Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/15

 to establish the first principles on which I have proceeded, before I can expect to have any attention paid to the Arguments which I have built upon them.

The maxim which I wish to maintain is as follows, viz, that “Law, to bind all, must be assented to by all ." This maxim I have quoted in the following Declaration as a principle of natural Equity, though, it seems, the learned Civilian, Baron Puffendorf, has expressly refused to rank it with the Laws of Nature: He, or (rather I should say) his Translator, calls it only a notion,

“We cannot here but observe,” (says he,) “that the Notion maintained by some authors, That the Consent of the People is requisite to make Laws oblige the Subject in Conscience, is neither true in the Laws of Nature, nor in the civil Laws of monarchical or of autocratical Rulers; nor indeed at all, unless it be understood of implicit consent; as a man, by agreeing to the