Legislative power cannot take property without the owner’s consent

Evidence

Thirdly, The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of his property without his own consent: for the preservation of property being the end of government, and that for which men enter into society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the people should have property, without which they must be supposed to lose that, by entering into society, which was the end for which they entered into it; too gross an absurdity for any man to own. Men therefore in society having property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the law of the community are their’s, that no body hath a right to take their substance or any part of it from them, without their own consent: without this they have no property at all; for I have truly no property in that, which another can by right take from me, when he pleases, against my consent. Hence it is a mistake to think, that the supreme or legislative power of any commonwealth, can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subject arbitrarily, or take any part of them at pleasure. — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 171

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘no taxation without consent’ principle and grounds it in the definition of property itself — that which another may take by right is not property.
• XREF: connects to: Political power is lawmaking backed by force and limited to the public good — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 7; Property is legal exclusion, not mere exchangeable value — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 2072; Landowners have no constitutional right to subdivide their land for housing — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 403 (+5 more)