It therefore necessarily supposes and requires that the people
should have property, without which they must be suppos'd to lose
that by entering into society, which was the end for which they
enter'd into it; too gross an absurdity for any man to own. Men
therefore in society having property, they have such a right to the
goods, which by the law of the community are theirs, that no body
hath the right to take any part of their subsistence from them
without their consent: Without this, they could have no property at
all. For I truly can have no property in that which another can by
right take from me when he pleases, against my consent. Hence, says
he, it is a mistake to think that the supreme power of any
commonwealth can dispose of the estates of the subjects arbitrarily,
or take any part of them at pleasure. The prince or senate can never
have a power to take to themselves the whole or any part of the
subjects property without their own consent; for this would be in
effect to have no property at all." - This is the reasoning of that
great and good man. And is not our own case exactly described by
him? Hath not the British parliament made an act to take a part of
our property against our consent? Against our repeated submissive
petitions and humble representations of the hardship of it? Is not
the act daily executed in every colony? If therefore the
preservation of property is the very end of government, we are
depriv'd of that for which government itself is instituted.
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