Abuses of
power may be resisted even by force when they become too great to
be endured, when there is no legal or regular way of redressing
them, and when there is a reasonable prospect that resistance
will prove effectual and substitute something better in their
place. But it is never lawful to resist the rightful sovereign,
for it can never be right to resist right, and the rightful
sovereign in the constitutional exercise of his power can never
be said to abuse it. Abuse is the unconstitutional or wrongful
exercise of a power rightfully held, and when it is not so
exercised there is no abuse or abuses to redress. All turns,
then, on the right of power, or its legitimacy. Whence does
government derive its right to govern? What is the origin and
ground of sovereignty? This question is fundamental and without
a true answer to it politics cannot be a science, and there can
be no scientific statesmanship. Whence, then, comes the
sovereign right to govern?
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CHAPTER III.
ORIGIN OF GOVERNMENT
Government is both a fact and a right. Its origin as a fact, is
simply a question of history; its origin as a right or authority
to govern, is a question of ethics. Whether a certain territory
and its population are a sovereign state or nation, or
not--whether the actual ruler of a country is its rightful ruler,
or not--is to be determined by the historical facts in the case;
but whence the government derives its right to govern, is a
question that can be solved only by philosophy, or, philosophy
failing, only by revelation.
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