On July 4, 1926, 150 years to the day after the unanimous approval of the Declaration of Independence, Calvin Coolidge (who unlike me had a reputation as a laconic man) made the following profound statement in support of the consent of the governed in honor of that document which so eloquently supported the right of the consent of the government. He said the following: ‎”If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed.” And yet this statement itself creates some problems, especially in the practice of “democracy” around the world, both throughout history and today.

Let it be understood at the outset that I am a patriotic American citizen, deeply influenced by both the egalitarianism and liberty-loving political culture of my people. Nonetheless, it is not my belief that the rights and freedoms which I jealously and fiercely exercise as an American (regardless of where my wanderings take me) are mine to possess and to use simply by virtue of being an American. My country was among the first in history to self-consciously reject the right of any imperial elite to rule others without their consent. As a result, as an American consistent with my own refusal to allow any elite to despotically rule over me, I refuse to support or entertain any designs for either me or my country to despotically rule over others. Those freedoms I so jealously and ferociously defend for myself I also defend even for my enemies. For I claim such rights as I possess not by being a part of a superior class or station from anyone else but by virtue of being a rational human being possessed both of free will and personal responsibility, and therefore the rights I claim for myself I claim on behalf of all human beings regardless of where they may be and regardless of what benighted or tyrannical government may be oppressing those people, or what anarchical state of nature may threaten the security of their freedom and property.

In this world today, many nations desire the fruits of economic success and national power that result from republican forms of government. However, many of those nations simultaneously reject the real and deep changes in their class-ridden societies that result from adopting republican forms and having those forms inform the conscience and worldview of the people. Indeed, for many nations (it is not necessary to name names), a republican form of government expressed in elections and parliaments and constitutions is no more than a political potemkin village that presents a picture of republican virtue to the world while preserving (in secret) the rule of corrupt monarchies, power-hungry dictatorships, and the corrupt aristocracies and military juntas that serve to protect and serve those wicked and evil desires to exploit and dominate others. Such nations are tempted by the fruits of republican rule in greater wealth and power for their nations as a whole but are unwilling to unshackle their populations from the chains of heretical divine right theories of rulership or bogus and fallacious claims of natural aristocracies that have a right to the fruits of the labor of others, and have privileges and a place above others and even above the rule of law itself.

Calvin Coolidge was not a man to waste words. He provided three cases where consent of the governed would not be considered necessary: where one is born into a superior station, where there is a ruling class, and where the rights that ordinary people possess may be bartered or taken away by an earthly power. In these three circumstances the basis of government in the consent of the governed is under threat, and those of us who like myself vociferously support the firm establishment of all governments in the consent of the governed may be seen as a threat to the stability of the corrupt existing regime despite the lack of interest in spreading republican virtue by force. It should be plain that those of us who believe in the firm necessity of the consent of the governed for government to be legitimate must therefore respect the consent (informed or not) of those governed both in our own countries as well as other countries where we may happen to visit or sojourn. Nonetheless, theory does have consequences and insecure elites are not likely to take such a refusal to overthrow the corrupt and tottering regimes of others too seriously, regardless of how seriously they are meant.

Let us ask ourselves why the three qualities that Calvin Coolidge mentioned are threats to the requirement of the consent of the governed. When one is born into a superior station, be it an inherited throne or birth into a privileged class, there is no belief that one is part of the same order of man as everyone else. I am the son of a freeholding yeoman farmer and bus driver, but I consider myself the inferior of no man, no matter how wealthy or powerful. The accidents of birth, in being born into one status or another, do not trump the shared human nature I possess with the Indian dalit or the most proud monarch of the highest earthly throne. I am equally human to the meanest beggar or to the most powerful ruler, able to hold them accountable to the divine standard of justice by which we are all fairly judged by the Creator who is God and Father of all.

In Plato’s Republic there is an attempt to justify a tripartite nature of mankind where the majority of men are by nature suited to rather mindless and tedious buffalo work, a minority of men are slightly better suited to a subsidiary elite status of being soldiers or shopkeepers or artists, but a small elite was suited by nature to be a philosopher king. On the other side, an obscure Cromwellian soldier executed in 1685 for treason named Richard Rumbold made the following quote that was later adapted by Thomas Jefferson as a decisively American view of the illegitimacy of any aristocracy of birth: “This is a deluded generation, veiled in ignorance, that though popery and slavery be riding in upon them, do not perceive it; though I am sure that there was no man born marked by God above another; for none comes into this world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him.” And indeed, Abraham Lincoln himself correctly noted that the claim of any man to have the superior virtue that would allow him to rule another man without his consent is automatically to be judged as false, because those who have virtue will steadfastly refuse to rule others without their consent.

Nonetheless, bogus divine right monarchies and corrupt dictatorships are always fallaciously claiming that it is their superior virtue to a supposedly infantile and weak-minded people that allows them to rule over others without their consent. Thus they claim (falsely) to possess a superior nature than those they govern, refusing to allow themselves to be held accountable by those they wrongly and insistently judge to be their inferiors. The claim of a superior nature and a natural elite status (often passed down by blood or claimed by possession of titles and offices) it itself a rejection of the need to rule by the consent of the governed, because it is a debasement of the status of the governed from that of a child of God given the inalienable rights of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the right to property, or the freedoms of conscience, speech, assembly, and petition (among others) to that of a chattel animal without a rational will or any rights that need to be respected by those who fancy themselves cavaliers and elites.

We ought therefore to expect that those nations which do not possess the proper respect for consent of the governed will make miserably poor republics, seeking to enshrine in their corrupt and biased constitutions defenses of the claim for some (rulers or elite courtiers) to be given special status and protection and respect while the lives and liberty of common folk are considered as worthless, to be trampled over whenever the common people seek to defend their own rights or whenever it is convenient for the tree of liberty to be fertilized with the blood of patriots. Those who lack a proper respect for the general and universal rights of humankind are morally unjustified in claiming respect and honor as a privilege due only to inbred and corrupt elites. We are to respect our leaders because by doing so we learn how to respect from God, and we are all worthy of respect because we are all the children of the Most High God, no matter how humble our station or origins. We are therefore all worthy of respect, and we all have the duty to respect others, including by reminding them of what duties they owe others.

Nevertheless, even where the consent of the governed is genuinely respected and sought, it is not sufficient to ensure good government. After all, if the people of a given society lack sufficient responsibility and moral excellence, they may freely by their consent elect governments that take away their freedoms and that reduce them to the level of serfdom or slavery. But they will do so because they, like the children of ancient Israel, were slaves in their hearts, lacking the hearts to obey just laws or to think or reason for themselves. Because of their servile nature, they will desire strong and autocratic governments to protect them even though they lack the will to protect themselves, and to provide for them even though they may lack the industry to provide for themselves. After all, we ought to seek for noble opportunities for ourselves in the confidence that we possess worthwhile skills, rather than seeking to be free of having to labor for our livelihood at all. For we are ennobled rather than debased by the fruits of our labors, be they intellectual, creative, physical, or moral in nature.

It is for this reason, for example, that I have not joined with those who claim that our current president of the United States ought to be removed on account of not being a native-born citizen of the United States. Whether he was born in Hawaii as he claims or not, I think it irrelevant. After all, it would not be ultimately protective of our American republic to have a president who won be thrown out of office on a mere technicality when there is a vastly greater issue at stake. The greater issue at stake is how can such an open and flagrant heretic to the principles of our nation’s founding have received the consent of the governed to rule in the first place. Have we no better options to rule? Have we no more worthy people to defend our individual liberties as well as the well being for the commonwealth at large? That is the greater problem.

The long-term survival of any republican government depends on republican virtue on the part of its people and leaders. In a government that depends on the consent of the governed, the leaders chosen will for better or worse reflect the worldview of the majority of voters. If we find fault with the leaders as wanting, then we have to look deeper to the people to see where the corruption lies. If the populace is corrupt, no good government is possible. Even those who claim to be virtuous, be they kings or military dictators, are only deluding themselves if they think that they can govern in a right fashion apart from the widespread virtue of the people. It therefore ought to be the highest interest of any ruler to seek to educate the common folk in virtue through the support of developing local communities, civic organizations, churches, and education so that the people may become more aware of their freedoms as well as the duties and responsibilities that spring from those freedoms.

A government that is truly virtuous will glory in the spreading of republican virtue to its populace, in the knowledge that those who are virtuous will seek to be governed by those who are virtuous. It is only those who are corrupt that are willing and interested to be governed by corrupt and selfish elites. Therefore, the willingness of an elite to teach others virtuous practices and respect the efforts of those who were once considered low to rise above their initial status is reflective of their virtue. A virtuous leader desires to rule by consent over equals who are also virtuous. Therefore a virtuous leader desires a virtuous people who are brethren–and anyone who desires a large gap between the governors and the governed may be automatically viewed as corrupt and vicious and unworthy of power and authority. Virtue is as virtue does. Beliefs have consequences after all.