Chapter XVI

Locke asserts that while governments originate from the consent of the people, conquest is frequently mistaken for consent. However, conquest no more establishes legitimate government than demolishing a house establishes a new one in its place.

An unjust aggressor who initiates war cannot acquire legitimate authority over the conquered, just as a robber gains no legal title through force. The magnitude of the aggression makes no moral difference whether committed by a crown-wearer or common criminal.

Since the conquered have no earthly court to appeal to for justice, they may appeal to heaven and have the right to recover their native liberty to choose their own legislative authority, justified by God's tribunal.

Even in a lawful war, the conqueror cannot gain dominion over those who fought alongside him, as they remain free and typically receive spoils or territories as conditions of their service.

Even assuming the conqueror and conquered never merge into one people, his absolute power extends only to the lives of those who participated in an unjust war, not to their estates or to non-combatants.

The people who did not aid an unjust war are innocent and should not bear guilt for it, as they gave their governors no power to wage unjust war. The conqueror has no title over innocent civilians.

A lawful conqueror has absolute power over the lives of those who forfeited them through unjust war, but this does not give him title to their possessions, contrary to common practice.

It is the unjust use of force—whether immediate or through maintained refusal to make reparation—that puts one into a state of war and justifies forfeiture of life, as one abandons reason for the way of beasts.

A father's violent miscarriages can only forfeit his own life, not his children's, and his goods remain theirs for preservation, as they did not join in the war or guilt.

While an aggressor's force forfeits his life to his adversary, it does not give title to his goods; only damage sustained gives title to compensation from the aggressor's estate.

A conqueror can seize only what the vanquished could forfeit, not the goods of his wife and children who have their own property rights and were not parties to the injury.

The damages and spoils of war, even covering multiple years of production, are insufficient to compensate a conqueror with perpetual ownership of cultivated lands, especially when all land is already possessed.

Even a just war gives the conqueror no right of dominion over non-combatants, those who opposed him, or their descendants, who remain free to establish their own government.

When a conqueror compels submission by force, claiming this constitutes consent, Locke argues that promises extorted by force without right have no binding power, as they violate natural law.

A government imposed by a conqueror using force on those he had no right to war against, or who did not join the war, creates no obligation to obey.

Children of the conquered are not subject to the conqueror's power because a father cannot forfeit his children's lives or liberty, and they reach majority as free persons.

Every human is naturally born with freedom of person and the right to inherit his father's goods alongside his siblings.

Though born in a place, a person is naturally free from subjection to any government, unless that government was established by the free consent of his ancestors.

Those descended from the forcibly subdued retain the right to their ancestral lands and may legitimately overthrow any government imposed by conquest, as exemplified by Grecian Christians under Turkish rule.

When a conqueror grants estates to the descendants of the conquered, those descendants have absolute property rights that cannot be taken without their consent, for otherwise all contracts would be void.

If a conqueror grants land with solemn conveyance, he cannot thereafter revoke it by his power; to do so would render all grants and promises mockery and destroy the meaningfulness of contracts.

Regardless of exemption from positive law, all princes owe subjection to the eternal laws of God and nature, which bind even divine omnipotence itself through oaths and promises.

A just conqueror has despotical power only over those who actively aided the war, and may recover damages from them, but has no legitimate dominion over non-participants or their descendants, who retain the right to cast off his rule.

Overthrowing a government established by force rather than right, even when covenants were extracted, is no offense before God but rather something God allows and approves, as exemplified by Hezekiah's resistance to Assyrian dominion.