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By Root 676 0

of the Civil War, though lessons there are. This is the concept of a social compact. Since the federal government came about by the states freely ceding limited powers to it, why can’t they take those powers back? Since a dozen counties in western Virginia left that state and formed a new one during the Civil War, what is to prevent that from happening elsewhere in America today? And if I can no longer consent to the government that lies, cheats, steals, and kills in my name, why can I simply not withhold my consent and ignore it?

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The Positive Moral Duty to Disobey Stupidity

How did Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson view the right to disobey the government? Paine recognized dangers of a system which resulted in more and more British elites benefitting from the British government, and being given land in America. This would lead to a situation where there would be a growing population in the colonies, and the rest of the continent, and this population would be much less likely to seek independence, and much more likely to take up arms to resist an independence movement. This would severely hamper the prospects of uniting the entire population for the common goal of gaining independence, as well as introduce America to many more enemies of the independence movement, and it is why he called for imminent action.

Paine was very well aware that he and his fellow residents of the New World had a positive moral duty to act quickly to disobey the unjust laws of the British government, for if they let any more time pass, the unjust system could have bred an opposing force that was too strong for the colonists to defeat. Thus, he knew that one of the greatest, if not ultimate, dangers to liberty was infringements upon this right.

What did Thomas Jefferson have to say in the Declaration of Independence about government exercising unjust powers?

[W]henever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends [the protection of our natural rights], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.1

In other words, once a government strays from its just powers, it is the right of the people to remove the government, by altering or abolishing it; or in the colonists’ case, to fight a war for independence, and implement a new and just government. When government becomes the enemy of rights, it can be tossed out. Rights are permanent, inherent features of all humans; governments are devices that can come and go according to the wishes of those who cede power to them. Our natural rights cannot be changed or abolished, but governments can.

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Jefferson went to the heart of Paine’s argument calling for imminent action by the colonists:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.2

Jefferson here is paternal: Do not get upset by immaterial and momentary problems that can be solved peacefully. However, since mankind is prone to suffering, we must constantly stay on guard and make sure the shackles of tyranny do not chain us down. Jefferson understood that this document preached a political ideology that would cause rebellions in many other places in the world. Since he wished to maintain good diplomatic ties with other European nations, he pointed out that revolutions should not be started for trivial reasons, but only when governments become despotic or tyrannical. At the same time he issued a warning against complacency, because as he explained, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”3

But, when should you start to get upset?

When a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,