ABSTRACT
The obligation to obtain consent to new taxation was so deeply rooted in the European tradition that Jean Bodin was eager to accommodate it, and in any event he regarded it as a beneficial limitation. A reasonable tax, accordingly, is not a 'taking' of property in a sense forbidden by the law of nature, and its legitimacy does not depend upon consent unless that is specially required by the constitution. A king who cannot tax without consent must thus be less than sovereign, which is one reason why Bodin's position on taxation was not taken over by succeeding absolutists. The right to tax is accordingly separated from the power to make law and derived directly from consent. But the power to tax, as we have seen, is restricted by the law of nature even where it is vested solely in the prince. One other, even more dramatic consequence is a contradiction in Locke's doctrine of consent.
