If the usurper is to extend his power past that of the right belonging to governors of the commonwealth, than the usurpation becomes tyranny. As usurpation is the exercise of power, which another has a right to; so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to.(371) Meaning that when the power placed in the hands of the legislator is used in the opposite manner as preservation, there it becomes tyranny. A just leader is bound by the laws of the legislative and works for the people, whereas a tyrant breaks the laws and acts on his own behalf. Locke then goes on to state that the power of the commonwealth is not to be opposed by anything except when it uses unjust and unlawful force. In his concluding remarks, Locke discusses the ways in which the dissolution of government can occur. The first example is that of a foreign force making a conquest upon a government. The union of this body will cease and every man will return to the state they were in before joining the commonwealth. This will dissolve the society and thus the government of that society cannot remain. Governments can also be dissolved from within. When the state ceases to function for the people, it is dissolved, and may be replaced. This occurs when the legislative is changed or usurped by a tyrannical executive power, when the legislative or executive breaches its trust, or when the executive ignores its own duties and renders the law meaningless, reducing society to chaos.The Second Treatise of Government places sovereignty into the hands of the people. The government has no sovereignty of its own, for it exists to serve the people. Wherever the law ends, tyranny begins according to Locke. Locke ends by noting that, as long as society lasts, the power that each individual gives it cannot revert back to the individual, and, so long as any government lasts, the power that the society gives the legislative cannot revert back to the...
