Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

from the letters of the sovereign is the act of the sovereign, and
therefore every member of the body is author of it.
But if the representative be an assembly, whatsoever that assembly
shall decree, not warranted by their letters or the laws, is the act
of the assembly, or body politic, and the act of every one by whose
vote the decree was made; but not the act of any man that being
present voted to the contrary; nor of any man absent, unless he
voted it by procreation. It is the act of the assembly because voted
by the major part; and if it be a crime, the assembly may be punished,
as far forth as it is capable, as by dissolution, or forfeiture of
their letters (which is to such artificial and fictitious bodies,
capital) or, if the assembly have a common stock, wherein none of
the innocent members have propriety, by pecuniary mulct. For from
corporal penalties nature hath bodies politic. But they that gave
not their vote are therefore innocent, because the assembly cannot
represent any man in things unwarranted by their letters, and
consequently are not involved in their votes.
If the person of the body politic, being in one man, borrow money of
a stranger, that is, of one that is not of the same body (for no
letters need limit borrowing, seeing it is left to men's own
inclinations to limit lending), the debt is the representative's.
For if he should have authority from his letters to make the members
pay what he borroweth, he should have by consequence the sovereignty
of them; and therefore the grant were either void, as proceeding
from error, commonly incident to human nature, and an insufficient
sign of the will of the granter; or if it be avowed by him, then is
the representer sovereign, and falleth not under the present question,
which is only of bodies subordinate. No member therefore is obliged to
pay the debt so borrowed, but the representative himself: because he
that lendeth it, being a stranger to the letters, and to the
qualification of the body, understandeth those only for his debtors
that are engaged; and seeing the representer can engage himself, and
none else, has him only debtor, who must therefore pay him, out of the
common stock, if there be any, or, if there be none, out of his own
estate.
If he come into debt by contract, or mulct, the case is the same.
But when the representative is an assembly, and the debt to a
stranger; all they, and only they, are responsible for the debt that
gave their votes to the borrowing of it, or to the contract that
made it due, or to the fact for which the mulct was imposed; because
every one of those in voting did engage himself for the payment: for
he that is author of the borrowing is obliged to the payment, even
of the whole debt, though when paid by any one, he be discharged.
But if the debt be to one of the assembly, the assembly only is
obliged to the payment, out of their common stock, if they have any:
for having liberty of vote, if he vote the money shall be borrowed, he
votes it shall be paid; if he vote it shall not be borrowed, or be
absent, yet because in lending he voteth the borrowing, he
contradicteth his former vote, and is obliged by the latter, and
becomes both borrower and lender, and consequently cannot demand
payment from any particular man, but from the common treasury only;
which failing, he hath no remedy, nor complaint but against himself,
that being privy to the acts of the assembly, and to their means to
pay, and not being enforced, did nevertheless through his own folly
lend his money.
It is manifest by this that in bodies politic subordinate, and
subject to a sovereign power, it is sometimes not only lawful, but