Book XIX.
Chap. 27.more strong and binding, and there would be a perfect coalition in favour of the executive power.
But if the disputes were occasioned by a violation of the fundamental laws, and a foreign power should appear; there would be a revolution that would neither alter the constitution nor the form of government. For a revolution formed by liberty becomes a confirmation of liberty.
A free nation may have a deliverer; a nation enslaved can have only another oppressor.
For whoever has a power sufficient to dethrone an absolute prince, has a power sufficient to enable him to become absolute himself.
As the enjoyment of liberty, and even its support and preservation, consists in every man's being allowed to speak his thoughts and to lay open his sentiments; a citizen in this state will say or write whatever the laws do not expresly forbid to be said or wrote.
A people like this being always in a ferment, are more easily conducted by their passions than by reason, which never produces any great effects in the mind of men; it is therefore easy for those who govern, to make them undertake enterprizes contrary to their true interest.
This nation is passionately fond of liberty, because this liberty is true and real; and it is possible for it, in its defence, to sacrifice its wealth, its ease, its interest, and to support the burthen of the most heavy taxes, even such as a despotic prince durst not lay upon his subjects.
But as the people have a certain knowledge of the necessity of submitting to them, they pay from the well founded hope of their soon paying them no
