To Disarm Part Of The Highlands, Could Give No Reasonable Occasion
Of Complaint.
Every government must be allowed the power of taking
away the weapon that is lifted against it.
But the loyal clans
murmured, with some appearance of justice, that after having
defended the King, they were forbidden for the future to defend
themselves; and that the sword should be forfeited, which had been
legally employed. Their case is undoubtedly hard, but in political
regulations, good cannot be complete, it can only be predominant.
Whether by disarming a people thus broken into several tribes, and
thus remote from the seat of power, more good than evil has been
produced, may deserve inquiry. The supreme power in every
community has the right of debarring every individual, and every
subordinate society from self-defence, only because the supreme
power is able to defend them; and therefore where the governor
cannot act, he must trust the subject to act for himself. These
Islands might be wasted with fire and sword before their sovereign
would know their distress. A gang of robbers, such as has been
lately found confederating themselves in the Highlands, might lay a
wide region under contribution. The crew of a petty privateer
might land on the largest and most wealthy of the Islands, and riot
without control in cruelty and waste. It was observed by one of
the Chiefs of Sky, that fifty armed men might, without resistance
ravage the country. Laws that place the subjects in such a state,
contravene the first principles of the compact of authority:
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