John Locke on the idea that “wherever law ends, tyranny begins” (1689)
About this Quotation:
“Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins”. The equality of all citizens under the law is a lynch-pin of the modern notion of the rule of law in a democratic state. A revolutionary implication of this idea, well appreciated by Locke in the tumultuous 1680s, is that even rulers and their magistrates were also under the “sovereignty of the law”. Locke concludes that when any member of the state exceeds his legal authority or in any way violates the law, he ceases “to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another.”
Other quotes from this week:
- 2009: The Abbé de Mably argues with John Adams about the dangers of a “commercial elite” seizing control of the new Republic and using it to their own advantage (1785)
- 2008: Lysander Spooner spells out his theory of “mine and thine”, or the science of natural law and justice, which alone can ensure that mankind lives in peace (1882)
- 2007: Percy Bysshe Shelley on the new Constitution of Naples which he hoped would be “as a mirror to make … blind slaves see” (1820)
- 2005: John Milton laments the case of a people who won their liberty “in the field” but who then foolishly “ran their necks again into the yoke” of tyranny (1660)
- 2004: Samuel warns his people that if they desire a King they will inevitably have conscription, requisitioning of their property, and taxation (7th century BC)
Other quotes about Law:
- 2009: Lysander Spooner on Jury Nullification as the "palladium of liberty" against the tyranny of government (1852)
- 2009: Cesare Beccaria says that torture is cruel and barbaric and a violation of the principle that no one should be punished until proven guilty in a court of law; in other words it is the “right of power” (1764)
- 2009: Sir William Blackstone provides a strong defence of personal liberty and concludes that to “secretly hurry” a man to prison is a “dangerous engine of arbitrary government” (1753)
- 2008: John Adams predicts a glorious future for America under the new constitution and is in “reverence and awe” at its future prospects (1787)
- 2007: The IVth Amendment to the American Constitution states that the people shall be secure in their persons against unreasonable searches and seizures and that no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause (1788)
- 2007: John Adams argues that the British Empire is not a “true” empire but a form of a “republic” where the rule of law operates (1763)
- 2006: Bruno Leoni notes the strong connection between economic freedom and decentralized legal decision-making (1961)
- 2006: The legal historian Hazeltine wrote in an essay commemorating the 700th anniversary of Magna Carta that the American colonists regarded Magna Carta as the “bulwark of their rights as Englishmen” (1917)
- 2006: J.S. Mill in a speech before parliament denounced the suspension of Habeas Corpus and the use of flogging in Ireland, saying that those who ordered this “deserved flogging as much as any of those who were flogged by his orders” (1866)
- 2005: Adam Smith argues that the Habeas Corpus Act is a great security against the tyranny of the king (1763)
- 2005: Cicero urges the Senate to apply the laws equally in order to protect the reputation of Rome and to provide justice for the victims of a corrupt magistrate (1stC BC)
- 2004: Bruno Leoni on the different Ways in which Needs can be satisfied, either voluntarily through the Market or coercively through the State (1963)
- 2004: Sir Edward Coke defends British Liberties and the Idea of Habeas Corpus in the Petition of Right before Parliament (1628)
2 October, 2006
 | John Locke on the idea that “wherever law ends, tyranny begins” (1689) |
John Locke states in Section 202 of Chap. XVIII "Of Tyranny" in Book II of the Two Treatises of Government that even magistrates must abide by the law:
Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another. This is acknowledged in subordinate magistrates. He that hath authority to seize my person in the street, may be opposed as a thief and a robber, if he endeavours to break into my house to execute a writ, notwithstanding that I know he has such a warrant, and such a legal authority, as will impower him to arrest me abroad. And why this should not hold in the highest, as well as in the most inferior magistrate, I would gladly be informed.
The full passage from which this quotation was taken can be be viewed below (front page quote in bold):
Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another. This is acknowledged in subordinate magistrates. He that hath authority to seize my person in the street, may be opposed as a thief and a robber, if he endeavours to break into my house to execute a writ, notwithstanding that I know he has such a warrant, and such a legal authority, as will impower him to arrest me abroad. And why this should not hold in the highest, as well as in the most inferior magistrate, I would gladly be informed. Is it reasonable, that the eldest brother, because he has the greatest part of his father’s estate, should thereby have a right to take away any of his younger brothers portions? or that a rich man, who possessed a whole country, should from thence have a right to seize, when he pleased, the cottage and garden of his poor neighbour? The being rightfully possessed of great power and riches, exceedingly beyond the greatest part of the sons of Adam, is so far from being an excuse, much less a reason, for rapine and oppression, which the endamaging another without authority is, that it is a great aggravation of it: for the exceeding the bounds of authority is no more a right in a great, than in a petty officer; no more justifiable in a king than a constable; but is so much the worse in him, in that he has more trust put in him, has already a much greater share than the rest of his brethren, and is supposed, from the advantages of his education, employment, and counsellors, to be more knowing in the measures of right and wrong.