Source: http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2305&chapter=218165&layout=html&Itemid=27
Timestamp: 2013-12-05 01:36:30
Document Index: 575983298

Matched Legal Cases: ['§3', '§5', '§127', '§114', '§14', '§128', '§129', '§87', '§105', '§21', '§232']

Online Library of Liberty - CHAPTER VII: Of sovereignty, and the ways of acquiring it. - A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations
Front Page Titles (by Subject) CHAPTER VII: Of sovereignty, and the ways of acquiring it. - A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations	Return to Title Page for A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and NationsThe Online Library of LibertyA project of Liberty Fund, Inc.
Search this Title:Also in the Library:Subject Area: PhilosophyCollection: Natural Law and Enlightenment SeriesCollection: Books Published by Liberty FundTopic: Natural Law and Natural RightsE-Books: Liberty Fund E-BooksOrder this book from Liberty FundCHAPTER VII: Of sovereignty, and the ways of acquiring it. - Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations [1738]Edition used:A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations, with Supplements and a Discourse by George Turnbull. Translated from the Latin by George Turnbull, edited with an Introduction by Thomas Albert and Peter Schröder (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008).
Of sovereignty, and the ways of acquiring it.
All sovereignty is supreme and absolute.Since those who unite into a civil state lived before that in a state of nature (§3), which is a state of equality and liberty (§5 and 6); the consequence is, that a civil state is subjected to no person or persons without it; may not be hindered or disturbed in doing any thing it judges necessary for its conservation, but may freely exerce all its rights, and cannot be forced to give an account to any of its transactions. But all those things together constitute what is called supreme or absolute sovereignty or empire; and therefore, in every civil state, there is supreme and absolute empire or sovereignty.*
The error of monarch-killers.Because there is supreme empire or absolute sovereignty in every civil state or republic (§127), and citizens or subjects may have submitted their will either to one, or many, or to the whole people, (§114); the consequence is, that to whomsoever they have submitted their will, he, or they are vested with supreme power or sovereignty, and therefore they can be judged by none but God alone; and much less therefore can they be punished in any manner by the people; so that the doctrine of monarch-killers, which makes the people superior to the king or prince, and places in the former the real, and in the latter only personal majesty, is a most petulant one.*
As likewise of the machiavelians.But since subjects have only so far subjected themselves to the will of a sovereign as their common security, the end for which they entred into the civil state, requires (§14 & 106), we must infer from hence, that they are abominable and flagitious flatterers of sovereigns, who persuade them that they may do what they please, and can do no injury to their subjects; but that their persons, lives, reputations and estates, are so absolutely dependent upon them, that subjects have no more left to them but the glory of absolute submission and obedience. From this corrupt spring flow all those pestiferous tenets, which Machiavel and Hobbes have attempted to impose upon mankind with the greatest assurance; and, together with them, all the asserters and defenders of passive-obedience in Great Britain. But who will deny that such doctrines are no less pestilential than that of king-killing?*
Sovereigns are sacred.Since sovereigns cannot be judged by any but God, much less be punished by their people (§128); hence we conclude that sovereignty is sacred, and that Sovereigns are sacred; and therefore that sedition and rebellion are very heinous crimes. Tho’ we should grant in theory, that Sovereigns who manifest a hostile disposition against their subjects, may be resisted as tyrants; yet this rule would be in fact of no utility, because Sovereigns can only be judged by God, and therefore God alone can decide whether a Sovereign truly bears a hostile mind against his subjects or not.*
But yet it is not lawful to sovereigns to do whatever they please.But since every thing is not lawful to a prince (§129) the consequence is, that he cannot impose any violence or restraint upon the consciences of his subjects, nor command them to do any thing contrary to the will of God the supreme lawgiver (l. 1. §87); neither can he, without a pregnant and just reason, deprive any subject of his right, seeing subjects united into a civil state chiefly for the security of their rights (§105). Subjects therefore, in great distress, may try all methods in order to obtain their rights, and, in extreme danger, leave their native country (§21); but they may not take up arms against their prince or the republic (l. 1. §232). SECTION CXXXII
What if empire be given with a commissory clause?Tho’ these things be true of Sovereigns in general, yet it may happen, that empire is given to one with certain restrictions by pacts, and with a commissory article to this effect, that the deed shall be null, if the conditions be not fulfilled. Now, in this case, no injury is done to Sovereigns, if after they have been frequently admonished, they do not cease to invade the liberty of their subjects, and to oppress them, the Empire be taken from them. And it is evident, from the nature of pacts, if free-men hinder those from