Even during the suspension, or annihilation of government, the laws of nature and of moral obligation, which are in their nature indissoluble, continue in force in civil society. Hence social rights and obligations, also, are respected, even when there is no government to enforce their observance. This principle, during state convulsions, supplies the absence of regular government: but it cannot long supply its place; government, therefore, either permanent or temporary, results from a state of civilized society.
As the natural end and sole purpose of all civil power is the general good of the whole body, in which the governors, or public functionaries, themselves are necessarily included as a part, so, that civil power alone can be justly assumed, or claimed by any governor, or public functionary, which is delegated to him by the constitution of the state, as necessary, or conducive to the prosperity of the whole body united; what is not so delegated is unjust upon whatever pretence it is assumed. Any contract or consent conveying useless or pernicious powers is invalid, as being founded on an error about the nature of the thing conveyed, and its tendency to the end proposed.5
The most natural method of constituting, or continuing civil power must, since the general use of letters, be some deed, or instrument of convention, between those who set about to establish a civil society or state, to serve as an evidence of their common intentions in forming such an association; to limit the powers which they meant to confer upon their public functionaries, and agents; and to prescribe the mode by which those agents shall be from time to time appointed, and the powers confided to them administered. And if it should happen that time and experience may demonstrate that the people have adopted, or consented to a pernicious plan; whose destructive tendency they have discovered; and now see their error; taking that plan to tend to their good, which they find has the most opposite tendency; they are free from its obligation, and may insist upon a new model of polity.
These speculative notions may be regarded as having received the most solemn sanction in the United States of America; the supreme national council of which hath, on the most important occasion, which hath ever occurred since the first settlement of these states by the present race of men, declared, “that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed: that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations upon such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.” Such is the language of that congress which dissolved the union between Great Britain and America. Few are the governments of the world, ancient or modern, whose foundations have been laid upon these principles. Fraud, usurpation, and conquest have been, generally, substituted in their stead.
When a government is founded upon the voluntary consent, and agreement of a people uniting themselves together for their common benefit, the people, or nation, collectively taken, is free, although the administration of the government should happen to be oppressive, and to a certain degree, even tyrannical; since it is in the power of the people to alter, or abolish it, whenever they shall think proper; and to institute such new government as may seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. But if the government be founded in fear, constraint, or force, although the administration should happen to be mild, the people, being deprived of the sovereignty, are reduced to a state of civil slavery. Should the administration, in this case, become tyrannical, they are without redress. Submission, punishment, or a successful revolt, are the only alternatives.
It is easy to perceive that a government originally founded upon consent, and compact, may by gradual usurpations on the part of the public functionaries, change its type, altogether, and become a government of force. In this case, the people are as completely enslaved as if the original foundations of the government had been laid by conquest.
Thus, the nature of a government, so far as respects the freedom of the people, may be considered as depending upon the nature of the bond of their union. If the bond of union be the voluntary consent of the people, the government may be pronounced to be free; where constraint and fear constitute that bond, the government is no longer the government of the people, and consequently they are enslaved.
And, as the nature of the government, whether free, or the reverse, depends upon the nature of the bond of union, whether it be the effect of a voluntary compact, and consent, or of constraint, and compulsion; so the form of any government, depends altogether upon the manner in which the efficient force, and administrative authority of the state is distributed, and administered. But, if the efficient force or administrative authority be, altogether, unlimited; as if it extends so far as to change the constitution, itself, the government, whatever be its form, is absolute and despotic; the people in this case are annihilated. … Their regeneration can only be effected by a revolution.
On the contrary, when the constitution is founded in voluntary compact, and consent, and imposes limits to the efficient force of the government, or administrative authority, the people are still the sovereign; the government is the mere creature of their will; and those who administer it are their agents and servants.
From hence it will appear that the nature of any government does not depend upon the checks and balances which may be provided by the constitution, since they respect the form of the government, only; but it depends upon the nature and extent of those powers which the people have reserved to themselves, as the Sovereign: or rather, upon the extent of those, which they have delegated to the government; or, which the government in the course of its administration may have usurped. An usurped government may be no less a government of checks and balances, than a government founded in voluntary consent and compact: witness the government of England, where the parliament according to the theory of their constitution (and not the people,) is the sovereign. The checks and balances of that Government have been the topic of applause among all those who are opposed alike to the government of the people, or of an absolute monarch. But no people can ever be free, whose government is founded upon the usurpation of their sovereign rights; for by the act of usurpation, the sovereignty is transferred from the people, in whom alone it can legitimately reside, to those who by that act have manifested a determination to oppress them.
SECTION II.
“How the several forms of government we now see in the world at first actually began,” says the learned commentator,6 “is matter of great uncertainty, and has occasioned infinite disputes.” The celebrated author of the Rights of Man observes that the origin of all governments may be comprehended under three heads; superstition, power, and the common rights of man. The first were governments of priest-craft, through the medium of oracles; the second being founded in power, the sword assumed the name of a sceptre; the third in compact; each individual in his own personal, and sovereign right entering into the compact, each with the other, to establish a government. A late political writer in England,7 remarks, that all the governments that now exist in the world, except the United States of America, have been fortuitously formed. They are the produce of chance, not the work of art. They have been altered, impaired, improved, and destroyed by accidental circumstances, beyond the foresight, or control of wisdom. Their parts thrown up against present emergencies, form no systematic whole. These fortuitous governments cannot be supposed to derive their existence from the free consent of the people; they are fruits of internal violence and struggles, between parties contending for the sovereignty; or of fraudulent and gradual usurpations of power by those to whom the people have entrusted the administration of the government, or of successful ambition, aided by the operation and influence of standing armies. A democratic government, however organized, must, on the contrary, be founded in general consent and compact, the most natural and the