The problem lay in Locke’s opposed supremacies: the people must obey the government, but the government must reflect the will of the people. He’d meant that tightrope, though, for a small island. When stretched across a great ocean—where distance impeded reflection and empowered disobedience—it was too thin a thread. Burke saw the difficulty as early as 1769: The Americans have made a discovery, or think they have made one, that we mean to oppress them: we have made a discovery, or think we have made one, that they intend to rise in rebellion. Our severity has increased their ill behaviour, we
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