REVOLUTION, in politics, signifies a change in the constitution of a state, and is a word of different import from revolt, with which it is sometimes confounded. When a people withdraw their obedience from their governors for any particular reason, without overturning the government, or waging an offensive war against it, they are in a
state of revolt; when they overturn the government, and form a new one for themselves, they effect a revolution. That which is termed the revolution in Britain is the change which, in 1688, took place in consequence of the forced abdication of James II. when the Protestant succession was established, and the constitution restored to its primitive purity.