The 28 Principles of Liberty: Principle #10


"The God-given Right to Govern is Vested in the Sovereign Authority of the Whole People."

In 1890 John Locke published two famous essays on 'The original extent" and "End of Civil Government". In the second essay he wrote: "In all lawful governments, the designation of the persons who are to bare rule being as natural and necessary a part as the form of the government itself, and that which had its establishment ORIGINALLY FROM THE PEOPLE... all commonwealths , therefore, with the form of government established, have rules also of appointing and conveying the right to those who are to have any share in the public authority; and whoever gets into the exercise of any part of the power by other ways then what the laws of the community have prescribed have not right to be obeyed, though the form of the commonwealth be still preserved, since he is not the person the laws have appointed, and, consequently, not the person the people have consented to. Nor can such usurper, or any deriving from him, ever have a title til the people are both at liberty to consent and have actually consented, to allow and confirm in him the power he hath till then usurped."

There was definitely no room in the philosophy of the American Founding Fathers for the right of kings. They knew that rulers are the servants of the people and that all authority rested with the people to appoint or remove their rulers. They stressed that this had been the case from the beginning for the Anglo-Saxons.

Their leader, the chief, was only one among equals, the entire body of the freemen would gather together to discuss the issues of the day. The body could remove him and they had selected him. His position to garner respect, however, his opinion carried no more weight then any other freemen.

In the Federalist Papers Number 22 page 152 Alexander Hamilton states that the empire ought to rest on the basis of the consent of the people. This was also expressed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in its proclamation of January 23, 1776: "It is a maxim that in every government, there must exist, somewhere, a supreme, sovereign, absolute, and uncontrollable power; but this power resides always in the body of the people; and it never was, or can be, delegated to one man, or a few; the great Creator has never given to men a right to vest others with authority over them, unlimited either in duration or degree."

Even if it is acknowledged that the People are divinely endowed with the sovereign power to govern, what happens if elected officials usurp the authority of the people to impose a dictatorship or some form of abusive government on them?

Principle 11 will reveal the fundamental principle on which the Founders based The Declaration of Independence.

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