Article 21 of the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government".
The idea that a law derives its validity from the approval of those subject to it can already be found in early Christian author Tertullian,[2] who, in his Apologeticum claims It is not enough that a law is just, nor that the judge should be convinced of its justice; those from whom obedience is expected should have that conviction too.The earliest utterance of the specific term "consent of the governed" seemingly appears in the writings of Scottish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar Duns Scotus, who proposed this in his work Ordinatio in the 1290s.
Scotus's lengthy writing in theology have largely overshadowed this notable contribution that he made to early political theory.
In 1579 an influential Huguenot tract Vindiciae contra tyrannos was published which Sabine paraphrases: "The people lay down the conditions which the king is bound to fulfill.
[6]Consent of the governed, within the social liberalism of T. H. Green, was also described by Paul Harris: The conditions for the existence of a political society have less to do with force and fear of coercion than with the members' mutual recognition of a good common to themselves and others, although it may not be consciously expressed as such.
Thus for the conditions for any civil combination to disappear through resistance to a despotic government or disobedience to law would require such a disastrous upheaval as to be unlikely in all but the most extreme circumstances in which we might agree with Green that the price would be too high to pay, yet sufficiently rare to allow us to acknowledge that there would ordinarily be a moral duty to act to overthrow any state that did not pursue the common good.
This was expressed, among other places, in the 2nd paragraph of the Declaration of Independence (emphasis added):[8] We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, 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.In section 6 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written in May, 1776, and passed in June, Founding Father George Mason wrote: That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people, in assembly, ought to be free; and that all men, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, the attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses without their own consent, or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assented, for the public good.
"[9] Although the Continental Congress at the outset of the American Revolution had no explicit legal authority to govern,[10] it was delegated by the states with all the functions of a national government, such as appointing ambassadors, signing treaties, raising armies, appointing generals, obtaining loans from Europe, issuing paper money (i.e. continentals), and disbursing funds.
The Congress had no authority to levy taxes, and was required to request money, supplies, and troops from the states to support the war effort.