Era 03 · 1700 — 1900

Consent of the Governed

Who consents

Rule by contract

Pulse cycle

4.5s

Locke, Rousseau, and the revolutions they inspired reframed the question entirely. Legitimacy no longer flowed from God to king. It flowed from the governed to the government. It was a radical idea in 1776. It's now so assumed that most people can't name its source.

Events in this era

Jul 4, 1776

Declaration of Independence

The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson drafted the text in roughly 17 days; Franklin and Adams edited it. Its second paragraph stated that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that the people may alter or abolish governments that fail this standard. The language was drawn almost directly from John Locke's Second Treatise of Government (1689). It was the first time a national founding document grounded authority in popular consent rather than divine appointment or hereditary right.

Rewrote the default answer to 'why you?'

Aug 1789

Declaration of the Rights of Man

On August 26, 1789, six weeks after the storming of the Bastille, the French National Constituent Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Its 17 articles asserted that sovereignty resides in the nation, that men are born free and equal in rights, and that law is the expression of the general will. Lafayette drafted the initial text with input from Thomas Jefferson. Louis XVI was reduced, in theory, to a citizen executive. Within four years he was guillotined in practice, on January 21, 1793.

Popular sovereignty becomes continental

Jan 1, 1804

Haitian independence

After a 13-year slave revolt against French colonial rule, Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti independent. The first successful slave revolution in modern history, and the first Black republic. France later demanded 150 million francs in reparations for 'lost property', a debt Haiti paid off over 122 years.

First modern state founded by former slaves

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