much excel the rest in ability, position, or possessions, that the
rest have really no choice but to acquiesce in those gifted hands
holding the sovereignty.

_Readings_.--Suarez, _De Legibus_, III., iii., 6; _ib._, III., iv.,
nn. 2, 3, 4; _Defensio Fidei_, III., ii., nn. 7, 8, 9; Ar., _Pol._,
III., xiv., 12; _ib._, VIII., x., nn. 7, 8; _The Month_ for July,
1886, pp. 342-345.


SECTION VII.--_Of Resistance to Civil Power_.


"When they say the King owes his crown to the choice of his people,
they tell us that they mean to say no more than that some of the
King's predecessors have been called to the throne by some sort of
choice. Thus they hope to render their proposition safe by rendering
it nugatory." (Burke, _Reflections on French Revolution_.)

1. The great question about civil power is, not whence it first came
in remote antiquity, but whence it is now derived and flows
continually as from its source, whether from the free consent of
subjects so long as that lasts, or whether it obtains independently of
their consent. Can subjects overthrow the ruler, or alter the polity
itself, as often as they have a mind so to do? or has the ruler a
right to his position even against the will of his people? A parallel
question is, can a province annexed to an empire secede when it
chooses, as South Carolina and other Confederates once attempted
secession from the American Union?