1910.1 GENESIS OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 21 



One way more whereby a Government may be dissolved, 

 according to Locke (§ 219), is when the Executive prevents the 

 laws from being put into execution, in other words, when "there 

 is no longer the administration of justice for the securing of 

 men's rights". The same argument is found in one of the next 

 paragraphs of the Declaration, where the King is accused of 

 having obstructed the administration of justice. 



In all such cases, Locke concludes (§ 220), the People are 

 at liberty to provide for themselves by erecting a new legislative; 

 and the Declaration of Independence takes up the same idea, in 

 adding to its grievances that by the mentioned acts of the King 

 the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned 

 to the People at large for their exercise. 



Locke proceeds (§ 221) to set forth anolher cause of dis- 

 solving a government, namely when the Legislative or the Prince 

 either of them acts conlrary to their trust, especially by invad- 

 ing the property of the subject and making themselves arbitrary 

 masters of the lives, liberties and fortunes of the People. The 

 King of Great Britain, in the Declaration of Independence, is 

 accused of similar proceedings, viz. of endeavouring to oppress 

 the People by standing armies, to subject them to a jurisdiction 

 foreign to their constitution, to cut off their trade, to impose 

 taxes on them without their consent, to transport them beyond 

 seas to be tried for pretended offences, etc. 



Finally, the Declaration pronounces that the King has abdi- 

 cated Government in the colonies 1 by declaring them out of his 

 protection and waging war against them. Locke's conclusion 

 (§ 222) is that whenever the Legislators endeavour to take away 

 and destroy the property of the People or to reduce them to 

 slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state 

 of war with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any 

 further obedience. 



1 It is interesting to note that the Norwegian Storting, in the act of 

 secession from the union with Sweden, in 1905, in the same way threw 

 the blame on the King, who was declared to have ceased to act as the 

 King of Norway. 



