All
that can rightly be allowed, is only a negative resistance,
amounting to an act of refusal on the part of the people to concede
all the demands which the executive may deem it necessary to make in
behoof of the political administration. And if this right were never
exercised, it would be a sure sign that the people were corrupted,
their representatives venal, the supreme head of the government
despotic, and his ministers practically betrayers of the people.
Further, when on the success of a revolution a new constitution
has been founded, the unlawfulness of its beginning and of its
institution cannot release the subjects from the obligation of
adapting themselves, as good citizens, to the new order of things; and
they are not entitled to refuse honourably to obey the authority
that has thus attained the power in the state. A dethroned monarch,
who has survived such a revolution, is not to be called to account
on the ground of his former administration; and still less may he be
punished for it, when with drawing into the private life of a
citizen he prefers his own quiet and the peace of the state to the
uncertainty of exile, with the intention of maintaining his claims for
restoration at all hazards, and pushing these either by secret
counter-revolution or by the assistance of other powers.
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