Chapter III explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Consent and Voluntary Government

  Argues that nations and governments can only rightfully exist by the consent of individuals, not by force or majority rule.

• Individual Natural Rights

  Emphasizes that each individual is born with natural rights and cannot be stripped of them without consent.

Characters to notice

• a man

  Represents the individual stripped of natural rights and subjected to government control without consent.

• these men

  Refers to the majority or strongest party claiming authority over the nation.

• Unknown

  The speaker questioning the right of the nation to exist and govern.

Key passages

• “How do many millions of men, scattered over an extensive territory—each gifted by nature with individual freedom; required by the law of nature to call no man, or body of men, his masters; authorized by that law to seek his own happiness in his own way, to do what he will with himself and his property, so long as he does not trespass upon the equal liberty of others; authorized also, by that law, to defend his own rights, and redress his own wrongs; and to go to the assistance and defence of any of his fellow men who may be suffering any kind of injustice—how do many millions of such men come to be a nation, in the first place?”

  How do millions of free individuals, each with natural rights to life, liberty, and self-defense, become a single nation without their consent?

  Questions the origin of national authority over individuals.

• “Clearly all this is the work of force, or fraud, or both.”

  This subjugation is achieved only through coercion or deception.

  Condemns the foundation of nations as illegitimate.

• “We are, therefore, driven to the acknowledgment that nations and governments, if they can rightfully exist at all, can exist only by consent.”

  Thus, any legitimate nation or government must be based on the voluntary agreement of its people.

  Concludes that consent is the sole basis for rightful governance.