A. Right of the Supreme Power; Treason; Dethronement;
Revolution; Reform.
The origin of the supreme power is practically inscrutable by the
people who are placed under its authority. In other words, the subject
need not reason too curiously in regard to its origin in the practical
relation, as if the right of the obedience due to it were to be
doubted (jus controversum). For as the people, in order to be able
to abjudicate with a title of right regarding the supreme power in the
state, must be regarded as already united under one common legislative
will, it cannot judge otherwise than as the present supreme head of
the state (summus imperans) wills. The question has been raised as
to whether an actual contract of subjection (pactum subjectionis
civilis) originally preceded the civil government as a fact; or
whether the power arose first, and the law only followed afterwards,
or may have followed in this order. But such questions, as regards the
people already actually living under the civil law, are either
entirely aimless, or even fraught with subtle danger to the state.
For, should the subject, after having dug down to the ultimate
origin of the state, rise in opposition to the present ruling
authority, he would expose himself as a citizen, according to the
law and with full right, to be punished, destroyed, or outlawed.
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