without authority. Abuses of power may be resisted even
by force when they become too great to be endured, when there is no
legal or regular way of redressing them, and when there is a reasonable
prospect that resistance will prove effectual and substitute something
better in their place. But it is never lawful to resist the rightful
sovereign, for it can never be right to resist right, and the rightful
sovereign in the constitutional exercise of his power can never be said
to abuse it. Abuse is the unconstitutional or wrongful exercise of a
power rightfully held, and when it is not so exercised there is no
abuse or abuses to redress. All turns, then, on the right of power, or
its legitimacy. Whence does government derive its right to govern?
What is the origin and ground of sovereignty? This question is
fundamental and without a true answer to it politics cannot be a
science, and there can be no scientific statesmanship. Whence, then,
comes the sovereign right to govern?

CHAPTER III.

ORIGIN OF GOVERNMENT

Government is both a fact and a right. Its origin as a fact, is simply
a question of history; its origin as a right or authority to govern, is
a question of ethics. Whether a certain territory and its population
are a sovereign state or nation, or not--whether the actual ruler of a
country is its rightful ruler, or not--is to be determined by the
historical facts in the case; but whence the government derives its
right to govern, is a question that can be solved only by philosophy,
or, philosophy failing, only by revelation.

Political writers, not carefully distinguishing between the fact and
the right, have invented various theories as to the origin of
government, among which may be named--

I. Government originates in the right of the father to govern his child.

II. It originates in convention, and is a social compact.

III. It originates in the people, who, collectively taken, are
sovereign.

IV. Government springs from the spontaneous development of nature.

V. It derives its right from the immediate and express appointment of
God;--

VI. From God through the Pope, or visible head of the spiritual
society;--

VII. From God through the people;--

VIII. From God through the natural law.

I. The first theory is sound, if the question is confined to the origin
of government as a fact. The patriarchal system is the earliest known
system of government, and unmistakable traces of it