Source: Second Treatise on Civil Government by John Locke (1689).
...the first and fundamental positive law of all commonwealths is the establishing of the legislative power...This legislative is not only the supreme power to the commonwealth, but sacred and unchangeable in the hands where the community have once played it; nor can any law…have the force and obligation of a law, which has not its approval from that legislative which the public has chosen and appointed: for without this the law could not have that, which is absolutely necessary to its being a law, the consent of the society, over whom no body can have a power to make laws, but by their own consent…
...the legislative power is put into the hands of a diverse persons, who duly assembled, have by themselves, or jointly with others, a power to make laws, which when they have done, being separated again, they are themselves subject to the laws they have made; which is a new and near tie upon them, to take care, that they make them for the public good...
But because the laws, that are at once, and in a short time made, have a constant and lasting force, and need a perpetual execution; therefore it is necessary there should be a power always in being, which should see to the execution of the laws that are made, and remain in force. And thus the legislative and executive power come often to be separated.
...there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or change the legislative, when they find the legislative act to be against the trust placed in them: for all power given with trust for the attaining an end, being limited by that end, whenever that end is neglected, or opposed, the trust must necessarily be given up, and the power go back into the hands of the people that gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security. And thus the community perpetually retains a supreme power...
Based on the passage above, what is legislative power? How does a legislature get its power?
Does the legislature have to follow its own laws? Why or why not?
What is executive power? What is its purpose?
What would happen if the legislature makes laws that they think “to be against the trust placed in them…”?
plz answer by this upcoming tuesday the 18th