Constitutional Principles: Consent of the Governed

0:01 well the most obvious way that consent is uh present in our political practice today is by elections the American Revolution with its rallying Cry of no taxation without representation was based on the idea that government gets its just powers from the people this principle is known as consent of the governed we take this principle for granted today but the idea that a free

0:23 people could rule themselves was rare in a time when monarchs had been making claims to greater and greater power they claimed that this power over others or sovereignty was granted by God in response to the growing appetite of monarchs for more power many began to argue that the only just government power was that which the people had granted this Doctrine is clear in the

0:45 Declaration of Independence political theorists including John Lock propose that people come together voluntarily to form a community they agreed to go from a state of nature with no ordered Society to establishing protection that government can give the security of their life liberty and property consent of the Govern is also known as popular

1:07 sovereignty in contrast to monarchical sovereignty or the claimed divine right of kings to rule government derives its just powers from the people the famous phrase from the Declaration all men are created equal meant that there were no natural rulers among people no one not a king not a queen not a duke or Baron was born with the right to rule over others

1:28 without their consent the most important thing for citizens to understand is the relationship between consent on the one hand and freedom and equality on the other we say that legitimate government requires the consent of the government but why why consent well we could say why shouldn’t

1:49 the wise rule on account of their wisdom or why shouldn’t the religious rule on account of their piety the answer is because we’re all Born Free and equal I can actually explain this by using a different example um all bees are not created equal there are worker bees by nature and queen bees by nature and the

2:11 worker bees don’t hold election to make the queen bees queen born queen bees by Nature well that’s not true among human beings there are no Kings by Nature no Queens by Nature no workers by Nature we’re all equal by nature and that means government among equals since equally born with the right to rule ourselves

2:32 well that means when we Institute government government among equals must be VI a consent the British colonists in North America believed that they had reverted to that theoretical state of nature when the king in Parliament repeatedly refused to protect their rights as Englishmen they instituted new governments in their states on the national level with the Articles of Confederation in 1781 and then again

2:54 with the constitution in 1789 they did so in all cases not on the basis of of conquest or claim divine right but following processes based on the consent of the people these principles of equality and consent of the Govern are clear in the Declaration of Independence and so is another principle the right of Revolution when the government acts in ways outside the

3:16 purpose for which it was established the people have the right to alter or abolish it the Declaration was grounded on principles echoed in other important documents and by many in the founding generation George Mason John Lock Alexander

3:37 Hamilton Brutus James Madison this doctrine of popular sovereignty is the idea that government gets its power from the people and not the other way around while monarchs give privileges just governments protect rights that are pre-existing the people

3:58 tell the government what it can and cannot do not the other way around so long as the Kings thought that Authority belonged to them of right uh that it was there somehow uh they sometimes came to the idea that the point of the whole uh governing Arrangement was for their ends for their to serve their purposes and

4:18 this is really what uh the theory of popular sovereignty came on the on the on the ground to challenge the purposes are the purposes of the people and not the purposes of the rulers um and that remains an important point in theory not always achieved in practice popular sovereignty was a response to monarchical sovereignty but

4:38 it alone would not be a solution to the historical problem of governments growing too strong a government resting on the consent of the Govern would not mean that additional checks on power were no longer needed while a king might be limited by a Bill of Rights or list of limits on his power the constitution of 1789 would establish limited and representative government SE ation of

5:00 powers with checks and balances federalism and other mechanisms to keep government power from going too strong a Bill of Rights would be added in 1791 in response to State demands for further declaratory Clauses that would limit the national government’s power finally in our constitutional republic Liberty can only be secure as long as Citizens

5:20 remain committed to the rule of law and to their crucial role as the final Authority on government power [Music]