Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Commonwealth

Chapter 13 establishes the hierarchy of powers and the accountability relationships among them. In a constituted commonwealth there can be only one supreme power: the legislative. To be supreme is precisely to have authority over others; since the legislative makes the laws that everyone else — executive, judges, citizens — must follow, it is necessarily the highest power in the state. But it is not arbitrary. It holds its supremacy in trust from the people, for the protection of their rights.

The executive is subordinate and accountable to the legislative. Where the legislative is not always in session, the executive may exercise significant discretion — this is the origin of prerogative, treated more fully in chapter 14. But where the executive claims a power that the legislative has explicitly limited, or acts contrary to the trust given by the people, the legislative may remove and replace it. This accountability relationship is the mechanical core of Locke's constitutional theory: no power in the state is free from higher review.

The hardest case arises when the executive prevents the legislative from meeting, or when the legislative itself betrays the trust. In these cases the normal remedy — appeal to the legislature, appeal to the courts — is unavailable. Locke's answer is that the people remain the ultimate authority. They delegated power to the legislative for specific purposes; if those purposes are violated, the authority returns to its source. The appeal is, at last, to heaven — meaning that when all earthly remedies are exhausted, force is the only remaining resort. This is not an invitation to rebellion at every grievance; it is the acknowledgment that political authority has limits, and that beyond those limits, the question of who is right must be settled by power rather than argument.