Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/24

 the latter an undoubted Right to insist on this, the only safe mode of worldly Government?

The consideration of this point leads me to one of the principal Grounds of Baron Puffendorf’s Mistake, beforementioned.

He does not seem to have been aware, that, in all societies of men governed by Laws, some sort of general Covenant must be understood to subsist between the several Sovereigns and their Subjects respectively: and, though such Covenants are not always expressed, yet, most certainly, they are always implied; because we must necessarily presume, that the Good of the People is the original intention and principal end of all legal human Governments, since all Men are naturally equals, and a Man who submits himself to the Sovereignty or Government of another, that he may enjoy the benefit and protection of society, does not, on that account, cease to be a Man; neither can the temporal Sovereign himself be released from the natural Tyes of that Relation: for, whenever he forgets that he himself is a Man, (of the same fallible understanding and natural infirmities