Perverted justice under legal forms still constitutes a state of war

Evidence

But when the actual force is over, the state of war ceases between those that are in society, and are equally on both sides subjected to the fair determination of the law; because then there lies open the remedy of appeal for the past injury, and to prevent future harm: but where no such appeal is, as in the state of nature, for want of positive laws, and judges with authority to appeal to, the state of war once begun, continues, with a right to the innocent party to destroy the other whenever he can, until the aggressor offers peace, and desires reconciliation on such terms as may repair any wrongs he has already done, and secure the innocent for the future; nay, where an appeal to the law, and constituted judges, lies open, but the remedy is denied by a manifest perverting of justice, and a barefaced wresting of the laws to protect or indemnify the violence or injuries of some men, or party of men, there it is hard to imagine any thing but a state of war: for wherever violence is used, and injury done, though by hands appointed to administer justice, it is still violence and injury, however coloured with the name, pretences, or forms of law, the end whereof being to protect and redress the innocent, by an unbiassed application of it, to all who are under it; wherever that is not bona fide done, war is made upon the sufferers, who having no appeal on earth to right them, they are left to the only remedy in such cases, an appeal to heaven. — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 28

Categorization

• XREF: This is the direct philosophical warrant for the Declaration’s charge of ‘repeated injuries and usurpations’ by the judiciary and its conclusion that resistance is justified — when law itself is corrupted, subjects are thrown back on self-defense. — connects to: Despotical power arises only from forfeiture in war, never from compact — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 209; In war, law persists as force while emptied of significance; Narrow concepts of legal validity fail to prevent official abuse of power — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 502 (+7 more)
• DEFINE: Locke holds that a corrupt judiciary does not merely fail to settle disputes; it actively renews the state of war, making tyrannical legal forms functionally indistinguishable from open violence.
• recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source

Broader Connections

• In war, law persists as force while emptied of significance #expands (0.90)
• Civility veils rather than ends sanctioned state violence #corroborates (0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 250
• War can invert from disruption of law into law’s governing principle #expands (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 179
• Laws and property are a permanent war waged by conquerors, not peace #corroborates (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 123
• Severing law from embodied moral tradition makes state force its sole authority #corroborates (0.85) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1155
• Legal obligation differs from mere coercion by threat of force #contradicts (0.80) — Ronald M. Dworkin, The Model of Rules, 40
• Legal formalism has historically served to license rather than prevent state abuse #corroborates (0.80) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 329
• Narrow concepts of legal validity fail to prevent official abuse of power #corroborates (0.75) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 502
• Exploitation itself constitutes violence regardless of how gently it is administered #complicates (0.75) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 132