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Show E 20'] THE only difficulty remaining is to detert mine, when a people may claim a right of tor. . min g themfelves into a body politick, and may alhnne the powers of legillation. In order to . determine this point, we are to remember, that ,all men being by nature equal, all the members ot" a community have a natural right to ailemble themtelves together, and to act and vote for fuch regulations, as they judge are necefihry for the good of the whole. But when a community in become very numerous, it is very difli. 4 nlt and in many cales impoflible for all to that together to regulate the aflairs of the hate: Hence comes the neceflity of appointing delegates to reprefent the people in a general allembly. And this ought to be look'd upon ,as a laered and unalienable right, of which a people cannot jufily divelt themfelves, and which no human authority can in equity ever take from them, viz. that no one be obliged to lulnnit to any law, except fuch as are made either by hintfelf, or by his rcprefcntative. lr- reprefentation andlegiflation are infcperably connect ed, it follows, that when great num- h‘efsfjhave emigrated into a foreign land, and are iofar removed from the parent ftate, that they ntither are or can be properly reprefented by the government from which they have emi- grated, that then nature itfelf points out the necefiity of their afl‘uming to themfelvcs the powers of legitlation, and they have a right to contitler tlnxntclves‘, as a lepcrate fiate from the other, and as fuch tofoim ti'AI‘JfClYCS into 11,; a body politic}; [9!] IN the next place, ‘ Win-u a people find thernfclves cruelly op. puffed by the parent Rate, they have an undoubted right to throw of the yoke, and to allert their liberty, if they find good reafon to judge that they havefu fiicient power and {trength to maintain their ground in defending their jult rights againlt their oppretfors : For in this cafe by the law of felf prefervation, which is the tirlt law of nature, they have not only an undoubted right, but it is their indifpenfiblc duty, if they cannot be redrefl‘ed any other way, to renounce all fubmiflion to the government that has oppretl'ed them, and fet up an independant Rate of their own ; even tho' they may be vattly inferior in number to the {late that: has opprefs'd them. When either of the aforeflid cafes takes place, andmore efpecially when both concur, no rational man (I imagine,) can have any doubt in his own mind, whether fuch a people have a right to form themfelves into a body politick, and atlume to themfelves all the powers of a free ftate. For can it be rati- onal to fuppofe, that a pcoplefhould be fubjcftcd to the tyranny of a fet of men, who are perfeft firangers to them, and cannot be fuppofed to have that fellow feeling for them, that we generally have for thofe with whom we are connected and acquainted ; and belides, tln'o' theirunacquaintednets with the circumllances of the people over whom they claim the right otjurifdic'tion, are utterly unable to judge in a multitude of cafes, what is bett for them. I 1‘ |