had, his heirs, yet, had no right to it:
3.
That if his heirs had, there being no law of nature nor positive law of God that
determines which is the right heir in all cases that may arise, the right of
succession, and consequently of bearing rule, could not have been certainly determined:
4. That if even that had been
determined, yet the knowledge of which is the eldest line of Adam's posterity,
being so long since utterly lost, that in the races of mankind and families of
the world, there remains not to one above another, the least pretence to be the eldest house, and to have the right of
inheritance:
All these premises having,
as I think, been clearly made out, it is impossible that the rulers now on
earth should make any benefit, or derive any the least shadow of authority from
that, which is held to be the fountain of all power, Adam's private dominion
and paternal jurisdiction; so that he that will not give just occasion to think
that all government in the world is the product only of force and violence, and
that men live together by no other rules but that of beasts, where the
strongest carries it, and so lay a foundation for perpetual disorder and
mischief, tumult, sedition and rebellion, (things that the followers of that
hypothesis so loudly cry out against) must of necessity find out another rise
of government, another original of political power, and another way of designing
and knowing the persons that have it, than what Sir Robert Filmer
hath taught us.
Sec. 2. To this purpose,
I think it may not be amiss, to set down what I take to be political power;
that the power of a MAGISTRATE over a subject may be distinguished from
that of a FATHER over his children, a MASTER over his
servant, a HUSBAND over his wife, and a LORD over his
slave. All which distinct powers happening sometimes together in the same man,
if he be considered under these different relations, it may help us to
distinguish these powers one from wealth, a father of a family, and a captain
of a galley.
Sec. 3. POLITICAL POWER,
then, I take to be a RIGHT of making laws with penalties of death,
and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of
property, and of employing the force of the community, in the execution of such
laws, and in the defence of the common-wealth from
foreign injury; and all this only for the public good.
CHAP. II.
Of the State of Nature.
Sec. 4. TO understand political
power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all
men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their
actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit,
within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon
the will of any other man.
A state also of
equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having
more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the
same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature,
and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another
without subordination or subjection, unless the lord and master of them all
should, by any manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and
confer on him, by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to
dominion and sovereignty.
Sec. 5. This
equality of men by nature, the judicious Hooker looks upon as so evident in
itself, and beyond all question, that he makes it the foundation of that
obligation to mutual love amongst men, on which he builds the duties they owe
one another, and from whence he derives the great maxims of justice and
charity. His words are,
"The like natural inducement
hath brought men to know that it is no less their duty, to love others than
themselves; for seeing those things which are equal, must needs all have one
measure; if I cannot but wish to receive good, even as much at every man's
hands, as any man can wish unto his own soul, how should I look to have any
part of my desire herein satisfied, unless myself be careful to satisfy the like
desire, which is undoubtedly in other men, being of one and the same nature? To
have any thing offered them repugnant to this desire,
must needs in all respects grieve them as much as me; so that if I do harm, I
must look to suffer, there being no reason that others should shew greater
measure of love to me, than they have by me shewed unto them: my desire therefore
to be loved of my equals in nature as much as possible may be, imposeth upon me a natural duty of bearing to them-ward fully
the like affection; from which relation of equality between ourselves and them
that are as ourselves, what several rules and canons natural reason hath drawn,
for direction of life, no man is ignorant, Eccl. Pol. Lib. 1."
Sec. 6. But
though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a
state of licence: though man in that state have an uncontroulable liberty to dispose of his person or
possessions, yet he has not liberty to destroy himself, or so much as any
creature in his possession, but where some nobler use than its bare
preservation calls for it. The state of nature has a law of nature to govern
it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all
mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one
ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men
being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the
servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about
his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last
during his, not one another's pleasure: and being furnished with like
faculties, sharing all in one community of nature, there cannot be supposed any
such subordination among us, that may authorize us to destroy one another, as
if we were made for one another's uses, as the inferior ranks of creatures are
for our's. Every one, as he is bound to preserve
himself, and not to quit his station wilfully, so by
the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he,
as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be
to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to
the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.
Sec. 7. And that all men
may be restrained from invading others rights, and from doing hurt to one
another, and the law of nature be observed, which willeth
the peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of nature
is, in that state, put into every man's hands, whereby every
one has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a
degree, as may hinder its violation: for the law of nature would, as all other
laws that concern men in this world 'be in vain, if there were no body that in
the state of nature had a power to execute that law, and thereby preserve the
innocent and restrain offenders. And if any one in
the state of nature may punish another for any evil he has done, every one may
do so: for in that state of perfect equality, where naturally there is no
superiority or jurisdiction of one over another, what any may do in prosecution
of that law, every one must needs have a right to do.
Sec. 8. And thus, in the
state of nature, one man comes by a power over another; but yet no absolute or
arbitrary power, to use a criminal, when he has got him in his hands, according
to the passionate heats, or boundless extravagancy of his own will; but only to
retribute to him, so far as calm reason and conscience dictate, what is
proportionate to his transgression, which is so much as may serve for
reparation and restraint: for these two are the only reasons, why one man may
lawfully do harm to another, which is that we call punishment. In transgressing
the law of nature, the offender declares himself to live by another rule than
that of reason and common equity, which is that measure God has set to the actions
of men, for their mutual security; and so he becomes dangerous to mankind, the tye, which is to secure them from injury and violence, being
slighted and broken by him. Which being a trespass against the whole species,
and the peace and safety of it, provided for by the law of nature, every man
upon this score, by the right he hath to preserve mankind in general, may
restrain, or where it is necessary, destroy things noxious to them, and so may
bring such evil on any one, who hath transgressed that law, as may make him repent
the doing of it, and thereby deter him, and by his example others, from doing
the like mischief. And in the case, and upon this ground,
EVERY MAN HATH
A RIGHT TO PUNISH THE OFFENDER, AND BE EXECUTIONER OF THE LAW OF NATURE.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
CHAP. XIII
Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as Concerning
Their Felicity and Misery
NATURE hath made men so equal
in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man sometimes
manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is
reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as
that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may
not pretend as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has
strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by
confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself.
And as to the faculties of
the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill
of proceeding upon general and infallible rules, called science, which very few
have and but in few things, as being not a native faculty born with us, nor
attained, as prudence, while we look after somewhat else, I find yet a greater
equality amongst men than that of strength. For prudence is but experience,
which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they equally apply
themselves unto. That which may perhaps make such equality incredible is but a
vain conceit of one's own wisdom, which almost all men think they have in a
greater degree than the vulgar; that is, than all men but themselves, and a few
others, whom by fame, or for concurring with themselves, they approve. For such
is the nature of men that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more
witty, or more eloquent or more learned, yet they will hardly believe there be
many so wise as themselves; for they see their own wit at hand, and other men's
at a distance. But this proveth rather that men are
in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater sign
of the equal distribution of anything than that every man is contented with his
share.
From this equality of ability
ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our
ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless
they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end (which
is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their delectation only) endeavour to destroy or subdue one another. And from hence
it comes to pass that where an invader hath no more to fear than another man's
single power, if one plant, sow, build, or possess a convenient seat, others
may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united to dispossess and
deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labour, but
also of his life or liberty. And the invader again is in the like danger of
another.
And from this diffidence
of one another, there is no way for any man to secure himself so reasonable as anticipation;
that is, by force, or wiles, to master the persons of all men he can so long
till he see no other power great enough to endanger him: and this is no more
than his own conservation requireth, and is generally
allowed. Also, because there be some that, taking pleasure in contemplating
their own power in the acts of conquest, which they pursue farther than their
security requires, if others, that otherwise would be glad to be at ease within
modest bounds, should not by invasion increase their power, they would not be
able, long time, by standing only on their defence,
to subsist. And by consequence, such augmentation of dominion over men being
necessary to a man's conservation, it ought to be allowed him.
Again, men have no pleasure
(but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company where there is
no power able to overawe them all. For every man looketh
that his companion should value him at the same rate he sets upon himself, and upon
all signs of contempt or undervaluing naturally endeavours,
as far as he dares (which amongst them that have no common power to keep them in
quiet is far enough to make them destroy each other), to extort a greater value
from his contemners, by damage; and from others, by
the example.
So that in the nature of
man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly,
diffidence; thirdly, glory.
The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the
third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other
men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the
third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign
of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred,
their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.
Hereby it is manifest that
during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they
are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man
against every man. For war consisteth not in battle
only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to
contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time is to
be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as
the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two
of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of
war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the
known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the
contrary. All other time is peace.
Whatsoever therefore is consequent
to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to
the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength
and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is
no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently
no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be
imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing
such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no
account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all,
continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
It may seem strange to some
man that has not well weighed these things that Nature should thus dissociate
and render men apt to invade and destroy one another: and he may therefore, not
trusting to this inference, made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same
confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself: when taking a
journey, he arms himself and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep,
he locks his doors; when even in his house he locks his chests; and this when
he knows there be laws and public officers, armed, to revenge all injuries
shall be done him; what opinion he has of his fellow subjects, when he rides
armed; of his fellow citizens, when he locks his doors; and of his children,
and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse
mankind by his actions as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse man's
nature in it. The desires, and other passions of man, are in themselves no sin.
No more are the actions that proceed from those passions till they know a law
that forbids them; which till laws be made they cannot know, nor can any law be
made till they have agreed upon the person that shall make it.
It may peradventure be thought
there was never such a time nor condition of war as this; and I believe it was
never generally so, over all the world: but there are many places where they
live so now. For the savage people in many places of America, except the
government of small families, the concord whereof dependeth
on natural lust, have no government at all, and live at this day in that
brutish manner, as I said before. Howsoever, it may be perceived what manner of
life there would be, where there were no common power to fear, by the manner of
life which men that have formerly lived under a peaceful government use to
degenerate into a civil war.
But though there had never
been any time wherein particular men were in a condition of war one against
another, yet in all times kings and persons of sovereign authority, because of
their independency, are in continual jealousies, and in the state and posture
of gladiators, having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one
another; that is, their forts, garrisons, and guns upon the frontiers of their
kingdoms, and continual spies upon their neighbours, which
is a posture of war. But because they uphold thereby the industry of their
subjects, there does not follow from it that misery which accompanies the liberty
of particular men.
To this war of every man
against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions
of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is
no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud
are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice and injustice are none of the
faculties neither of the body nor mind. If they were, they might be in a man
that were alone in the world, as well as his senses and passions. They are
qualities that relate to men in society, not in solitude. It is consequent also
to the same condition that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine and
thine distinct; but only that to be every man's that he can get, and for so
long as he can keep it. And thus much for the ill condition which man by mere
nature is actually placed in; though with a possibility to come out of it,
consisting partly in the passions, partly in his reason.
The passions that incline
men to peace are: fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to
commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace upon which men may be
drawn to agreement. These articles are they which otherwise are called the laws
of nature, whereof I shall speak more particularly in the two following chapters.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
(trans. G.D.H. Cole)
BOOK ONE.
CHAP. 4
Slavery
SINCE no man has a natural
authority over his fellow, and force creates no right, we must conclude that
conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men.
If an individual, says Grotius,
can alienate his liberty and make himself the slave of a master, why could not
a whole people do the same and make itself subject to a king? There are in this
passage plenty of ambiguous words which would need explaining; but let us
confine ourselves to the word alienate. To alienate is to give
or to sell. Now, a man who becomes the slave of another does not give himself;
he sells himself, at the least for his subsistence: but for what does a people sell
itself? A king is so far from furnishing his subjects with their subsistence
that he gets his own only from them; and, according to Rabelais, kings do not
live on nothing. Do subjects then give their persons on condition that the king
takes their goods also? I fail to see what they have left to preserve.
It will be said that the
despot assures his subjects civil tranquillity. Granted;
but what do they gain, if the wars his ambition brings down upon them, his
insatiable avidity, and the vexatious conduct of his ministers press harder on
them than their own dissensions would have done? What do they gain, if the very
tranquillity they enjoy is one of their miseries? Tranquillity is found also in dungeons; but is that enough
to make them desirable places to live in? The Greeks imprisoned in the cave of
the Cyclops lived there very tranquilly, while they were awaiting their turn to
be devoured.
To say that a man gives himself
gratuitously, is to say what is absurd and inconceivable; such an act is null
and illegitimate, from the mere fact that he who does it is out of his mind. To
say the same of a whole people is to suppose a people of madmen; and madness
creates no right.
Even if each man could alienate
himself, he could not alienate his children: they are born men and free; their
liberty belongs to them, and no one but they has the right to dispose of it.
Before they come to years of discretion, the father can, in their name, lay
down conditions for their preservation and well-being, but he cannot give them
irrevocably and without conditions: such a gift is contrary to the ends of
nature, and exceeds the rights of paternity. It would therefore be necessary,
in order to legitimise an arbitrary government, that
in every generation the people should be in a position to accept or reject it;
but, were this so, the government would be no longer arbitrary.
To renounce liberty is to
renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties.
For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation
is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to
remove all morality from his acts. Finally, it is an empty and contradictory
convention that sets up, on the one side, absolute authority, and, on the
other, unlimited obedience. Is it not clear that we can be under no obligation
to a person from whom we have the right to exact everything? Does not this
condition alone, in the absence of equivalence or exchange, in itself involve
the nullity of the act? For what right can my slave have against me, when all
that he has belongs to me, and, his right being mine, this right of mine
against myself is a phrase devoid of meaning?
Grotius and the rest find
in war another origin for the so-called right of slavery. The victor having, as
they hold, the right of killing the vanquished, the latter can buy back his
life at the price of his liberty; and this convention is the more legitimate
because it is to the advantage of both parties.
But it is clear that this
supposed right to kill the conquered is by no means deducible from the state of
war. Men, from the mere fact that, while they are living in their primitive
independence, they have no mutual relations stable enough to constitute either
the state of peace or the state of war, cannot be naturally enemies. War is
constituted by a relation between things, and not between persons; and, as the
state of war cannot arise out of simple personal relations, but only out of
real relations, private war, or war of man with man, can exist neither in the
state of nature, where there is no constant property, nor in the social state,
where everything is under the authority of the laws.
Individual combats, duels
and encounters, are acts which cannot constitute a state; while the private
wars, authorised by the Establishments of Louis IX, King
of France, and suspended by the Peace of God, are abuses of feudalism, in
itself an absurd system if ever there was one, and contrary to the principles
of natural right and to all good polity.
War then is a relation, not
between man and man, but between State and State, and individuals are enemies
only accidentally, not as men, nor even as citizens,3 but
as soldiers; not as members of their country, but as its defenders. Finally, each
State can have for enemies only other States, and not men; for between things
disparate in nature there can be no real relation.
Furthermore, this principle
is in conformity with the established rules of all times and the constant
practice of all civilised peoples. Declarations of
war are intimations less to powers than to their subjects. The foreigner,
whether king, individual, or people, who robs, kills or detains the subjects,
without declaring war on the prince, is not an enemy, but a brigand. Even in
real war, a just prince, while laying hands, in the enemy's country, on all
that belongs to the public, respects the lives and goods of individuals: he respects
rights on which his own are founded. The object of the war being the destruction
of the hostile State, the other side has a right to kill its defenders, while
they are bearing arms; but as soon as they lay them down and surrender, they
cease to be enemies or instruments of the enemy, and become once more merely
men, whose life no one has any right to take. Sometimes it is possible to kill
the State without killing a single one of its members; and war gives no right
which is not necessary to the gaining of its object. These principles are not
those of Grotius: they are not based on the authority of poets, but derived
from the nature of reality and based on reason.
The right of conquest has
no foundation other than the right of the strongest. If war does not give the
conqueror the right to massacre the conquered peoples, the right to enslave them
cannot be based upon a right which does not exist. No one has a right to kill
an enemy except when he cannot make him a slave, and the right to enslave him
cannot therefore be derived from the right to kill him. It is accordingly an
unfair exchange to make him buy at the price of his liberty his life, over which
the victor holds no right. Is it not clear that there is a vicious circle in
founding the right of life and death on the right of slavery, and the right of
slavery on the right of life and death?
Even if we assume this terrible
right to kill everybody, I maintain that a slave made in war, or a conquered
people, is under no obligation to a master, except to obey him as far as he is
compelled to do so. By taking an equivalent for his life, the victor has not
done him a favour; instead of killing him without
profit, he has killed him usefully. So far then is he from acquiring over him
any authority in addition to that of force, that the state of war continues to
subsist between them: their mutual relation is the effect of it, and the usage
of the right of war does not imply a treaty of peace. A convention has indeed
been made; but this convention, so far from destroying the state of war,
presupposes its continuance.
So, from whatever aspect
we regard the question, the right of slavery is null and void, not only as being
illegitimate, but also because it is absurd and meaningless. The words slave and right contradict
each other, and are mutually exclusive. It will always be equally foolish for a
man to say to a man or to a people: "I make with you a convention wholly at
your expense and wholly to my advantage; I shall keep it as long as I like, and
you will keep it as long as I like."
The Social Compact
I SUPPOSE men to
have reached the point at which the obstacles in the way of their preservation
in the state of nature show their power of resistance to be greater than the
resources at the disposal of each individual for his maintenance in that state.
That primitive condition can then subsist no longer; and the human race would
perish unless it changed its manner of existence.
But, as men cannot engender
new forces, but only unite and direct existing ones, they have no other means
of preserving themselves than the formation, by aggregation, of a sum of forces
great enough to overcome the resistance. These they have to bring into play by
means of a single motive power, and cause to act in concert.
This sum of forces can arise
only where several persons come together: but, as the force and liberty of each
man are the chief instruments of his self-preservation, how can he pledge them
without harming his own interests, and neglecting the care he owes to himself?
This difficulty, in its bearing on my present subject, may be stated in the
following terms:
"The problem is to find
a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force
the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself
with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before." This is the fundamental problem of which the Social
Contract provides the solution.
The clauses of this contract
are so determined by the nature of the act that the slightest modification
would make them vain and ineffective; so that, although they have perhaps never
been formally set forth, they are everywhere the same and everywhere tacitly
admitted and recognised, until, on the violation of
the social compact, each regains his original rights and resumes his natural
liberty, while losing the conventional liberty in favour
of which he renounced it.
These clauses, properly understood,
may be reduced to one — the total alienation of each associate, together with
all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives
himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no
one has any interest in making them burdensome to others.
Moreover, the alienation
being without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has
anything more to demand: for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as
there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each,
being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature
would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative
or tyrannical.
Finally, each man, in giving
himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom
he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains
an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the
preservation of what he has.
If then we discard from the
social compact what is not of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself
to the following terms:
"Each of us puts his
person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general
will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible
part of the whole."
At once, in place of the
individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates
a moral and collective body, composed of as many members as the assembly
contains votes, and receiving from this act its unity, its common identity, its
life and its will. This public person, so formed by the union of all other
persons formerly took the name of city,4 and
now takes that of Republic or body politic; it is called
by its members State when passive. Sovereign when active,
and Power when compared with others like itself. Those who are
associated in it take collectively the name of people, and severally are
called citizens, as sharing in the sovereign power, and subjects,
as being under the laws of the State. But these terms are often confused and
taken one for another: it is enough to know how to distinguish them when they
are being used with precision.
The Sovereign
THIS formula shows us
that the act of association comprises a mutual undertaking between the public
and the individuals, and that each individual, in making a contract, as we may
say, with himself, is bound in a double capacity; as a member of the Sovereign
he is bound to the individuals, and as a member of the State to the Sovereign.
But the maxim of civil right, that no one is bound by undertakings made to
himself, does not apply in this case; for there is a great difference between
incurring an obligation to yourself and incurring one to a whole of which you
form a part.
Attention must further be
called to the fact that public deliberation, while competent to bind all the subjects
to the Sovereign, because of the two different capacities in which each of them
may be regarded, cannot, for the opposite reason, bind the Sovereign to itself;
and that it is consequently against the nature of the body politic for the
Sovereign to impose on itself a law which it cannot infringe. Being able to
regard itself in only one capacity, it is in the position of an individual who
makes a contract with himself; and this makes it clear that there neither is
nor can be any kind of fundamental law binding on the body of the people — not
even the social contract itself. This does not mean that the body politic
cannot enter into undertakings with others, provided the contract is not
infringed by them; for in relation to what is external to it, it becomes a
simple being, an individual.
But the body politic or the
Sovereign, drawing its being wholly from the sanctity of the contract, can never
bind itself, even to an outsider, to do anything derogatory to the original
act, for instance, to alienate any part of itself, or to submit to another
Sovereign. Violation of the act by which it exists would be self-annihilation;
and that which is itself nothing can create nothing. . . .