When a long train of abuses and usurpitations ... evinces a design to reduce them [the colonists] under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security," - Declaration of Independence. Under what principle of government do the people have the duty described in this quote

According to John Locke, in his Second Treatise on Civil Government, the people has the right to overthrow a tyrant, defined here as "the exercise of power beyond right." This is termed "the right of revolution." This is viewed as necessary in the creation and maintenance of a "just civil society." This is viewed as a right or duty of the people to accomplish this goal.