CHAPTER XV: Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its Consequences--Part II.
Tyranny Of The Majority How the principle of the sovereignty of the people is to be understood--Impossibility of conceiving a mixed government--The sovereign power must centre somewhere--Precautions to be taken to control its action--These precautions have not been taken in the United States--Consequences.
I hold it to be an impious and an execrable maxim that, politically speaking, a people has a right to do whatsoever it pleases, and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority.
Am I then, in contradiction with myself?
A general law--which bears the name of Justice--has been made and sanctioned, not only by a majority of this or that people, but by a majority of mankind.

The rights of every people are consequently confined within the limits of what is just.

A nation may be considered in the light of a jury which is empowered to represent society at large, and to apply the great and general law of justice.

Ought such a jury, which represents society, to have more power than the society in which the laws it applies originate?
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right which the majority has of commanding, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.

It has been asserted that a people can never entirely outstep the boundaries of justice and of reason in those affairs which are more peculiarly its own, and that consequently, full power may fearlessly be given to the majority by which it is represented.