government theory

Chapter 50 On Usurpation

197．If conquest can be considered a foreign usurpation, then usurpation can be said to be a domestic conquest.The difference between usurpation and subjugation: A usurper can never be just in any way, because a usurpation is only when one person takes for himself what another person has a right to.As far as usurpation itself is concerned, it is a change of persons, not of the form and regulations of government.For, if the usurper extends his power beyond that which belongs to the legitimate sovereign or ruler of the state, it is not mere usurpation, but tyranny is added.

198．In all legitimate governments the appointment of those to govern is as natural and necessary a part of government as the constitution itself, and, moreover, it is the means originally established by the people.Either the absence of any form of government at all, or the agreement that it should be a monarchy without specifying how the king should be appointed to rule, is likewise called anarchy.All nations, therefore, with a given form of government, will have provisions as to how those who take part in the power of the state shall be appointed, and of course there must be fixed methods of how their powers shall be conferred.For whether the form of government is not prescribed at all, or whether it is agreed that it should be a monarchy, without specifying how the person who has the right to rule will be chosen to be the monarch, both are equally called anarchy.Whoever has the power of any part of the dominion, who has not acquired it by the means prescribed by the laws of the country, has no right of obedience, even if the form of the country is preserved, because he is not the person actually appointed by the law, and therefore There is no such thing as a person approved by the people.Neither such a usurper nor his heirs have any grounds of right till the people are free to consent, and do consent to recognize and affirm his power which has hitherto been usurped.

(End of this chapter)