Property cannot be made secure by natural right alone, and
for the better securing of their properties men have entered into
civil society. The will of the body politic, when formed, is
determined by the will of the majority, and of a bare majority if
there be no different express agreement. For this Locke does not
give any reason but the necessity of the case; it is certain that
much worse ones have been given. As a matter of fact, we now know
that a majority vote has not been generally recognized in archaic
societies; the difficulty of obtaining nominal unanimity was
overcome (as in special cases it still has to be) by various
methods, including varying elements of force and fiction. This
does not apply to the original agreement to form a society, which
is assumed to be unanimous, and includes only the actual parties
to it. Any one who stands out may go his ways and provide for
himself elsewhere. It would seem that the community is entitled
to enforce his departure; it is certain, on Locke's principles,
that it has not the right to detain him against his will. Could
he agree to stay in an inferior capacity like that of a resident
alien? But it is needless to pursue the auxiliary fictions which
might be devised. A body politic, then, is formed by consent; the
essential term of the agreement is that every member gives up his
natural judicial and executive power to the community (not, as
Hobbes maintains, to an irresponsible sovereign); and this
consent is renewed, tacitly if not expressly, in the person of
every new member; for one cannot accept the benefit of a settled
government except on those terms on which it is offered. Locke is
bold to assert that 'a child is born a subject of no countr ...