Political Theorists

The Origins of Elections

Classical liberalism, which focuses on the individual rights of people, is grounded in a notion of a social contract. In social contract theory, humans are understood as originating within a state of nature, in which no person has natural authority over another because they are all identically equal and free in their natural rights. Thus, a social contract based on some form of consent is logically necessary to overcome the absence of any natural authority to create an artificial governmental authority.

As applied in the American Revolution of 1776, elements of the social contract theories of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Adam Smith were used by Thomas Jefferson in crafting the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson and the Continental Congress declared it self-evident (and therefore without need to be proven) that everyone is:

Though Jefferson was not Christian but Deist, he shared the belief that people are created in the image of God, and equal before God. By making secular political institutions and religious teachings parallel in their sources of power, he literally shifted God's power from blessing the “divine right” of kings to instead blessing people, the ones with souls, and now the ones with ballots for self-government. Democratic ideas were reinforced in a way that made powerful sense to many. In asserting that entering into a social contract does not do away with natural rights, Jefferson rejected both John Locke and Thomas Hobbes's views to the contrary.

Jefferson also demoted the property-based conceptions of John Locke and Adam Smith by substituting the pursuit of happiness as an inalienable right, instead of “property” as it was in the pre-existing formulation “life, liberty and property.” Thus, property is not strictly inalienable. Though subject to protection under the Constitution, property is alienable with due process. The key to the social contract and overthrowing the “divine right” of ruling kings was the “consent of governed” necessary for legitimate government power. Also from Paragraph 2 of the Declaration of Independence, recognized as inalienable is the right to “alter or abolish” the government providing “new guards for their future security.” This is accomplished via peaceful elections, or via the method of 1776.

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