universal common law of nature and of nations, which all men, all
bodies corporate, all communities, all governments, all states and all
nations were bound to enforce, the Declaration proceeds to a
consideration of the forms, methods and instrumentalities by which
these unalienable rights are to be secured.

It declares that the primary instrumentality by which these rights are
secured, are governments "deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed." Contrary to the usual interpretation, the
Declaration does not state that government is the expression of the
will of the majority. Governments, it is declared, are instituted to
"secure" the "unalienable rights" of individuals. The will of the
majority, of course, is quite as likely to destroy as to secure the
unalienable rights of individuals. Moreover, the Declaration says
merely that "governments are instituted among men"--not that men
universally institute their own governments. The whole statement that
the governments which are instituted among men to secure the
unalienable rights of individuals, universally "derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed," is inconsistent with the
proposition that governments are the expression of the mere will of
the majority, for it is only their "just powers" that governments
"derive" from "the consent of the governed," and the will of the
majority may be just or unjust. The expression "deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed," seems to me most probably to
be an epitome and summary of the two fundamental propositions of the
law of agency--_Obligatio mandati consensu contrahentium consistit_, a
free translation of which is "The powers of an agent are derived from
the consent of the contracting parties," and _Rei turpis nullum
mandatum est_, a free translation of which is "No agent can have
unjust powers." On this interpretation the meaning of the whole