Part II, Chapter XXII, 2

In a political body organized to manage foreign trade, the most suitable representative is an assembly of all its members: one in which everyone who ventures his money may, if he wishes, attend all the body's deliberations and decisions. To see why, consider the purpose for which merchants, who can buy and sell, export and import their merchandise at their own discretion, nevertheless bind themselves together into a single corporation. It is true that few merchants can fill a ship with the goods they buy at home for export, or with those they buy abroad to bring back, and therefore need to join in a society. In it each may share in the gain in proportion to what he ventures, or take his own goods and sell what he exports or imports at whatever prices he sees fit. But this is not a political body: it has no common representative to bind its members to any law beyond that which binds all other subjects. Their purpose in incorporating is to increase their gain, which they do in two ways: by exclusive buying and exclusive selling, at home and abroad alike. To grant a company of merchants corporate status as a political body, then, is to grant a double monopoly: one over buying and another over selling. When a company is incorporated for trade with a particular foreign country, only its members export the commodities saleable there; this is exclusive buying at home and exclusive selling abroad. At home there is only one buyer, and abroad only one seller. Both benefit the merchant: he buys more cheaply at home and sells more dearly abroad. And abroad there is only one buyer of foreign merchandise, while at home there is only one seller of it; both arrangements again benefit the investors.

One part of this double monopoly harms the people at home, the other foreigners. By holding the exclusive right to export, the merchants set whatever price they please on the products of the people's farming and handicrafts; by holding the exclusive right to import, they set whatever price they please on all the foreign commodities the people need. Both harm the people. Conversely, by being the sole sellers of native commodities abroad and the sole buyers of foreign commodities where they are produced, they raise the price of the former and lower that of the latter, to the foreigner's disadvantage. Where there is only one seller, goods are dearer; where there is only one buyer, cheaper. Such corporations, then, are nothing but monopolies. They would, however, be very profitable to a Common-wealth if, though joined into one body in foreign markets, their members were free at home to buy and sell, each at whatever price he could obtain.

The purpose of these merchant bodies, then, is not the common benefit of the whole body—which in this case has no common stock except what is deducted from individual investments for building, buying, provisioning, and manning ships—but the individual gain of every investor. It is therefore reasonable that each should know how his own investment is being used: each should belong to the assembly empowered to direct it and be acquainted with its accounts. The representative of such a body must accordingly be an assembly at whose deliberations every member may attend if he wishes.

If a political body of merchants incurs a debt to an outsider by an act of its representative assembly, each member is individually liable for the whole. An outsider cannot be expected to know their private rules; he regards them as so many individuals, each obliged to pay the entire sum until one person's payment releases all the others. But if the debt is owed to one of the company, the creditor owes the whole to himself and can therefore demand repayment only from the common stock, if there is any.

If the Common-wealth taxes the body, the tax is understood as levied on each member in proportion to his individual investment in the company. For in this case there is no common stock other than what is formed from their individual investments.

If the body is fined for some unlawful act, only those whose votes decreed the act or whose assistance carried it out are liable. The rest have committed no crime except that of belonging to the body; and if that is a crime, since the body was established by the authority of the Common-wealth, it is not theirs.

If a member owes a debt to the body, the body may sue him. But it cannot seize his goods or imprison him by its own authority, only by that of the Common-wealth. If it could do so by its own authority, it could also decide by its own authority that the debt was due, which would be to judge its own cause.

These bodies formed to govern people or trade may be perpetual or limited to a period specified in writing. But there are also bodies whose duration is limited simply by the nature of their business. For example, a sovereign monarch or sovereign assembly may see fit to command the towns and other several parts of their territory to send deputies to report the condition and needs of the subjects, to advise in making good laws, or for some other reason to consult with the one person representing the whole country. Given an appointed place and time to meet, those deputies form there and then a political body representing every subject of that dominion. But they represent them only in matters laid before them by the man or assembly whose Sovereign Authority summoned them; when it is announced that no more matters are to be laid before them or debated, the body dissolves. If they represented the people absolutely, they would be the sovereign assembly, and there would thus be two sovereign assemblies, or two sovereigns, over the same people—which is incompatible with their peace. Wherever sovereignty already exists, therefore, there can be no absolute representation of the people except by that sovereignty. The extent to which such a body represents the whole people is set out in the written summons. The people cannot choose their deputies for a purpose other than that expressed in the directions sent them by their Sovereign.

Private bodies that are regular and lawful are constituted without letters or any other written authorization beyond the laws common to all subjects. Because they are united in one representative person, they count as regular. Such are all families, where a father or master directs the whole household. He binds his children and servants as far as the law permits, but no further, since none of them is obliged to obey in actions the law forbids. In all other actions, while they remain under domestic government, they are subject to their fathers and masters as to their immediate sovereigns. Before the institution of the Common-wealth, fathers and masters were absolute sovereigns in their own families; afterward they lose no more of their authority than the law of the Common-wealth takes away.

Private bodies that are regular but unlawful unite themselves under one representative person without any public authority. Such are corporations of beggars, thieves, and Gypsies, formed to manage their trades of begging and stealing more effectively; and corporations of men who, on authority from some foreign person, unite within another's dominion to spread doctrines more easily and build a party against the power of the Common-wealth.

Irregular systems, being in their nature only leagues or sometimes mere gatherings of people, are united by no common representative or mutual obligation to any particular design, but arise only from a similarity of wills and inclinations. They become lawful or unlawful according as each individual's design in them is lawful or unlawful; and his design must be inferred from the occasion.

Leagues of subjects, since leagues are generally formed for mutual defense, are mostly unnecessary in a Common-wealth—which is itself nothing more than a league of all the subjects together. They suggest an unlawful design and are unlawful on that account, commonly going by the name of factions or conspiracies. For a league is a union of people by Covenants. If, as in the condition of mere nature, no power has been given to any man or assembly to compel their performance, it remains valid only as long as there is no just cause for distrust. Hence leagues between Common-wealths, over which no human power has been established to hold them all in awe, are not merely lawful but profitable for as long as they last. But leagues among subjects of one and the same Common-wealth, in which everyone can obtain his right through the Sovereign Power, are unnecessary to preserve peace and justice; if their design is evil or unknown to the Common-wealth, they are unlawful. Any union of private people's strength is unjust if intended for evil, and if its intention is unknown it is dangerous to the public and unjustly concealed.

If the Sovereign Power resides in a large assembly, and a number of its members consult apart without authority to devise how to guide the rest, theirs is an unlawful faction or conspiracy, fraudulently seducing the assembly to serve their particular interest. But a man whose private interest is to be debated and judged in the assembly commits no injustice by making as many friends as he can, since in this case he is not a member of the assembly. Even if he hires these friends with money, it is no injustice unless an express law forbids it. For sometimes, given people's ways, justice cannot be had without money; and everyone may believe his own cause just until it has been heard and judged.

In any Common-wealth, if a private man maintains more servants than are needed to manage his estate and perform the lawful work he has for them, this is an unlawful faction. Under the protection of the Common-wealth he has no need of defense by private force. And though in nations not fully civilized numerous families have lived in continual hostility and attacked one another with private forces, it is clear that they acted unjustly—or else that they had no Common-wealth.

As with factions formed around kinship, so too factions formed to govern religion—Papists, Protestants, and the like—or the state, such as the patricians and plebeians of ancient Rome and the aristocrats and democrats of ancient Greece, are unjust. They threaten the people's peace and safety and take the sword from the Sovereign's hand.

A gathering of people is an irregular system; its lawfulness depends on the occasion and the number assembled. If the occasion is lawful and plain to see, the gathering is lawful, as with customary attendance at church or a public show in customary numbers. If the numbers are extraordinarily large, however, the occasion is not evident; anyone unable to give a particular and sound account of his presence among them must therefore be judged aware of an unlawful, riotous design. It may be lawful for a thousand men to join in a petition delivered to a judge or magistrate, but if a thousand come to present it, their gathering is riotous: one or two would suffice. In such cases it is not a fixed number that makes an assembly unlawful, but a number too great for the officers then present to suppress and bring to justice.

When an unusual number of people assemble against someone they accuse, the gathering is an unlawful riot: a few, or even one person, could deliver their accusation to the magistrate. Such was the case of St. Paul at Ephesus, where Demetrius and a great many others brought two of Paul's companions before the magistrate, crying with one voice, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” This was their way of demanding justice against the men for teaching doctrines opposed to their religion and trade. Given that people's laws, the occasion was just; yet the assembly was judged unlawful, and the magistrate rebuked them in these words (Acts 19. 40): “If Demetrius and the other craftsmen have an accusation against any man, there are courts and deputies; let them accuse one another. And if you have anything further to demand, your case may be judged in a lawfully called assembly. For we are in danger of being accused of sedition today, since there is no cause by which anyone can give a reason for this gathering of people.” Here he calls an assembly for which no one can give a just account a sedition, one for which they could offer no defense. This is all I shall say of systems and assemblies of people, which may be compared, as I said, to the similar parts of a man's body: lawful ones to muscles, unlawful ones to wens, boils, and abscesses, produced by an unnatural gathering of harmful humors.

CHAPTER XXIII. ON THE PUBLIC MINISTERS OF SOVEREIGN POWER

In a political body set up to manage foreign trade, the most suitable representative is an assembly of all its members. Everyone who invests money should be able to attend every discussion and decision if they wish. To see why, consider why merchants who could buy, sell, export, and import goods as they choose nevertheless join a single corporation. Few merchants can buy enough goods at home to fill a ship for export, or buy enough abroad to fill one coming home. They therefore need to join in a society. Each can share the profits according to the size of his investment, or keep his own goods and sell what he exports or imports at the price he chooses. But that kind of society is not a political body. It has no common representative who can bind its members to rules beyond those applying to all other subjects. Merchants incorporate to increase their profits. They can do so by gaining exclusive rights to buy and sell, both at home and abroad. Granting a company of merchants the status of a corporation or political body thus grants it a double monopoly: it becomes the only buyer and the only seller. If a company is incorporated for trade with a particular foreign country, only its members may export goods that can be sold there. This gives them exclusive buying rights at home and exclusive selling rights abroad. There is only one buyer at home and one seller abroad. Both arrangements benefit the merchants, who can buy more cheaply at home and sell for more abroad. The company is also the only buyer of foreign goods abroad and the only seller of those goods at home. These arrangements likewise benefit its investors.

One part of this double monopoly harms people at home, and the other harms foreigners. Because the company alone exports, it can set the prices it chooses for the products of people's farming and labor at home. Because it alone imports, it can set the prices it chooses for all the foreign goods people need. Both harm the people at home. Conversely, the company alone sells domestic goods abroad and buys foreign goods in the country of origin. It can raise the prices of the former and lower those of the latter, harming foreigners. Goods cost more where there is only one seller and less where there is only one buyer. These corporations are simply monopolies. They would, however, greatly benefit a Common-wealth if they acted as one body in foreign markets while everyone at home remained free to buy and sell at whatever price they could get.

These merchant bodies are thus not set up for the common benefit of all their members. They have no common fund except what is taken from individual investments to build or buy ships, provision them, and hire crews. Their purpose is the individual profit of each investor. So it is reasonable for everyone to know how his own money is used and to see the accounts. Everyone should belong to the assembly that controls its use. The representative of such a body must therefore be an assembly whose discussions every member may attend if desired.

If a political body of merchants incurs a debt to an outsider through an act of its representative assembly, each member is personally liable for the whole amount. The outsider cannot know their private rules. He regards them as individuals each obliged to pay the entire sum, until payment by one releases the rest. But if the debt is owed to a member of the company, that creditor also owes the entire sum to himself. He can therefore claim repayment only from the common fund, if there is one.

If the Common-wealth taxes the body, the tax is understood to fall on each member in proportion to his investment in the company. In this case the body has no common fund other than what comes from individual investments.

If the body is fined for an unlawful act, only those whose votes ordered the act or whose help carried it out are liable. The other members have committed no offense except belonging to the body. And if belonging to it is an offense, since the Common-wealth authorized the body, the offense is not theirs.

If a member owes money to the body, the body may sue him. But it cannot seize his goods or imprison him by its own authority. Only the Common-wealth has that authority. If the body could take these steps itself, it could also decide for itself that the debt is owed. That would make it judge in its own case.

Bodies established to govern people or trade may last forever or for a period specified in writing. Other bodies have a duration limited simply by the nature of their work. For example, a Sovereign Monarch or Sovereign Assembly may instruct the towns and other parts of the territory to send deputies to report on subjects' circumstances and needs, to give advice about making good laws, or for another purpose. The deputies then consult with the Sovereign, who represents the whole country. At the appointed meeting place and time, those deputies form a political body representing every subject in the territory. But they represent the subjects only in matters put before them by the person or assembly whose Sovereign Authority summoned them. Once it is declared that no further matters will be proposed or discussed, the body dissolves. If they represented the people without any limits, they would be the Sovereign Assembly. Then the same people would have two Sovereign Assemblies, or two Sovereigns, which would be incompatible with peace. Once Sovereignty exists, only the Sovereign can represent the people without limits. The document summoning the deputies sets the limits of their authority to represent the people. The people cannot elect deputies for a purpose other than the one stated in the Sovereign's instructions to them.

Private bodies that are regular and lawful are formed without letters or other written authority beyond the laws applying to all subjects. They are regular because they are united under one representative person. Families are an example: the father or master directs the whole family. He can bind his children and servants insofar as the law permits, but no further, because they do not have to obey him when the law forbids the act. In all other matters, while they live under household government, they are subject to their fathers and masters as their immediate Sovereigns. Before Common-wealths were established, fathers and masters were absolute Sovereigns within their families. Afterward, they lose only as much authority as the Common-wealth's law takes from them.

Private bodies that are regular but unlawful unite under one representative person without any public authority. Examples include corporations of beggars, thieves, and Gypsies, formed to manage their begging and stealing more efficiently. Another example is a corporation of people who organize within someone else's territory under a foreign person's authority. They do this to spread doctrines more easily and build a faction against the Common-wealth's power.

Irregular systems are by nature leagues or sometimes mere gatherings of people. They are not united around a particular purpose or bound to each other. They come together only because they have similar wishes and inclinations. Whether such a system is lawful depends on whether each person's purpose is lawful. The occasion reveals that purpose.

Leagues among subjects are usually made for mutual defense. But in a Common-wealth, which itself is a league of all its subjects, they are mostly unnecessary. They suggest an unlawful purpose and are therefore unlawful. They are commonly called factions or conspiracies. A league binds people together by Covenants. If no person or assembly has power to compel them to keep their Covenants, as in the state of mere nature, the league lasts only until there is good reason to distrust one another. Thus leagues between Common-wealths, which are not restrained by any human power above them, are lawful and useful while they last. But subjects of one Common-wealth can each obtain their rights through the Sovereign Power. Their leagues are unnecessary for peace and justice, and unlawful if their purpose is bad or unknown to the Common-wealth. When private people join forces for a bad purpose, it is unjust. When their purpose is unknown, it endangers the public and is unjustly concealed.

If Sovereign Power belongs to a large assembly, and some of its members consult privately without authority to arrange how to control the rest, that is an unlawful faction or conspiracy. They fraudulently lead the assembly toward their private interests. But a person whose own interests are to be discussed and judged by the assembly commits no injustice by gathering as many friends as possible, because he is not part of the assembly in this case. Even if he pays those friends, it is not unjust unless a law expressly forbids it. Given people's behavior, justice sometimes cannot be obtained without money. Everyone may believe his own case is just until it has been heard and judged.

In any Common-wealth, it is an unlawful faction for a private person to keep more servants than are needed to manage his estate and carry out the lawful work he has for them. The Common-wealth protects him, so he has no need for a private force to defend himself. In nations that have not become fully civilized, many large families have remained hostile to one another and attacked one another with private force. Clearly, either they acted unjustly or they had no Common-wealth.

Factions based on family ties are unjust. So are factions formed to control religion, such as those of Papists, Protestants, and others; and factions formed to control the state, such as the Patricians and Plebeians in ancient Rome or the supporters of aristocracy and democracy in ancient Greece. These factions undermine the people's peace and safety and take the sword from the Sovereign's hand.

A gathering of people is an irregular system. Whether it is lawful depends on why they have gathered and how many are present. If the occasion is lawful and clear, the gathering is lawful. People meeting at church or a public show in the usual numbers provide examples. If the numbers are unusually large, however, the purpose is unclear. Anyone who cannot give a specific good reason for being among them should be judged to know of an unlawful, riotous purpose. A thousand people may lawfully join in signing a petition to a judge or magistrate. But if a thousand come to present it, the assembly is riotous: one or two people could deliver it. No fixed number makes a gathering unlawful in such cases. What matters is whether the number exceeds what the current officers can control and bring to justice.

When an unusual number of people gather against someone they accuse, their gathering is an unlawful riot. One person or a few could deliver the accusation to the magistrate. This happened to St. Paul at Ephesus. Demetrius and many others brought two of Paul's companions before the magistrate, crying out together, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” This was their way of asking for justice against the companions for teaching doctrines opposed to their religion and trade. Under that people's laws, their complaint was justified. But their gathering was judged unlawful, and the magistrate rebuked them in these words (Acts 19. 40): “If Demetrius and the other workers accuse anyone of anything, the courts and deputies are available. Let them bring charges against one another. And if you want anything else, your case can be decided in a lawfully called assembly. For we are in danger of being accused of sedition over what happened today, because there is no cause that anyone can give as a reason for this gathering of people.” He calls a gathering that has no just explanation sedition, for which they could not answer. That is all I have to say about systems and assemblies of people. As I said, they can be compared to the similar parts of a human body: lawful systems to muscles, and unlawful systems to growths, boils, and abscesses produced by an unnatural gathering of harmful fluids.

CHAPTER XXIII. OF THE PUBLIC MINISTERS OF SOVEREIGN POWER