Ameritopia_ The Unmaking of America - Mark R. Levin [25]
RULE III: Since the majority has declared a sovereign, the minority must consent to the Sovereign’s actions. Whether he be with the majority or not, the Subject must either “submit to their decrees or be left in the condition of war he was before.” (112)
RULE IV: The Sovereign’s actions cannot be “justly accused by the Subject.” The Sovereign acts under the authority of Subjects who have transferred their rights to it, who is to act justly and properly. However, if the subjects complain of injury from the actions of the Sovereign they have no one to blame but themselves. “They that have Sovereign power may commit iniquity, but not injustice, or injury in the proper signification.” (112, 113)
RULE V: Whatever the Sovereign does is “unpunishable” by the Subject, as every Subject is responsible for the actions of the Sovereign, and so the actions of the Sovereign are as if the Subject committed them himself. (113)
RULE VI: The Sovereign is judge for what is necessary for the “Peace and Defence” of his subjects. He is the sole judge of the means of peace and defense. He determines what is necessary to preserve peace and security, and prevent discord at home and hostility abroad, and if lost to recover peace and security. The Sovereign is the sole judge as to “what opinions and doctrines are averse” or beneficial to the Commonwealth, who can be trusted to speak to the people, and who reviews all doctrines before they are published. (113)
RULE VII: “[T]he sovereignty [has] the whole power of prescribing the rules whereby every man may know what goods he may enjoy, and what actions he may do, without being molested by any of his fellow subjects; and this is it men call property.… These rules of propriety … and of good, evil, lawful, and unlawful in the actions of subjects are the civil laws.…” (114)
RULE VIII: The Sovereign controls the judicial system—hearing and deciding all controversies concerning either civil or natural law. Ceding this power to the Sovereign would prevent man from settling disputes himself, thereby eliminating a condition that leads to war. (114)
RULE IX: The Sovereign is the Commander-In-Chief who decides when to wage war and against whom, the size of the army and what weapons they will have, and the ability to tax Subjects for the cost thereof. (114)
RULE X: The Sovereign chooses as he sees fit all counselors, ministers, magistrates, and officers, in both peace and war. (114, 115)
RULE XI: The Sovereign can bestow riches, honors, and punishment (corporal or pecuniary) according to the law he has made or makes. (115)
The Sovereign’s Rights (or Rules) I through XI are indivisible and inseparable since they go to the heart of the purpose of the Sovereign and Commonwealth—to protect the Subjects (115, 116).
The Sovereign’s power must be absolute. “So that it appeareth plainly, to my understanding, both from reason and Scripture, that the sovereign power (whether placed in one man, as in monarchy, or in one assembly of men, as in popular and aristocratical commonwealths) is as great as possibly men can be imagined to make it. And though of so unlimited a power men may fancy many evil consequences, yet the consequences of the want of it, which is perpetual war of every man against his neighbour, are much worse” (135).
LIBERTY OF SUBJECTS:
• The liberty of man is consistent with the liberty from laws (covenants)—that is, the liberty of man to do whatever he wants to preserve his life if there is no commonwealth. Within the Commonwealth, liberty lies only in those things that, in regulating their actions, the Sovereign allows the Subjects to exercise, such as “the liberty to buy, and sell, and otherwise contract with one another; to choose their own abode, their own diet, their own trade of life, and institute their children as they themselves think fit, and the like.” (138)
• The Sovereign has unlimited power over