English Settlers' Basis of Liberty: Consent of the Governed

The English settlers in North America carried a revolutionary political conviction: legitimate government derives solely from the consent of the governed.

Intellectual Roots

• John Locke (1632–1704): Two Treatises of Government (1689) — natural rights (life, liberty, property); government as trustee; right of revolution if trust broken.
• English common law tradition: Magna Carta (1215), Petition of Right (1628), Bill of Rights (1689) — limits on arbitrary power.
• Covenant theology (Puritans): Community as voluntary compact before God — secularized into civil compact.

Core Beliefs

1. Consent: No taxation, legislation, or governance without representation (actual or virtual).
2. Fundamental rights: Life, liberty, property (later "pursuit of happiness") are pre-political—government protects, not grants.
3. Religious liberty: Conscience free from state coercion (varying degrees; Rhode Island, Pennsylvania most radical).
4. Self-government: Local assemblies (House of Burgesses 1619, Mayflower Compact 1620, town meetings) as practice.

From Settlement to Constitution

These ideas, tested in 150 years of colonial self-rule, crystallized in the Declaration of Independence (1776) and U.S. Constitution (1787) — the consent of the governed as the foundation of American constitutionalism.