They who assert the origin of government in nature are right, so far as they derive it from God through the law of nature, and are wrong only when they understand by the law of nature the physical force or forces of nature, which are not laws in the primary and proper sense of the term.The law of nature is not the order or rule of the divine action in nature which is rightfully called providence, but is, as has been said, law in its proper and primary sense, ordained by the Author of nature, as its sovereign and supreme Lawgiver, and binds all of his creatures who are endowed with reason and free-will, and is called natural, because promulgated through the reason common to all men.Undoubtedly, it was in the first instance, to the first man, supernaturally promulgated, as it is republished and confirmed by Christianity, as an integral part of the Christian code itself.Man needs even yet instruction in relation to matters lying within the range of natural reason, or else secular schools, colleges, and universities would be superfluous, and manifestly the instructor of the first man could have been only the Creator himself.
The knowledge of the natural law has been transmitted from Adam to us through two channels--reason, which is in every man, and in immediate relation with the Creator, and the traditions of the primitive instruction embodied in language and what the Romans call jus gentium, or law common to all civilized nations.Under this law.whose prescriptions are promulgated through reason and embodied in universal jurisprudence, nations are providentially constituted, and invested with political sovereignty; and as they are constituted under this law and hold from God through it, it defines their respective rights and powers, their limitation and their extent.
The political sovereignty, under the law of nature, attaches to the people, not individually, but collectively, as civil or political society.It is vested in the political community or nation, not in an individual, or family, or a class, because, under the natural law, all men are equal, as they are under the Christian law, and one man has, in his own right, no authority over another.The family has in the father a natural chief, but political society has no natural chief or chiefs.The authority of the father is domestic, not political, and ceases when his children have attained to majority, have married and become heads of families themselves, or have ceased to make part of the paternal household.The recognition of the authority of the father beyond the limits of his own household, is, if it ever occurs, by virtue of the ordinance, the consent, express or tacit, of the political society.There are no natural-born political chiefs, and wherever we find men claiming or acknowledged to be such, they are either usurpers, what the Greeks called tyrants, or they are made such by the will or constitution of the people or the nation.
Both monarchy and aristocracy were, no doubt, historically developed from the authority of the patriarchs, and have unquestionably been sustained by an equally false development of the right of property, especially landed property.The owner of the land, or he who claimed to own it, claimed as an incident of his ownership the right to govern it, and consequently to govern all who occupied it.But however valid may be the landlord's title to the soil, and it is doubtful if man can own any thing in land beyond the usufruct, it can give him under the law of nature no political right.Property, like all natural rights, is entitled by the natural law to protection, but not to govern.
Whether it shall be made a basis of political power or not is a question of political prudence, to be determined by the supreme political authority.It was the basis, and almost exclusive basis, in the Middle Ages, under feudalism, and is so still in most states.France and the United States are the principal exceptions in Christendom.Property alone, or coupled with birth, is made elsewhere in some form a basis of political power, and where made so by the sovereign authority, it is legitimate, but not wise nor desirable; for it takes from the weak and gives to the strong.The rich have in their riches advantages enough over the poor, without receiving from the state any additional advantage.An aristocracy, in the sense of families distinguished by birth, noble and patriotic services, wealth, cultivation, refinement, taste, and manners, is desirable in every nation, is a nation's ornament, and also its chief support, but they need and should receive no political recognition.They should form no privileged class in the state or political society.
