abolition of kingship. His letters show that he disliked the Cromwellian
system and the republicanism which Harrington and Milton had based upon
it. He was content to have a kingship divested of legislative power so
long as hereditary succession was acknowledged to be dependent upon
popular consent. The main thing was to be rid of the Divine Right of
kings.

We have thus an organ for the interpretation of natural law free from
the shifting variety of individual judgment. We have a means for
securing impartial justice between members of civil society, and to that
means the force of men has been surrendered. The formulation of the
rules by which life, liberty and property are to be secured is
legislation and this, from the terms of the original contract, is the
supreme function of the State. But, in Locke's view, two other functions
still remain. Law has not only to be declared. It must be enforced; and
the business of the executive is to secure obedience to the command of
law. But Locke here makes a third distinction. The State must live with
other States, both as regards its individual members, and as a
collective body; and the power which deals with this aspect of its
relationships, Locke termed "federative." This last distinction, indeed,
has no special value; and its author's own defence of it is far from
clear. More important, especially, for future history, was his emphasis
of the distinction between legislature and executive. The making of laws
is for Locke a relatively simple and rapid task; the legislature may do
its work and be gone. But those who attend to their execution must be
ceaseless in their vigilance. It is better, therefore, to separate the
two both as to powers and persons. Otherwise legislators "may exempt
themselves from obedience to the laws they make, and suit the law, both
in its making and its execution, to their own private wish, and thereby
come to have a distinct interest from the rest of the community,