defect of the Polish constitution. Each member of the Polish
Diet, which included the whole body of the nobility, had an
absolute veto, and could, alone, arrest the whole action of the
government. Will you substitute the rule of the majority, and
say the majority must govern? By what right? It is agreed to in
the convention. Unanimously, or only by a majority? The right
of the majority to have their will is, on the social compact
theory, a conventional right, and therefore cannot come into play
before the convention is completed, or the social compact is
framed and accepted. How, in settling the terms of the compact,
will you proceed? By majorities? But suppose a minority
objects, and demands two-thirds, three-fourths, or four-fifths,
and votes against the majority rule, which is carried only by a
simple plurality of votes, will the proceedings of the convention
bind the dissenting minority? What gives to the majority the
right to govern the minority who dissent from its action?

On the supposition that society has rights not derived from
individuals, and which are intrusted to the government, there is
a good reason why the majority should prevail within the
legitimate sphere of government, because the majority is the best
representative practicable of society itself; and if the
constitution secures to minorities and dissenting individuals
their natural rights and their equal rights as citizens, they
have no just cause of complaint, for the majority in such case
has no power to tyrannize over them or to oppress them. But the
theory under examination denies that society has any rights
except such as it derives from individuals who all have equal
rights. According to it, society is itself conventional, and
created by free, independent, equal, sovereign individuals.