The Government and why we obey it.—By the government we mean the various officials and bodies by whom the people are ruled. By the government the will of the state is carried out. But why should people obey a government? We obey the rules of voluntary organizations because we are free to join them or not; but no individual is free to disobey the laws or to remain aloof from the control of his government. By what right does the government take money from us in taxes, call upon us for service in war, compel us to adjust all our controversies in its courts, and insist that we obey its laws?
The divine right doctrine.
Two theories have been offered to justify the government’s right to the obedience of the people. The first is known as the theory of divine right. According to this idea all governmental authority was originally bestowed upon the rulers by the Creator. And having received their authority from God, the rulers were not responsible to the people. This theory of governmental authority is very old, as old as the Ten Commandments and probably older. It was argued that kings ruled and princes governed by divine right because “the powers that be are ordained of God”. This doctrine of the divine right of rulers was maintained throughout the mediaeval period and was put forth by the Stuart kings of England as a justification of their despotic rule.[[17]]
The “consent of the governed”.
The other theory, which is that government has its foundation in the “consent of the governed”, appeared in the writings of the English philosopher, John Locke, during the seventeenth century and was incorporated into the Declaration of Independence about one hundred years later. When the Stuart dynasty was finally expelled from the throne of England, the new sovereigns were declared to be rulers “according to the desire and resolution of parliament”, in other words by the consent of the English people through their representatives. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century the theory that government rests on the consent of the governed has been accepted in all democratic countries.
What the consent of the governed implies.
Now if we hold this doctrine to be sound, as most men do today, it follows that when people establish a government by their own consent, they are under obligation to submit to its authority. Every right imposes a duty. The right to frame a constitution and to adopt it as the basis of a new government carries the duty of supporting the constitution and upholding the hands of those who exercise authority under it. The people who claim the right to make the laws must be ready to obey these laws when they are made. When men and women by their own consent establish a government they do this because they expect to obtain some advantages such as security, peace, and order. In return for these advantages they must expect to yield obedience, pay taxes, adjust their differences in the courts, and do whatever else a government reasonably requires.
The social contract theory.
How Government Began.—But admitting that government rests on the consent of the governed, how was this consent obtained, and how did the first government come into existence? Here, again, there are two theories as to what happened. The first is that the state and government originated in a “social contract”. Primitive men, living in a condition of political chaos, made a general covenant, by which they created a sovereign power to rule them. This idea is as old as the days of Plato, but it did not take strong hold on the minds of men until a few centuries ago. It was put forward by Thomas Hobbes in England to defend absolutism, his argument being that to dethrone a king was to break the contract upon which the state had been founded. On the other hand it was used by John Locke to prove that the people of England had a right to dethrone a monarch if the monarch failed to abide by the terms of the social contract, and those who compare certain passages in Locke’s book with the Declaration of Independence will see that the framers of that daring document were much influenced by his assertions. Even in America the contract theory took a strong hold. The Mayflower pilgrims, lying off the rock-bound shores of New England, drew up and signed a formal document wherein they solemnly covenanted and combined themselves into a “civil body politic”. The doctrine found frequent expression in the writings of Jefferson and Madison; but while it afforded an excellent basis for arguments in defence of revolutions against despotism the theory that the state had its origin in a social contract has long since been abandoned as unhistorical. It assumes that primitive men were free and equal individuals subject to no paternal authority, whereas, as a matter of history, freedom and equality among men arose only after states had been formed.
The theory of political evolution.