No Treason · Chapter
II explained
The chapter argues that majority rule does not legitimize government, as it reduces governance to a contest for mastery and slavery.
What happens
The chapter argues that majority rule does not legitimize government, as it reduces governance to a contest for mastery and slavery. It asserts that consent of the strongest or most numerous party is no justification for authority over others, since natural rights are individual and cannot be overridden by numbers. The Constitution was established by 'the people' collectively, not by majority alone, and majorities offer no guarantee of justice, often being composed of the ignorant and corrupt. Ultimately, only unanimous agreement can justify government; otherwise, force and fraud sustain it.
Themes in this chapter
Critique of Majority Rule
The chapter systematically dismantles the idea that majority rule confers legitimacy, arguing it reduces to a contest for mastery and slavery.
Individual Natural Rights
Emphasizes that a man's natural rights are his own against the whole world, and infringement by any number is equally a crime.
Political Slavery
Describes majority rule as a contest where one party becomes master and the other slave, with no final resolution.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters, and which of them slaves; a contest, that—however bloody—can, in the nature of things, never be finally closed, so long as man refuses to be a slave.”
Majority rule turns government into an endless struggle for dominance, where one group enslaves the other, and the conflict never ends as long as people resist subjugation.
This encapsulates the chapter's central critique of majority rule as inherently oppressive and unstable.
“A man’s natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime, whether committed by one man, or by millions; whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber, (or by any other name indicating his true character,) or by millions, calling themselves a government.”
An individual's natural rights are absolute, and violating them is a crime regardless of whether the perpetrator is a single robber or a government of millions.
This asserts the primacy of individual rights over collective authority, equating government action with robbery.
“Majorities and minorities cannot rightfully be taken at all into account in deciding questions of justice. And all talk about them, in matters of government, is mere absurdity.”
Numbers have no bearing on justice; discussing majorities and minorities in governance is pointless.
The chapter dismisses numerical arguments as irrelevant to the moral foundation of government.