Second Treatise Chapters 01-03
Chapter 1 Of Political Power Sec 1. It having been shown in the foregoing discourse:* Firstly. That Adam had not, either by natural right of fatherhood or by positive donation from God, any such...
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Chapter 4 Of Slavery 21. The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of Nature for...
View ArticleSecond Treatise Chapters 07-09
Chapter 7 Of Political or Civil Society 77. GOD, having made man such a creature that, in His own judgment, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong obligations of necessity,...
View ArticleSecond Treatise Chapters 10-12
Chapter 10 Of the Forms of a Commonwealth 132. THE majority having, as has been showed, upon men’s first uniting into society, the whole power of the community naturally in them, may employ all that...
View ArticleSecond Treatise Chapters 13-15
Chapter 13 Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Commonwealth 149. THOUGH in a constituted commonwealth standing upon its own basis and acting according to its own nature- that is, acting for the...
View ArticleSecond Treatise Chapters 16-19
Chapter 16 Of Conquest 175. THOUGH governments can originally have no other rise than that before mentioned, nor polities be founded on anything but the consent of the people, yet such have been the...
View ArticleWitherspoon Letter about Isaac Newton
The Reverend John Witherspoon was a staunch Presbyterian minister who came from Scotland to assume the presidency of the College of New Jersey in 1768. He served as a delegate to the Continental...
View ArticleFirst Charter of Virginia
I. JAMES, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. WHEREAS our loving and well-disposed Subjects, Sir Thomas Gates, and Sir George Somers,...
View ArticleCommentaries
CHAPTER I: OF THE ABSOLUTE RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS The objects of the laws of England falling into this fourfold division, the present commentaries will therefore consist of the four following parts: 1....
View ArticlePetition of Right
The King’s Most Excellent Majesty. Humbly shew unto our Sovereign Lord the King, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, that whereas it is declared and enacted by a...
View ArticleMaryland Act Concerning Religion
Source: Proceedings and Acts of the General Assembly of Maryland, 1637–1664 (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1883) vol. I: 244–247. Forasmuch as in a well-governed and Xpian [Christian]...
View ArticleNew Jersey Concessions
THE CHARTER OR FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF WEST NEW JERSEY, AGREED UPON, CHAPTER XIII THAT THESE FOLLOWING CONCESSIONS ARE THE COMMON LAW, OR FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS, OF THE PROVINCE OF WEST NEW JERSEY That the...
View ArticlePennsylvania Frame of Government
The frame of the government of the province of Pensilvania, in America: together with certain laws agreed upon in England, by the Governor and divers freemen of the aforesaid province. To be further...
View ArticlePennsylvania Charter of Privileges
Source: F. N. Thorpe, ed., The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws . . . , 7 vols. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909), 5:3076–81. . . . Know ye...
View ArticleDiscourses
CHAPTER I SECT. V To depend upon the Will of a Man is Slavery. THIS, as he thinks, is farther sweetened, by asserting, that he doth not inquire what the rights of a People are, but from whence; not...
View ArticleSpirit of the Laws
BOOK III CHAP. I Difference between the Nature and Principle of Government. After having examined the laws relative to the nature of each government, we must investigate those that relate to its...
View ArticleOf the Original Contract
XVI.DAVID HUME, OF THE ORIGINAL CONTRACT, 1752When we consider how nearly equal all men are in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties, till cultivated by education; we must...
View ArticleAgreement of the Settlers at Exeter in New Hampshire
Whereas it hath pleased the Lord to moue the heart of our Dread Soveraigne Charles, by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France & Ireland, to grant license & liberty to sundry of his...
View ArticlePlymouth Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity
FORM OF OATH FOR ALL INHABITANTS You shall sweare by the name of the great God...& earth & in his holy fear, & presence that you shall not speake, or doe, devise, or advise, anything or...
View ArticleSalem Covenant of 1629
We Covenant with the Lord and one with another; and do bind our selves in the presence of God, to walk together in all his waies, according as he is pleased to reveale himselfe unto us in his Blessed...
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