Savages do
not draw up a documentary record of their having submitted
themselves to law; and it may be inferred from the nature of
uncivilized men that they must have set out from a state of
violence. To prosecute such an inquiry in the intention of finding a
pretext for altering the existing constitution by violence is no
less than penal. For such a mode of alteration would amount to
revolution, that could only be carried out by an insurrection of the
people, and
not by constitutional modes of legislation. But insurrection against
an already existing constitution, is an overthrow of all civil and
juridical relations, and of right generally; and hence it is not a
mere alteration of the civil constitution, but a dissolution of it. It
would thus form a mode of transition to a better constitution by
palingenesis and not by mere metamorphosis; and it would require a new
social contract, upon which the former original contract, as then
annulled, would have no influence.
It must, however, be possible for the sovereign to change the
existing constitution, if it is not actually consistent with the
idea of the original contract. In doing so it is essential to give
existence to that form of government which will properly constitute
the people into a state. Such a change cannot be made by the state
deliberately altering its constitution from one of the three forms
to one of the other two.
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